How was Nero's anger going to save Romulus?

[BillJ]

What exactly is a normal reaction to losing one's entire homeworld?

If Nero and his cohorts weren't insanely screwed up people I'd have issues with the movie.

Initially? Yes, they should be screwed up. But to keep that hatred burning for twenty-five years, the entire crew? Doubtful.

The twenty-five year gap was a terrible idea. It was put there to give Kirk and Spock mirroring storylines ala Picard and Data in Nemesis.

 

[Merky]

How is it laughable? Nero had no chance, no tools, nothing to help save his planet. He was stuck in a prison, pissed off, letting the regret and pain of his planet eat him inside. He finally breaks out, luckily gets to meet Spock, capture him and decide to take out the entire Federation to save his planet and exact revenge for his wife by taking out Vulcan.

It still doesn't make sense. The Klingons just left the Narada hanging in orbit of Rura Penthe for twenty five years? The Klingons don't seem like ones to respect personal property rights.

Who knows where the Narada was at. Maybe the Klingons were using it to figure out how the thing worked to advance their own military. Maybe it was too big and they just left it in an orbit to eventually decay and burn up in the atmosphere... Who knows.

I like to think that the Klingons gained a tactical advantage from whatever they learned of the Narada and will probably end up using it later on in this time line. /shrug

Why is it some science fiction and Star Trek fans in particular feel that beings must always react to every situation is some well thought out and logical manner?

Because it's Star Trek. There always has to be a cause with an logical effect because ~fantasy~ doesn't exist.

 

[Sharr Khan]

Initially? Yes, they should be screwed up. But to keep that hatred burning for twenty-five years, the entire crew? Doubtful.

Nope, people harbor things and it becomes part of themselves. There are things you just don't get past. That is, real people can become broken by events in their lives.

Yes I think very emotional Romulans would tend to keep their hatred burning. From what we know about Vulcan and Romulan history that fits nicely in.

 

[BillJ]

Who knows where the Narada was at. Maybe the Klingons were using it to figure out how the thing worked to advance their own military. Maybe it was too big and they just left it in an orbit to eventually decay and burn up in the atmosphere... Who knows.

I like to think that the Klingons gained a tactical advantage from whatever they learned of the Narada and will probably end up using it later on in this time line. /shrug

25 years? Not to mention that it would have remnants of a Federation starship splattered in its' innards. Since it also happened near the border the Klingons would probably have some type of surveillance network set up and saw this monster ship open a major can of whup-ass on it.

The Klingons would've stripped it down to its' spaceframe.

They needed to wipe out the entire 'Nero comes back in time and kills George Kirk and then waits for twenty five years' element.

 

[Set Harth]

Shown? We saw space, and then we saw space. Could have been inside the very same star system in both cases.

No, one was at the edge of Federation space near the Klingon border, the other was in the (Romulan) Neutral Zone. The Kelvin was not in the middle of the Romulan Neutral Zone at the beginning of the film. A film has words in addition to visuals.

The Narada originally appears near the Klingon border... then destroys 47 Klingon ships 25 years later (presumably) near the Klingon border. Why go back to the Klingon border unless you had a special package to pick up?

It didn't "go back", it was intended to have been there ( Rura Penthe ) the whole time. The destruction of the ships was originally supposed to be a prison-break scenario. Spock did not emerge at the Federation-Klingon border.

 

[BillJ]

Shown? We saw space, and then we saw space. Could have been inside the very same star system in both cases.

No, one was at the edge of Federation space near the Klingon border, the other was in the (Romulan) Neutral Zone. The Kelvin was not in the middle of the Romulan Neutral Zone at the beginning of the film. A film has words in addition to visuals.

The Narada originally appears near the Klingon border... then destroys 47 Klingon ships 25 years later (presumably) near the Klingon border. Why go back to the Klingon border unless you had a special package to pick up?

It didn't "go back", it was intended to have been there ( Rura Penthe ) the whole time. The destruction of the ships was originally supposed to be a prison-break scenario. Spock did not emerge at the Federation-Klingon border.

Since all we have is this...

CHEKOV: (shipwide broadcast) May I have your attention, please. At twenty-two hundred hours, telemetry detected at an anomaly in the neutral zone. What appeared to be a lightning storm in space.

And we know that there is also a 'neutral zone' between Klingon and Federation space per Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I'd say the odds are pretty good that Spock arrived pretty close to the coordinates that the Narada arrived at.

 

[Set Harth]

And we know that there is also a 'neutral zone' between Klingon and Federation space per Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I'd say the odds are pretty good that Spock arrived pretty close to the coordinates that the Narada arrived at.

Except with no obvious star anywhere nearby, so in astronomical terms not really very close at all. At the border of Federation space and the KNZ is not the same location as within the Neutral Zone.

 

[BillJ]

And we know that there is also a 'neutral zone' between Klingon and Federation space per Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I'd say the odds are pretty good that Spock arrived pretty close to the coordinates that the Narada arrived at.

Except with no obvious star anywhere nearby, so in astronomical terms not really very close at all. At the border of Federation space and the KNZ is not the same location as within the Neutral Zone.

Which is why I used the words 'pretty close' in there.

 

[Set Harth]

The Narada originally appears near the Klingon border... then destroys 47 Klingon ships 25 years later (presumably) near the Klingon border.

Rura Penthe is in Klingon space. The Narada emerged in Federation space, thus on the opposite side of the KNZ. The point is that the Rura Penthe attack did not happen at Spock's arrival location, which was not in Klingon space. Retrieving Spock from a different location would not need to involve Rura Penthe at all. In the film, Kirk figures out what's going on by making the connection between Rura Penthe and the Kelvin incident, which is rooted in the idea of a prison escape by the Narada crew. In the script, the KNZ is called the Klingon Neutral Zone, while the Romulan Neutral Zone is just called the Neutral Zone ( as it is usually called in TNG and other series ).

 

[BillJ]

In the film, Kirk figures out what's going on by making the connection between Rura Penthe and the Kelvin incident, which is rooted in the idea of a prison escape by the Narada crew.

Kirk makes the connection based on Chekov's 'lightening storm in space' line during the mission briefing, the same line used by a Kelvin crewman when the Narada emerges from the black hole.

In the film when we see Spock emerge from the time vortex, we see light play off of Nero's face.

The lightening storm had nothing to do with the Narada's escape from Rura Penthe.

 

[Set Harth]

Kirk makes the connection based on Chekov's 'lightening storm in space' line during the mission briefing, the same line used by a Kelvin crewman when the Narada emerges from the black hole.

In the film when we see Spock emerge from the time vortex, we see light play off of Nero's face.

The lightening storm had nothing to do with the Narada's escape from Rura Penthe.

I know all that. That was my point. You were the one who said: Why go back to the Klingon border unless you had a special package to pick up?

 

[BenRoethig]

Was Nero really that stupid? Was his whole crew that stupid?

Nero was that stupid. Clearly his crew were just as stupid. The whole motivation and goal of Nero was stupid.
The "Nero was insane" argument makes no sense. He sat around forever on a ship with a bunch of other people willing to do what he tells them, and not one of them bothered to think the situation through in all of this time.

If your hole civilization was destroyed how rational would you be? All they had left was rage.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ Despite which, he is still just a rat in a cage.

 

[Timo]

Once again, let's remember the timeline: after 25 years of doing whatever, Nero first picks up Spock, then an hour later fights Klingons in an incident that gets reported by a prison planet and overheard by Starfleet, then proceeds to Vulcan which he reaches when it's daylight time in San Francisco, as opposed to it being a night there when the Spock pickup and the Klingon fight happened.

That timeline doesn't fit the idea that Nero would fight his way to freedom from a prison planet and then proceed to capture Spock and his red matter. It would fit the somewhat similar idea that Nero first breaks free from a prison planet with relatively little fuss, then captures Spock, and then returns to the Klingons to exact revenge on them, possibly with the help of red matter. But since there's no mention of Nero's imprisonment by Klingons in the movie, it's at least equally plausible that Nero simply captures Spock in a location that necessitates him fighting Klingons immediately thereafter.

Which simplifies things, because Nero and Spock would then be argued to emerge at the same location, which would feature Klingons in both cases. And that location could be the supernova location, which was where the time-travelers departed from, allowing Nero to take care of saving Romulus before beginning his revenge rampage.

No, one was at the edge of Federation space near the Klingon border, the other was in the (Romulan) Neutral Zone.

The Klingon Neutral Zone would probably make more sense, considering the movie already used the expression "Neutral Zone" to indicate Klingons in the Kobayashi Maru context.

OTOH, if there are multiple Neutral Zones, then we have to question why Chekov would only say "the Neutral Zone" when specifying the location of Spock's arrival storm. Is this because only one of the Neutral Zones is located sufficiently near Vulcan to have a plausible connection to the mysterious Vulcan emergency? If so, it would make more sense for this to be the Romulan Neutral Zone.

The destruction of the ships was originally supposed to be a prison-break scenario.

The ultimate timeline speaks against this. That is, the original intent seems to have been abandoned in the ultimate version.

Spock did not emerge at the Federation-Klingon border.

We have no particular reason to think that he did not.

And even if the timeline is fudged a bit (say, Nero fights Klingons first, captures Spock second, and Starfleet is mistaken about the timing of the Klingon fight because of delays and errors in decrypting the signals intercept), the fact remains that the Spock pickup and the Klingon fight are temporally adjacent. This tells us a lot about their spatial relationship, too, because apparently the Narada is very slow even in juggernaut terms - the villain ship fails to reach Earth during hours upon hours of Delta Vega adventures, whereas it didn't take nearly as long for Starfleet to span the distance in the other direction. Spock's storm and the Klingon fight must have been close neighbors if not the very same location.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BlobVanDam]

Was Nero really that stupid? Was his whole crew that stupid?

Nero was that stupid. Clearly his crew were just as stupid. The whole motivation and goal of Nero was stupid.
The "Nero was insane" argument makes no sense. He sat around forever on a ship with a bunch of other people willing to do what he tells them, and not one of them bothered to think the situation through in all of this time.

If your hole civilization was destroyed how rational would you be? All they had left was rage.

As hard as it is to imagine such a scenario, I'd say it's possible someone could be as irrational and crazy as Nero in that situation. But as a 25 year old myself, I can't imagine holding that level of raging ignorance and mentalness for that long. That's the part that is well beyond belief for me.
If it was one man alone for 25 years with nobody to rationalize with or console him, then I could accept it, but an entire crew keeping this same rage and lack of any reason for 25 years? Come on, that's just silly.

 

[Devon]

Nero was that stupid. Clearly his crew were just as stupid. The whole motivation and goal of Nero was stupid.
The "Nero was insane" argument makes no sense. He sat around forever on a ship with a bunch of other people willing to do what he tells them, and not one of them bothered to think the situation through in all of this time.

If your hole civilization was destroyed how rational would you be? All they had left was rage.

As hard as it is to imagine such a scenario, I'd say it's possible someone could be as irrational and crazy as Nero in that situation. But as a 25 year old myself, I can't imagine holding that level of raging ignorance and mentalness for that long. That's the part that is well beyond belief for me.
If it was one man alone for 25 years with nobody to rationalize with or console him, then I could accept it, but an entire crew keeping this same rage and lack of any reason for 25 years? Come on, that's just silly.

The other crew member's motivations were never made clear since it was Nero who was hellbent. They were loyal to Nero and just "doing their jobs." A couple of them may have even stayed behind on Rura Penthe and refused to go on further.

It's also important to note that a version of the story originally did have Ayel rebelling against Nero before being killed. Yes I know, not canon, etc., but I mentioned it to show what possibilities there are.

 

[ShatnersToupee]

No, the reason I brought up the Rura Penthe was to give reason to the 25 year gap. That they weren't just sitting in space wasting time and contemplating on when to take revenge. They were caught, forced into the labor, and that would trigger more added stress and resentment for the situation they're in. Not takes from it.

Star Trek VI had Kirk in prison. Not only was he still angry at the Klingons for the death of his son, not only was he probably angry at being wrongfully imprisoned, but he also knew that there was a price on his head. And yet despite all that added stress, he still had time to reflect and figure out why he was so angry, why his anger was misplaced, and come to terms with it. Funny how he managed to do that in a matter of days but Nero couldn't even after 25 years. Oh, and unlike Kirk, he can actually prevent the very event that angered him in the first place.

So they ended up in the past? What difference does that make... it's not like it took them 120 something odd years to go back into the past. It took moments, it's still fresh in their minds.

It makes a huge difference. Now he has an opportunity to change history. The fact that the event is still fresh in their minds is irrelevant. Why? Because he has time to not only get over it, but come up with a way to prevent it.

No matter what he could have done, he was still 120 odd years in the past. It's not like jumping back to the scene of the accident and saving the day. He still had to wait. How could he have saved his planet in those 25 years if he had no resources to do so. His plan too fruition the moment Spock arrived, which was within a 48 hour period that the events of the movie took place. Not 25.

But he does have a resource. He has time. If my friend is killed in a car accident and I jump back in time 1 hour, that gives me only one hour to figure out how to save him. But if I jump back a month or a year, I have all the time in the world to come up with a plan.

How is it laughable? Nero had no chance, no tools, nothing to help save his planet. He was stuck in a prison, pissed off, letting the regret and pain of his planet eat him inside. He finally breaks out, luckily gets to meet Spock, capture him and decide to take out the entire Federation to save his planet and exact revenge for his wife by taking out Vulcan.

But he does have the tools. The moment he got out of prison and reclaimed his ship, he could've gone about preventing the destruction of his planet. He didn't need to wait for Spock or get his hands on the red matter. Look how easily his ship destroyed the Federation fleet. When you have knowledge of the future and a ship that can easily outmatch any other adversary, how can you claim to be powerless to prevent a disaster? With that ship, he could've taken over Romulus. And knowing that the star would go nova someday, he'd have plenty of time to either prevent it or get all the Romulans out in time.

Why is it some science fiction and Star Trek fans in particular feel that beings must always react to every situation is some well thought out and logical manner?

Because we recognize when bad writers hide behind the "insanity" cover to avoid having to come up with a plausible villain. It's a cliche of both science fiction and action movies in general. Just imagine what I as a writer could get away with if I just say my villain is insane. Now I'm free to write anything, no matter how ridiculous. And when someone asks me to defend it, I can just say he's insane and I'm off the hook. Sorry, but that's just lazy writing.

Nope, people harbor things and it becomes part of themselves. There are things you just don't get past. That is, real people can become broken by events in their lives.

Except this only works if you know you can't change history. If someone kills my family, I'll be angry about it for a long, LONG time. But that's because I know there's nothing I can do to change it. If, on the other hand, I was told that I could go back in time, then that changes everything. Now my focus will be on saving my family rather than going after the person who killed them.

 

[Timo]

This sort of rumination completely misses the very simple point the movie made. Romulus can be saved with red matter, and red matter only. This is the underlying pseudoscientific truth that the movie hinges on. And red matter will arrive in 2258. Ergo, Nero waits until 2258, planning and scheming, but not executing.

Another major point in the movie is that red matter failed the first time around, purpotedly because there was no political will to do anything about the supernova in 2387. Persuading Romulus to save itself or to evacuate would thus be futile. If Romulus didn't know what was best for it in 2387, it won't know it in 2233, either; if proposing evacuation, Nero will merely be executed for treason, or at best banished. Meaning he'll be madder than ever.

As for Nero's ship being powerful, well, it's nearly destroyed by a single 2233-vintage Starfleet vessel. It is only after the acquisition of red matter that Nero begins to score military victories - probably a telling point.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sonak]

Wow, I bet many of the folks here bending over backwards to explain Nero's awkward motivations are the same ones criticizing Nemesis because Shinzon's make no sense.


I know a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, but sheesh....

 

[Devon]

Oh, and unlike Kirk, he can actually prevent the very event that angered him in the first place.

Which Nero was going to do.

But he does have the tools. The moment he got out of prison and reclaimed his ship, he could've gone about preventing the destruction of his planet. He didn't need to wait for Spock or get his hands on the red matter. Look how easily his ship destroyed the Federation fleet.

As Nero mentioned, he was going to save Romulus but was first going to make sure that the Romulus he saved was going to be clear of the Federation, with whom he obviously holds a grudge or two against. So he waits on Spock to arrive, make him watch Vulcan turn into nothing using the same Red Matter he planned to use with other Federation territory.

With that ship, he could've taken over Romulus. And knowing that the star would go nova someday, he'd have plenty of time to either prevent it or get all the Romulans out in time.

Yeah, and then there'd be no villain or no movie.

Except this only works if you know you can't change history. If someone kills my family, I'll be angry about it for a long, LONG time. But that's because I know there's nothing I can do to change it. If, on the other hand, I was told that I could go back in time, then that changes everything. Now my focus will be on saving my family rather than going after the person who killed them.

And Nero still wouldn't have his family. His wife's parents may not even be born yet. At this point he's only going to be more worried about being some "hero" to Romulus, which makes sense as to why he wants to get rid of what he can of the Federation.