I was thinking more Q or possibly S31.
Q Continuum is more likely than S31 for me, while they can do many things I think triggering a Nova is beyond Section 31's ability and it wouldn't really achieve anything for them either, especially after the Romulans showed that they could play well with others in the Dominion war.
That is a good observation. Scientifically though, they really should have been able to detect it decades, nay centuries in advance as supernovas don't just wink into existence. It's a build-up over time. But it's all about plot convenience. It was the weakest part of the movie for me.
Yeah it happened very abruptly which is why foul play rather than natural causes was suspected.
Time manipulation could do it though and there are races that have been hinted at in the past that could be the culprits not to mention the Q could easily do it as well.
I don't think there is really any doubt that its an intentional act directed at the Romulans at least for now, the real question is motive and who has the means to do it, we know there are races that can easily do it such as the Q but the number one question is why, it must serve a purpose but apart from genocide we just don't know what that could be, it clearly wasn't an accident as the collapse seemed to have been accelerated to make sure that Spock didn't stop it, which for me rules out the Q as they can just trigger it immediately without having to wait at all and I think S31 is out as well at least for now as they don't have the means or the motive.
Could it be a direct consequence of the destruction of Vulcan, even though chronologically the destruction of Vulcan happened first in another reality, logically it was the destruction of Romulus that was the trigger for the destruction of Vulcan, hence why I think it could be to do with the Temporal Cold War as neither chronology nor logic really matter when you can manipulate time and space as was shown to us by the Wormhole Aliens in DS9.
It may have something to do with the upcoming season 2 of Discovery and Spock (him again), possibly tying into the Red Matter that we saw his character use in Star Trek (2009).
It may end up showing that the events in Discovery S2, Star Trek 2009 and Picard/Destiny are all linked, the Red Light we saw in the Discovery S2 trailers remind me very much of the glow of Red Matter as well.
I was ok with the way the Supernova was handled in Star Trek and perhaps they were going to deal with it or possibly undo it in the fourth film extreme as that may seem, it looked like Kirk Jr was going to end up going back in time to meet Kirk Sr and I would expect them to at least try to stop it if so, maybe even undoing it completely which may or may not remove the Kelvin reality and themselves in the process so that neither planet is destroyed.
Whether that would completely erase the Kelvin reality is another matter, it cant truly be undone until the actual original cause is known to undo it properly, anything else would be a right mess as the symptoms (Supernova) would be dealt with and stopped but the disease would still be out there (Trigger).
Its not the first time its been done in Star Trek never mind scifi as a whole.
