Gaping plot hole which may have been covered already!

[BlastHardcheese]

So if the Narada and Spock's ship went through the black hole that had just previously sucked up an entire supernova...

Wouldn't it have spewed the supernova shockwave energy and all those cosmic rays into the past as well and caused havoc?

 

[Shazam!]

http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=105054&page=2

 

[SilentP]

So if the Narada and Spock's ship went through the black hole that had just previously sucked up an entire supernova...

Wouldn't it have spewed the supernova shockwave energy and all those cosmic rays into the past as well and caused havoc?

Very good point actually.

Here's one possible idea, make of it what you will. Perhaps the energy that the supernova was generating created instabilities within the red matter/singularity (hey, it's probably never been tested, how would you know what would happen with it), which in fact could have been what created the space/time (perhaps even universe) tunnel from the Prime universe to the current one, which is what the Narada and the Jellyfish were drawn into?

Like I said, it's just an idea, one that I've just come up with off the top of my head. Would be quite a nice way of ensuring that there's no possibility of anyone trying to recreate such a dimensional jump, considering the energy requirements.

EDIT: Shazam, perhaps this could cover your ponderings about what happens to the Narada's debris?

 

[JarodRussell]

Yeah, I loved how those black holes were used as plot devices without any scientific sense. It opened to spit out the Narada, closed, and opened again 25 years later to spit out Spock. It actually should have been open constantly, to spit out all the matter it vacu-sucked.

And the Narada was supposed to be like 6 miles long, so the size of the actual black hole would have needed to be that huge. Otherwise the ship would have been crushed no matter what.

 

[Jimmy_C]

Yeah, I loved how those black holes were used as plot devices without any scientific sense. It opened to spit out the Narada, closed, and opened again 25 years later to spit out Spock. It actually should have been open constantly, to spit out all the matter it vacu-sucked.

And the Narada was supposed to be like 6 miles long, so the size of the actual black hole would have needed to be that huge. Otherwise the ship would have been crushed no matter what.

Um, maybe the size of the "exit point" varies depending on the pressure from the outgoing material? Maybe the exit point needs a subspace field from a warp ship to not collapse on itself? Maybe you can only avoid the singularity from the black hole by a course correction - something regular matter can't do but a starship can...

 

[Shazam!]

maybe the size of the "exit point" varies depending on the pressure from the outgoing material? Maybe the exit point needs a subspace field from a warp ship to not collapse on itself? Maybe you can only avoid the singularity from the black hole by a course correction

Maybe we're having to make it all up ourselves due to sub-par expositional techniques utilised in the movie?

 

[OneBuckFilms]

maybe the size of the "exit point" varies depending on the pressure from the outgoing material? Maybe the exit point needs a subspace field from a warp ship to not collapse on itself? Maybe you can only avoid the singularity from the black hole by a course correction

Maybe we're having to make it all up ourselves due to sub-par expositional techniques utilised in the movie?

Or maybe we are looking at things far closer than we are really meant to, and the mechanics were secondary considerations to getting the characters and plot to feel right for a general audience.

 

[SilentP]

Yeah, I loved how those black holes were used as plot devices without any scientific sense. It opened to spit out the Narada, closed, and opened again 25 years later to spit out Spock. It actually should have been open constantly, to spit out all the matter it vacu-sucked.

Oh yes, I quite agree that it should have been constant, considering all the observations we've made about artificial black holes and how they react to absorbing supernovas (armageddon scale or not) contadict what we saw in the movie....wait, sorry, we don't know, we've never seen one

And the Narada was supposed to be like 6 miles long, so the size of the actual black hole would have needed to be that huge. Otherwise the ship would have been crushed no matter what

maybe the size of the "exit point" varies depending on the pressure from the outgoing material? Maybe the exit point needs a subspace field from a warp ship to not collapse on itself? Maybe you can only avoid the singularity from the black hole by a course correction

Maybe we're having to make it all up ourselves due to sub-par expositional techniques utilised in the movie?

Well considering that the phenomena never stayed around for long in the nuTrek universe, there wouldn't have been much time for any ships to properly study it, as an in-universe reason.

Real world, I don't think they really bothered to explain any MacGuffin spatial anomaly in any of the Trek movies. Why is this one being treated any differently? Hell, the Genesis Planet makes far less sense than the red matter singularities.

 

[M'Sharak]

maybe the size of the "exit point" varies depending on the pressure from the outgoing material? Maybe the exit point needs a subspace field from a warp ship to not collapse on itself? Maybe you can only avoid the singularity from the black hole by a course correction

Maybe we're having to make it all up ourselves due to sub-par expositional techniques utilised in the movie?

Maybe, but perhaps not because of sub-par expositional techniques.

In contrast to the more recent practice by many filmmakers/tv directors of explaining every little detail within an inch of its life -- over-explaining, really, to the point where the imagination of the viewer is left with nothing to do -- Abrams is a fan of not explaining everything down to the last detail, and of leaving some pretty major things unexplained.

http://www.ted.com/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html

The black hole business may not be so much a deliberate mystery, but there's also a question of whether, given the constraints of having to hit all of the critical story points and still bring it in under two hours, it was crucially important that the exact mechanics of a red matter-induced blackwhitewormhole (and travel through same) be explained in detail. I'm not at all sure that it was, and I certainly don't consider it a gaping plot hole.

 

[Shazam!]

If this was QI a klaxon would be sounding and 'JJ Abrams' Mystery Box' would be flashing in huge letters behind your head.

That's why I said expositional techniques and not expositional dialogue. No-one wants things to be explained in excrutiating details and fed to you on a giant spoon but by the same token you should be able to look at a movie and see that A and B equals C, but with the red matter nothing is consistant.

I guess you could find that cool and mysterious, but I find it lazy and silly.

 

[SilentP]

but with the red matter nothing is consistant.

What was inconsistent about it?

 

[urbandk]

I think Orci and Kurtzman had an exhaustive Q&A with fans a couple months ago wherein they addressed every scientific concern with a plausible explanation. IIRC, the idea was that you could travel within the event horizon but avoid the singularity, courtesy of your advanced FTL warp abilities and such.

Anyhow, I remember thinking that they had rather thorough explanations for stuff that might as well be space magic.

Personally, I'm fine either way. Much of soft sci-fi/fantasy like Star Trek is not going to stand up to heavy scrutiny, but since you already have to suspend your disbelief during Star Trek, it's not too much of a stretch to accept its scientific conceits.

I'm happy they at least thought through the science at some level.

 

[Shazam!]

What was inconsistent about it?

You can use red matter in exactly the same way and it will either send you back in time or blow up planets.

 

[M'Sharak]

If this was QI a klaxon would be sounding and 'JJ Abrams' Mystery Box' would be flashing in huge letters behind your head.

We don't get that program here, as you may know, so it's difficult for me to comment on a point obscured by a (consciously?) too-obscure reference.

That's why I said expositional techniques and not expositional dialogue. No-one wants things to be explained in excrutiating details and fed to you on a giant spoon but by the same token you should be able to look at a movie and see that A and B equals C, but with the red matter nothing is consistant.

I don't know about that. We saw that a thimbleful of red matter is capable of collapsing a planet (Vulcan) into a black hole; we were told (via OldSpock's meld with Kirk) that a proportionately larger amount is capable of collapsing a star in the process of going superdupernova (the Hobus Star) into a black hole; we are shown that when a (relatively) massive quantity of red matter (all there was remaining after Hobus and Vulcan) is slammed into the middle of a large Romulan mining ship and heat-activated by an exploding Jellyfish ship's warp engine, it collapses the ship into a black hole. In the cases where a larger amount of red matter was used (Hobus star, Narada) corollary wormholes are liable to form and draw in bystanders not wisely keeping a safe distance, depositing them upstream in time in a manner not entirely inconsistent with the hypothetical black hole/wormhole/white hole model.

Not so excruciating at all. Rather efficient, in fact, and doesn't really require that one possess a background in the sciences to be able to grasp what's going on.

I guess you could find that cool and mysterious, but I find it lazy and silly.

Cool and mysterious are your words (as is the bit above about expositional dialogue, which I never mentioned.) I'm simply not all that bothered that the red matter/black hole mechanics weren't explained/demonstrated more extensively in the movie, and I'm not convinced that more was necessary nor that such would have been beneficial to the story being told. There's lazy, and then there's recognizing, for the sake of the story, how far is far enough to take a thing. Efficiency.

 

[number6]

Not so excruciating at all. Rather efficient, in fact, and doesn't really require that one possess a background in the sciences to be able to grasp what's going on.

I guess you could find that cool and mysterious, but I find it lazy and silly.

Cool and mysterious are your words (as is the bit above about expositional dialogue, which I never mentioned.) I'm simply not all that bothered that the red matter/black hole mechanics weren't explained/demonstrated more extensively in the movie, and I'm not convinced that more was necessary nor that such would have been beneficial to the story being told. There's lazy, and then there's recognizing, for the sake of the story, how far is far enough to take a thing. Efficiency.

QFT.. TOS never bothered to explain in excruciating detail how warp drive, the transporter or phasers worked. They just did.

I don't really see the need to explain everything. These devices are nearly always the mcguffin to advance the story, and as stated previously, the writers actually did go and explain the scientific theory they employed thoughout the writing of the film. To keep harping on each and every little perceived flaw as a means to justify petty complaints such as those expressed by a select and vocal minority of fans who were so upset about this film is quite tiresome and pedantic.

I can't see how any of them would like TOS if it were running as a series today.

 

[RyuRoots]

Not sure why STXI specifically gets so scrutinized for things like this when BS Trek science is nothing even remotely new.

 

[number6]

Not sure why STXI specifically gets so scrutinized for things like this when BS Trek science is nothing even remotely new.

Exactly.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Not sure why STXI specifically gets so scrutinized for things like this when BS Trek science is nothing even remotely new.

Makes them feel superior.

 

[Jimmy_C]

maybe the size of the "exit point" varies depending on the pressure from the outgoing material? Maybe the exit point needs a subspace field from a warp ship to not collapse on itself? Maybe you can only avoid the singularity from the black hole by a course correction

Maybe we're having to make it all up ourselves due to sub-par expositional techniques utilised in the movie?

Of course, those same exposition techniques are used in all of the other shows and series, especially the early ones! Remember there was no explanation how the Federation was able to develop shields to counter Dominion weapons in DS9. There was no explanation for the power systems of the Enterprise in TOS. That's what Trek fans do: we extrapolate from on-screen evidence. That's part of the fun of Trek. Otherwise, it would be next to impossible to enjoy any series. Use your imagination!

 

[BlastHardcheese]

What was inconsistent about it?

You can use red matter in exactly the same way and it will either send you back in time or blow up planets.

Plus one tiny drop of red matter will suck a planet into a black hole, but a huge mass of it the size of a really big beach ball will be just enough to destroy a big starship and can be repelled by a m/am blast.