"Nero changed everything" -- why?

[The Wormhole]

The "Nero changed everything" line is overused to the point of being a crutch. First of all, after destroying the Kelvin, Nero ran off an did fuck all for the next twenty years. Even if the sudden appearance of a Space Octopus tearing apart a starship in ten minutes was a kick in the ass for Starfleet to militarize and start building larger starships, twenty years of no Octopus sightings would have created a sense of complacency and "why are we building these huge ships to combat something which may never show up again?" Hell, five or ten years of Nero being a no-show would have created that kind of mentality. Sure there'd be a hardliner like Admiral Marcus wanting Starfleet prepared for anything, but the most he should be able to accomplish is building something like Vengeance in secret.

 

[Christopher]

The "Nero changed everything" line is overused to the point of being a crutch. First of all, after destroying the Kelvin, Nero ran off an did fuck all for the next twenty years. Even if the sudden appearance of a Space Octopus tearing apart a starship in ten minutes was a kick in the ass for Starfleet to militarize and start building larger starships, twenty years of no Octopus sightings would have created a sense of complacency and "why are we building these huge ships to combat something which may never show up again?" Hell, five or ten years of Nero being a no-show would have created that kind of mentality.

Again, why assume that the only possible motive to develop big, advanced starships is defense? Starfleet has always been about much more than that. If Starfleet came into possession of knowledge that let them make a major leap forward in technology, they'd build faster, more powerful ships so they could explore more of the galaxy, and so they could strengthen ties and facilitate travel and trade among their member worlds. Why wouldn't they? It's not like we abandoned the technological advances we made in WWII as soon as the threat ended. We repurposed that knowledge to peacetime goals like economic prosperity, energy generation, and space exploration. Surely the Federation would do the same, with an even heavier emphasis on the exploration.

 

[Belz...]

About large ships, not that I mind them, but in real life aren't naval ships designed to be a small as possible within the required specs ?

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Cochrane might have been inspired by the look of the Enterprise-E, say, and that influenced his design of the NX-01. But there's no way the tech could "advance" without knowing what's under the hood.

I'm not so sure. If he is working on warp drive and then sees a ship from three-hundred years in the future that is a successful version based on his original theories, he could probably work out quite a bit about field dynamics based on the shape.

Cochrane saw the E-E for a second, in what was otherwise a focused event. I'm sure he hardly had any insight into the subtle design of the nacelles.

 

[R. Star]

Cochrane might have been inspired by the look of the Enterprise-E, say, and that influenced his design of the NX-01. But there's no way the tech could "advance" without knowing what's under the hood.

I'm not so sure. If he is working on warp drive and then sees a ship from three-hundred years in the future that is a successful version based on his original theories, he could probably work out quite a bit about field dynamics based on the shape.

Um go back to 1913 and show an engine designer a picture of a nuclear submarine... I don't think he's going to revolutionize propulsion with just a glance at it. And that's only a 100 year difference.

 

[M'Sharak]

Or perhaps Nero changed nothing. Perhaps NuTrekverse was an alternate universe long before he arrived in it. Or we can continue to play apologist and try to explain away the inconsistencies, whatever makes everyone happy.

Your first sentence was fine, and you could easily have stopped there. Your second descends into baiting other posters, and I'm quite sure I've asked you on more than one occasion not to do that.

This time it earns you a warning for trolling; comments to PM.

 

[Belz...]

Cochrane saw the E-E for a second, in what was otherwise a focused event. I'm sure he hardly had any insight into the subtle design of the nacelles.

Lily got the owner's tour of the damn ship, including a speech by Picard about the 24th century.

Anyway, I'm just providing an additional event that could account for much of the differences we see, if these are really problematic.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Cochrane saw the E-E for a second, in what was otherwise a focused event. I'm sure he hardly had any insight into the subtle design of the nacelles.

Lily got the owner's tour of the damn ship, including a speech by Picard about the 24th century.

Anyway, I'm just providing an additional event that could account for much of the differences we see, if these are really problematic.

But talking about future technology or seeing it are not a substitute for understanding it. As someone else pointed out, showing an expert a brief exterior view of something from the future will hardly help them to reverse-engineer it.

 

[BillJ]

Cochrane saw the E-E for a second, in what was otherwise a focused event. I'm sure he hardly had any insight into the subtle design of the nacelles.

Lily got the owner's tour of the damn ship, including a speech by Picard about the 24th century.

Anyway, I'm just providing an additional event that could account for much of the differences we see, if these are really problematic.

But talking about future technology or seeing it are not a substitute for understanding it. As someone else pointed out, showing an expert a brief exterior view of something from the future will hardly help them to reverse-engineer it.

No one ever said anything about reverse-engineering. Merely that seeing something based off of your own work may offer some insight.

 

[The Comedian]

Nero didn't change that much.

The TEMPORAL COLD WAR probably altered a lot more history.

 

[Christopher]

Lily got the owner's tour of the damn ship, including a speech by Picard about the 24th century.

Anyway, I'm just providing an additional event that could account for much of the differences we see, if these are really problematic.

But the timeline's the same until 2233. I know there's a theory in some circles that ENT itself was an alternate timeline from the previous shows, but that was never the intention; it was meant to be the history that led to TOS and its successors. And fans who think ENT's technology is "more advanced" than TOS's are mistaking the advancement in execution for the advancement in concept. The in-universe technology wasn't more advanced -- just the real-world filmmaking and set-construction techniques that were used to represent it.

You could argue, though, that the Prime timeline was itself artificially accelerated in technology due to the glimpses of the future that time travellers provided to various people, as a causal loop within a single timeline. Which could be why they had interplanetary sleeper ships in the 1990s, six Voyager probes, and a manned Saturn probe in the early 21st century. But that's a separate discussion from the technological differences between the Prime and Abrams timelines.

(Come to think of it, we may need a better name for it than "Abramsverse," now that someone else will be directing the third film -- though Abrams will still produce it, granted. Memory Alpha calls it "the alternate reality," but that's a little generic.)

 

[BillJ]

I like "Abramsverse". Even if someone else directs, Abrams is the one who birthed it and got it through the teething stage.

 

[The Comedian]

Someone pointed out once that the Trek Universe was altered when that homeless guy in the 1930's killed himself with McCoy's phaser. The theory was that event resulted in the Trek universe's Eugenics wars and the multiple Voyagers, etc...while in this timeline Star Trek's only something for geeks to argue over.

Timey-wimey stuff, you know.

 

[Belz...]

But talking about future technology or seeing it are not a substitute for understanding it. As someone else pointed out, showing an expert a brief exterior view of something from the future will hardly help them to reverse-engineer it.

That's not the point. Scanning a ship (Narada) for a few seconds will also not substitute for taking it apart and studying it, but it can give you some ideas and perspectives. I didn't say it was a perfect explanation, but it's a possible cause to the changes, that's all.

The other option is: Reboot.

But the timeline's the same until 2233.

Same compared to what. With all the time travel in Star Trek (Transparent Aluminum in the 80s, for instance), who knows what kind of impact it'll have on the future ?

I know there's a theory in some circles that ENT itself was an alternate timeline from the previous shows, but that was never the intention;

Who cares ? We're just fans having fun trying to make sense of it. If the authors didn't think of it, we sure as hell will.

 

[Phily B]

Nero's attack was the equivalent of The Borg attack at Wolf 359 which saw Starfleet rapidly expand their operations and even develop a pure warship.

 

[the Sisko]

I don't think Nero is the only reason things are different. I think it's the Xindi. ENT Season 3 was all about earth meeting/fighting/making peace with the Xindi, seemingly much earlier than would have been done in the prime universe. Most of the differences seen can be accounted for through understanding the Xindi's tech: new faster warp, larger + more rounded ships (look at the aquatics + enterprise J, the Vengance is a Enterprise J/Excelsior/Enterprise E kitbash).

I presume adding the Xindi to the Federation and directing more exploration in a specific direction of space would cause the federation to have a different set of technology (and possibly a slightly different identity).

 

[Belz...]

Yeah, the temporal cold war certainly had something to do with it, and there's no indication that it was in the timeline prior to Enterprise.

 

[Jax]

The Borg caused Starfleet to make the Defiant (a ship designed soley for combat) so I am not surprised Nero would have a smiliar effect.

 

[Belz...]

"Desperate times bring desperate measures, Major."

 

[Christopher]

That's not the point. Scanning a ship (Narada) for a few seconds will also not substitute for taking it apart and studying it, but it can give you some ideas and perspectives. I didn't say it was a perfect explanation, but it's a possible cause to the changes, that's all.

Keep in mind that:

a) The Klingons had the Narada in their possession for 25 years, studying it and trying to figure out its secrets.
b) Starfleet has spies.

So a few seconds of scans might not have been the only resource available.

But the timeline's the same until 2233.

Same compared to what.

Compared to the Prime timeline. The official stance of CBS/Paramount/Bad Robot is that all the Trek we saw from 1966-2005 represented a single consistent timeline, and that the Abrams films' timeline diverges from it in 2233. Here's a chart from IDW comics illustrating this:

http://www.idwpublishing.com/startrek/timelines.php

With all the time travel in Star Trek (Transparent Aluminum in the 80s, for instance), who knows what kind of impact it'll have on the future ?

How the Trek future differs from our own is beside the point. Obviously it's all fictional. The question is how the Abramsverse relates to the Prime continuity, and the intent is that they're identical until the Narada arrives. Note that Admiral Marcus's desk in Into Darkness features a model of the ringship seen in wall art in the TMP rec room, as well as the Phoenix from First Contact and the NX-Alpha and NX-01 from Enterprise.