The internal habitable volume of the Galaxy class is ginormous (tech term). While the standard crew compliment is a bit over 1,000, there are always visiting scientists and diplomats and other Starfleet personnel going here and there. The "comfortable" planet evac capacity is at least 15,000. Not including cows.
For the cattle and other livestock, in theory, we'd set aside a couple of cargo bays and maybe a holodeck. :-)
While it doesn't say it's the Hobus star that goes nova, it implies it's a star and it can't be the Romulus one since if that went nova they would only have minutes. So it had to be a star some distance away that Romulus was in a collision course of.
I'm pretty positive I brought up before that unless addressed differently, dismissed, contradicted by new material, there is no reason to dismiss official tie-in literature co-authored by the same on-screen authors. The only thing you could replace them with is head canon anyway. Logical or not? XD
I heard or read somewhere that the Hobus supernova was an explosion that tore the very fabric of space-time itself, ripping apart whatever was in the path of its detonation. So not a conventional supernova per se, but something previously unheard of or at least not yet encountered by Federation science.
If CBS chooses to ignore or dismiss it, they have the right to do so, since they’re currently in charge of what’s canon or not. And there’s nothing I’ve seen that makes me believe that CBS is trying to make that ten-year-old comic canon/semi-canon/what have you, much less use anything from it in STP.
That is one way to look at it. But the recap from ST:09 is weird. If we take the order in which the visuals for event are shown to be literal, this indeed is the case. But why would Spock then be surprised about the blast reaching Romulus? He should know the exact time it happens. Also, how could he hope to stop the blast years after it has happened, light years from the centre of said explosion? It is possible that the explosion shown in the beginning of the narration doesn't literally happen first, it is just there as that's what Spock's story is about. Then the the time they have to prepare is the predicted time for the nova happening, except calculations are a bit off, and it happens sooner, this is what catches Spock off guard. But if we do not worry too much about the details of ST:09, especially the red matter weirdness (it after all is not directly relevant to the story Picard is telling,) then it indeed makes sense if the star is, say five light years from Romulus, it goes nova, and then they have five years to evacuate.
There are many ways to pervert the STXI writer intent here. For one, Spock never expresses surprise at the calamity. Instead, he refers to it as "unthinkable", which can mean pretty much anything (although it would be odd for a Vulcan to refuse to face facts and fail to think about them). Perhaps the idea always was to stop the supernova two minutes after Romulus is dust, which is what Spock appears to be counting down to ("I had little time")? Spock says he promised to save Romulus. He never says he intended to keep that promise! Why two minutes after would be better than two minutes before, we can speculate on. Either Spock wanted Romulus dead, or then for reason X the supernova could only be stopped at that timepoint and not before... Perhaps Spock's plan involved a timely evacuation, and the refusal to evacuate is what made that plan so "unthinkable". But in no sense unexecutable! Timo Saloniemi
I don't see the issue with treating it as canon until its not. It was an enjoyable read, and gives more of sense of Spock's urgency. I love Nero as a character though, so I'll admit my bias. Regardless, CBS will do whatever they want and don't owe me a damn thing so I'll sit back and wait.