Cool. Then by that logic the seismic disturbance can't be the drill. My logic stands.
Maximum speed of the NuEnterprise
- Thread starter EJA
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Cool. Then by that logic the seismic disturbance can't be the drill. My logic stands.
As noted above, that hasn't been proven; I've already shown that it can be.
...Or then he has figured out how to travel via red matter -created black holes (after having done it once already, and then having had two decades to think it over, perhaps including figuring out what bits of related data he'd have to torture out of Spock when he caught the Vulcan). Thus, he emerges from a "space thunderstorm" on Vulcan orbit, and this storm rattles Vulcan seismically.
Really, there's one thunderstorm too many in the movie. Nero emerges into the 23rd century; later, Spock does. And then there's this storm somewhere near Vulcan...
Nero would have red matter to burn. It might give him spatial travel abilities. It might even give him temporal travel abilities - but he'd probably want to kill the Federation first before going back home for his wife...
Either that, or then your version. Which works just fine as far as I can see.
Timo Saloniemi
There is no "space thunderstorm" near Vulcan in the movie. Thus, the "one thunderstorm too many" problem is completely fictional, since you made the last one up.
The Spock one.
Ah, there's the minor timing problem there that the observed thunderstorm was within a day of Nero's attack on Vulcan ("2200 hours"), which would mean Kirk's morning performance on Kobayashi Maru was followed by a rather massive inquiry that same morning.
If we accept that Starfleet would be that swift with its sanctions, tho, no problem in that case. It just feels odd.
Timo Saloniemi
If we accept that Starfleet would be that swift with its sanctions, tho, no problem in that case. It just feels odd.
Timo Saloniemi
How can we tell Vulcan is not in the Neutral Zone? In "Unification", the act of crossing the Neutral Zone takes the Romulan ships basically directly to the Vulcan system...
Really, the good old Koreas analogy for Vulcan and Romulus could easily accommodate the further similarity of Vulcan and Romulus being essentially next door neighbors. Vulcan's Seoul would just happen to lie very close to the border, unlike Romulus' Pyongyang.
Timo Saloniemi
Really, the good old Koreas analogy for Vulcan and Romulus could easily accommodate the further similarity of Vulcan and Romulus being essentially next door neighbors. Vulcan's Seoul would just happen to lie very close to the border, unlike Romulus' Pyongyang.
Timo Saloniemi
Because it's a Federation planet, and canon says that it isn't. Neither Unification nor any other episode places Vulcan inside the Neutral Zone.Yet in the movie, Starfleet figured out that a disturbance in the Neutral Zone was worth mentioning in the same PA message that told of seismic trouble on Vulcan - so the two locations must be intimately connected.
The only issue remaining is whether they are only connected in the STXIverse, or also in the other timeline. And "Unification" suggests the close proximity is also a feature of the TNGverse.
Whether the close proximity amounts to "in" or "next to" is not really relevant here, although I'll agree to dropping the "in" part if you agree to accepting the rest of the evidence.
Timo Saloniemi
The only issue remaining is whether they are only connected in the STXIverse, or also in the other timeline. And "Unification" suggests the close proximity is also a feature of the TNGverse.
Whether the close proximity amounts to "in" or "next to" is not really relevant here, although I'll agree to dropping the "in" part if you agree to accepting the rest of the evidence.
Timo Saloniemi
There wasn't, but the incredible nature of the issue was at least acknowledged, and the characters were, at least at the time of the episode, left with a big "we haven't got a clue how this happened, but go with us on this one."
To see if there was anything, or anyone, on the planet worth saving. If it turned out the place was uninhabited, well, so sad, but not worth the effort to deflect that asteroid.
These, to me, seemed to be plot contrivances everyone was hoping the audience wouldn't notice. And they were right: we loved Star Trek so much that we looked the other way even when Trek stories introduced us to totally inexplicable premises with scientifically baffling foundations, then we patted ourselves on the back and grinned smugly about how smart we were for liking such an intelligent show.
Sometimes you need the occasional contrivance to keep things moving. ST09 had them just for the sake of having them, and to avoid actually having to come up with an even halfway coherent reason for something happening.
That's what it degenerated to by the time of Voyager, but it started out as a bit more noble in intention.
Regardless of just how inaccurate that impression was?
One of Ted Sturgeon's laws is, "Never ask your audience to believe more than one impossible thing at at time." Where Star Trek generally got into trouble is when they violated that rule.
This movie has a pile of impossibilities and improbabilities, all wrapped up in a flashy, hyperkinetic Michael Bay-esque jumbo cupcake.
To put it another way, there's a difference between using action to enhance a story and using it to hide the story's flaws.
The "STXIverse" is an alternate timeline branching off from the original continuity. Thus, Vulcan is no closer to the Neutral Zone in STXI than it is in the original continuity.
Remember, we're talking about the same writers who put Delta Vega within spitting distance of Vulcan.
While making it an ice planet, so we know at the outset it's not intended to be the other Delta Vega.
That's not in dispute - although it could be, if I chose to argue that the Romulans had moved the RNZ. They are clearly in some sort of contact (probably hostile) with the 2250s Federation in the STXI timeline, even though they just as clearly are not in the TOS timeline. And a favorite Romulan pastime seems to be disputing the RNZ.
I prefer the idea that the RNZ would be in the same place in both timelines, though. And in both of them, it has been confirmed to run very close to Vulcan.
Of course, it also runs elsewhere, thus allowing for RNZ action in places that are distant from Vulcan (and, almost by default, from other Federation capital worlds of note). Several episodes of TOS and TNG feature such adventures.
A random point on that other discussion, on the "need to explain":
That's a rather insufficient explanation for the trouble our heroes went into. Visit the planet, yes. Save the inhabitants - why? To what end? The next asteroid would kill them anyway.
Kirk no doubt had an excellent reason for his actions. Perhaps Starfleet was planning on expanding its reach in this direction; perhaps a new policy of goodwill towards total strangers (without telling them) had been adopted. It would be fascinating to learn the logic behind Kirk's actions - but in this case, TOS doesn't provide that logic.
Timo Saloniemi
Which still involves a measurable duration of travel at high warp, a big difference from "Vulcan orbit". It also fails to explain why no other Federation planet experienced the seismic disturbances. As one might expect, there are other Federation planets along the border.
Do we? They sure went out of their way to include an erroneous reference.
Yeah, but even in Star Trek it's hard to find excuses to do cool stuff like that, especially in a primarily space-based story. There are worse ways they could have done it; in fact, I think even Spock found their chance encounter on Delta Vega to be nothing short of miraculous.
That's another possibility, one I've been toying with for some time. The only thing is the Vulcans would have reported a "lightning storm in space" close to their planet along with the distress signal; Chekov wouldn't have mentioned the one in the neutral zone, as it wouldn't be relevant.
Chekov DID mention it, though, so I think it's implied that the observed "lightning storm in space" is believed to be in some way connected to Vulcan's situation.
Besides, you again make the assumption that the Vulcans would have realized this was a hostile act. Unless they were specifically watching the Narada when it fired a torpedo filled with red matter into their atmosphere, the first thing they would have noticed was the black hole and then scratched their collective heads saying "fascinating... think we'd better call Starfleet about this."
Right, I have come to understand that you inserted yourself into an ongoing conversation without really understanding what the conversation was about. The general sub-thread of "What the Vulcans knew and when they knew it" has alot to do with what did/didn't cause the seismic disturbances that sent the original distress signal.
It works just fine. The theory of "the drill is the cause" contradicts the established fact "the drill blocks communications." The alternate theory "something else is the cause" is not contradicted by any other evidence and works better as an explanation.
None of which is established in fact. For all you know it affected every planet in the sector and Vulcan is the only one with a sizable population.
In terms of the limited number of unusual things that could have caused the siesmic disturbances, we are reduced to two suspects. The drill is one, and there are good reasons to believe it was not the cause (apart from the obvious fact that the drill didn't seem to cause any alarming seismic disturbances in San Francisco). The black hole is another, and there is precedent (True Q) for such objects causing serious problems even at interstellar distances.
Already clarified in this post. To repeat: the film doesn't establish that the drill was active when the distress signal was sent, nor does it establish that the drill was the cause of the seismic disturbances. We do not see the drill being active until long AFTER the distress signal was sent (in fact, IIRC, we don't even see it until the Enterprise is already on its way).
Furthermore, the post you are referring to--having linked to the wrong one for some reason--begins with this:
To elaborate: Generally [the communications are blocked by the drill], yes. BUT NOT AT THE TIME OF THE DISTRESS SIGNAL.
^^ Meaning there is no evidence of any interference when the distress signal was sent, and this is a strong reason to believe the drill was not active then.
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