The alternate reality runs parallel to the
prime reality as a new
quantum reality. The prime reality is where many of the events seen in the
Star Trek universe have occurred and, according to
Star Trek writers
Alex Kurtzman and
Roberto Orci, their film allows the prime reality to continue.
[1]
This intent is also evident in the script of Star Trek.
[2] While not completely audible in the film, before being teased by his classmates, young
Spock is asked by the computer in the learning center on
Vulcan: "What is the central assumption of Quantum Cosmology?" To which Spock replies: "Everything that can happen does happen in equal and parallel universes."
Star Trek screenwriter Roberto Orci (in a post on Ain't It Cool News
[3] as well as in an interview with
Star Trek Magazine [4]) and director
J.J. Abrams (in an interview with MTV, conducted between the two aforementioned statements from Orci
[5]) established a reason why technology in the alternate reality is more advanced than it is during the same period in the prime reality; scans of the
24th century Narada, taken by the Kelvin, were brought back to Starfleet by the survivors on the Kelvin's shuttles.