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[R. Star]

And despite that, he still offered to accept Nero's surrender and beam his crew on board.

And when Nero turned Kirk down and smarted off to him, Kirk next move was to "fire everything we got.

Because last time someone rammed and crippled Nero's ship, he came back and exterminated the Vulcans?

The red matter didn't damage Nero ship, it was destroying it. This wasn't a case of the ship journeying through a blackhole to another time and place, it was actively being consumed by the blackhole.

There was no reason for Kirk to fire on the Narada, other than to have the Enterprise fire it's weapons on screen. This is what is insulting to the audience. Hey, people like watching guns being fired.

Inside of the storyline, the weapons fire made no sense.

Why did Kirk fire?

Why did he and Sulu continue firing on Chang in The Undiscovered Country? Kirk continues to fire on the Narada because who knows what kind of hell Nero could whip up somewhere else in the timeline if he survives. We see the exit point of Nero's ship as Kirk is issuing orders to fire, parts of it remain intact and there are still lights on.

Kirk made the decision that Nero could still be a threat if he wasn't captured or destroyed. And for all the issues I have with the film, I agree with him.

I understand your desire to defend NuKirk, but the two situations aren't similar at all. In Undiscovered Country it was an open combat situation. If Kirk fired one torpedo then waited to see what would happen, chances are Chang would either just keep shooting or run away. If either of those happen, it's his fault. Sulu apparently agreed with this logic. It's not like one torpedo is going to destroy a ship. A similar BoP took two torpedoes in STIII for example with it's shields down and remained combat effective.

In 09, Nero's ship was in a black hole about to be crushed. Giving the order to fire is just petty and immature. There's nothing to prove there other than that NuKirk is a jerk if you hadn't realized it already. It's even arguable that by sticking around to fire, that's what caused them to get caught in the gravity. So his immaturity could have caused his ship to nearly be destroyed. Great leadership material there. But this is pretty much consistent with NuKirk's behavior all movie. He's a bar brawler with zero tact and subtlety that will pick a fight over nothing.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Bird-of-Prey's bridge was destroyed with the very first shot, we see Chang go up in flames. It just sat there taking hits until it blew up. Spock or anyone else on Kirk or Sulu's ships should have reported that the BoP was crippled and enough damage was done several hits before they destroyed it. But they didn't, because it was an action scene in a movie and the rule of cool took over.

Kirk didn't even ask for a surrender like he did in STXI (a little something everybody forgets)

Hell, fighting Kruge to the death in STIII, "I... have... had... enough of you!" wasn't any more wholesome. Maybe Kirk should have stuck to non-lethal fighting techniques in the true tradition of Star Trek

 

[Therin of Andor]

Sadly this has been lost with the current novels, since the "re-launch" they're in a single controlled continuity. One of the reasons I stopped reading them.

The "Crucible" trilogy cherrypicks from a few novels but ignores many of them. I'm sure they were picked up by many fans who hadn't read ST novels in decades.