I have to ask: why do you chop up posts into individual (sometimes half-) sentences and then deal with them as if they represent isolated points instead of part of a greater whole? I'd like you to stop doing it; please reply to the entirety of my posts, instead of trying to dissect them and selectively ignore certain parts.
I'm not really sure what to say to you if you honestly believe that Nazi Germany and the DPRK are not examples of highly militarized societies; for crying out loud, the latter of the two has something like a quarter of its population in some kind of armed service, and has an explicit, official government policy (Songun) that states that the military gets first dibs on all the nation's resources, even if their people are starving in the streets! I'm less surprised that you think the USA isn't heavily militarized, as it actually is, with a vast military-industrial complex, huge standing armies (plus vast reserves and paramilitary groups such as JROTC), and soldiers that are endlessly glorified throughout the culture. Besides which, a militaristic society is not an anarchistic society; it is true that typically such militarism is strongly state-oriented, but the societies themselves are still strongly militarized. It does not manifest itself in the average person being able to acquire weapons and launch armed campaigns, since militarism and the military are always under state control. Certainly, you cannot go back to Nazi Germany or the modern DPRK and find examples of a single merchant ship captain being able to surreptitiously arm his vessel with weaponry capable of sinking entire fleets of ships. Militarism as an ideology is handed down from above; it does not grow up from below. To write off Nero's ability to somehow obtain and use advanced weaponry capable of destroying fleets of ships at a whim to the Romulans' being a militaristic society is therefore silly. It's also a tangent, and I think that by focusing on it we're losing sight of the greater point: it's absurd to have a civilian vessel so heavily armed.
We might also choose to invoke the battle mentioned on screen between the Klingons and the Narada (it's not explicitly identified by Uhura as the Narada, but it is clearly implied) in which the Narada was able to destroy forty-seven Klingon "warbirds." (Poster UFO has already mentioned this, but let's return to it). We don't know the circumstances under which the engagement occurred, but it too seems obviously absurd to suggest that a non-combat vessel could have accomplished this task, even against Klingon warships that were from an earlier time period (of course, we're assuming that it occurred as reported by Uhura). Do you wish to browse Wikipedia for a bit to try and find some kind of historical precedent for a single merchant ship being able to destroy such a massive fleet of warships?
The weapons used by the Narada are explicitly labeled "torpedoes" and "missiles," and because they are capable of successfully engaging military vessels, we can conclude that they, in fact, are military-grade weapons, which makes no sense for a civilian mining ship to have. You've just pulled a few examples of certain circumstances under which civilian vessels in the real world are armed, and I have already granted that a single such armed merchant vessel might be able to resist a single obsolete warship, but it is definitely not credible to suggest that such a vessel could defeat an entire fleet of obsolete warships. Fleet battleships around 1900 (the HMS Dreadnought was launched in 1906) absolutely would be able to comfortably defeat any such armed merchantman from our time period, ignoring that such vessels really don't exist anymore. It doesn't make sense to invoke such armed merchantmen, as I've said, because such vessels only exist within the context of active armed conflicts, where there's a definite threat posed by the armed forces of another nation state. Nobody simply arms their merchant vessels because they're "paranoid and militaristic," and they certainly do not arm their vessels with weapons that permit them to engage in serious offensive actions against enemy fleets (even ones with obsolete ships). I can buy that Romulan culture is different from my own, but we've got an entire universe of cultures here on Earth, and we can't find any examples that fit the mould provided by Nero and his gang. It simply doesn't make sense.
Still, I've already conceded that a single such warship might not be able to sink a single modern merchant vessel, but the idea that such a vessel could sink an entire fleet of ships is fundamentally absurd. Let's also keep in mind the fact that technology in the Star Trek universe tends to advance much more slowly than technology in the real world, to the point that vessels over a hundred years old are still in front-line service with Starfleet at certain points (this would never be the case in the real world), so to really make an appropriate comparison we'd have to compress time significantly; say reduce the 100 year window of comparison to 50 or even 25, because it takes Trek 100 years to advance on the same order as in the real world it takes us 50 or 25. None of the historical examples you have cited apply to the situation, for one reason or another (I'm not going to go into further detail because I'd rather not get bogged down in endless minutia and therefore lose sight of the larger point). It's just simply stupid. It would have been trivial for the writers to have Nero in command of a warship, but for some reason they just had to stick in a few lines of dialogue about him being a "simple miner," which have no impact whatsoever on the rest of the film. Because they made these decisions, we can simply conclude that they didn't care about the implications of their script, and to accomplish their goals with the film they didn't have to.
Let's also point to the design of the Narada as further evidence of the filmmakers' intent. Such a vessel, with so many spikes and tendrils snaking out from its exterior, and all sorts of internal platforms (with no railing) for no reason, with puddles of water everywhere and irregular patterns of greenish lighting, clearly point to the vessel being designed to look big and scary, without any thought given to the practicality of it, to the fact that it bears no apparent function. Like the script, including the parts where the Narada destroys warships, the aesthetics of the movie aren't designed to make sense; they're just designed to be visually impressive, to be loud and colorful.
You can flail about and bend over backwards trying to make sense of the movie, but as I have repeatedly stated (and you have repeatedly ignored), to do so is to miss the point of the entire movie. Ultimately, it is just a big, dumb action movie, not a Star Trek movie, and it's meant simply to entertain through mindless action. It's obviously and patently absurd, but it's not meant to be otherwise. Why can't you simply accept that?
I'm not really sure what to say to you if you honestly believe that Nazi Germany and the DPRK are not examples of highly militarized societies; for crying out loud, the latter of the two has something like a quarter of its population in some kind of armed service, and has an explicit, official government policy (Songun) that states that the military gets first dibs on all the nation's resources, even if their people are starving in the streets! I'm less surprised that you think the USA isn't heavily militarized, as it actually is, with a vast military-industrial complex, huge standing armies (plus vast reserves and paramilitary groups such as JROTC), and soldiers that are endlessly glorified throughout the culture. Besides which, a militaristic society is not an anarchistic society; it is true that typically such militarism is strongly state-oriented, but the societies themselves are still strongly militarized. It does not manifest itself in the average person being able to acquire weapons and launch armed campaigns, since militarism and the military are always under state control. Certainly, you cannot go back to Nazi Germany or the modern DPRK and find examples of a single merchant ship captain being able to surreptitiously arm his vessel with weaponry capable of sinking entire fleets of ships. Militarism as an ideology is handed down from above; it does not grow up from below. To write off Nero's ability to somehow obtain and use advanced weaponry capable of destroying fleets of ships at a whim to the Romulans' being a militaristic society is therefore silly. It's also a tangent, and I think that by focusing on it we're losing sight of the greater point: it's absurd to have a civilian vessel so heavily armed.
We might also choose to invoke the battle mentioned on screen between the Klingons and the Narada (it's not explicitly identified by Uhura as the Narada, but it is clearly implied) in which the Narada was able to destroy forty-seven Klingon "warbirds." (Poster UFO has already mentioned this, but let's return to it). We don't know the circumstances under which the engagement occurred, but it too seems obviously absurd to suggest that a non-combat vessel could have accomplished this task, even against Klingon warships that were from an earlier time period (of course, we're assuming that it occurred as reported by Uhura). Do you wish to browse Wikipedia for a bit to try and find some kind of historical precedent for a single merchant ship being able to destroy such a massive fleet of warships?
The weapons used by the Narada are explicitly labeled "torpedoes" and "missiles," and because they are capable of successfully engaging military vessels, we can conclude that they, in fact, are military-grade weapons, which makes no sense for a civilian mining ship to have. You've just pulled a few examples of certain circumstances under which civilian vessels in the real world are armed, and I have already granted that a single such armed merchant vessel might be able to resist a single obsolete warship, but it is definitely not credible to suggest that such a vessel could defeat an entire fleet of obsolete warships. Fleet battleships around 1900 (the HMS Dreadnought was launched in 1906) absolutely would be able to comfortably defeat any such armed merchantman from our time period, ignoring that such vessels really don't exist anymore. It doesn't make sense to invoke such armed merchantmen, as I've said, because such vessels only exist within the context of active armed conflicts, where there's a definite threat posed by the armed forces of another nation state. Nobody simply arms their merchant vessels because they're "paranoid and militaristic," and they certainly do not arm their vessels with weapons that permit them to engage in serious offensive actions against enemy fleets (even ones with obsolete ships). I can buy that Romulan culture is different from my own, but we've got an entire universe of cultures here on Earth, and we can't find any examples that fit the mould provided by Nero and his gang. It simply doesn't make sense.
Still, I've already conceded that a single such warship might not be able to sink a single modern merchant vessel, but the idea that such a vessel could sink an entire fleet of ships is fundamentally absurd. Let's also keep in mind the fact that technology in the Star Trek universe tends to advance much more slowly than technology in the real world, to the point that vessels over a hundred years old are still in front-line service with Starfleet at certain points (this would never be the case in the real world), so to really make an appropriate comparison we'd have to compress time significantly; say reduce the 100 year window of comparison to 50 or even 25, because it takes Trek 100 years to advance on the same order as in the real world it takes us 50 or 25. None of the historical examples you have cited apply to the situation, for one reason or another (I'm not going to go into further detail because I'd rather not get bogged down in endless minutia and therefore lose sight of the larger point). It's just simply stupid. It would have been trivial for the writers to have Nero in command of a warship, but for some reason they just had to stick in a few lines of dialogue about him being a "simple miner," which have no impact whatsoever on the rest of the film. Because they made these decisions, we can simply conclude that they didn't care about the implications of their script, and to accomplish their goals with the film they didn't have to.
Let's also point to the design of the Narada as further evidence of the filmmakers' intent. Such a vessel, with so many spikes and tendrils snaking out from its exterior, and all sorts of internal platforms (with no railing) for no reason, with puddles of water everywhere and irregular patterns of greenish lighting, clearly point to the vessel being designed to look big and scary, without any thought given to the practicality of it, to the fact that it bears no apparent function. Like the script, including the parts where the Narada destroys warships, the aesthetics of the movie aren't designed to make sense; they're just designed to be visually impressive, to be loud and colorful.
You can flail about and bend over backwards trying to make sense of the movie, but as I have repeatedly stated (and you have repeatedly ignored), to do so is to miss the point of the entire movie. Ultimately, it is just a big, dumb action movie, not a Star Trek movie, and it's meant simply to entertain through mindless action. It's obviously and patently absurd, but it's not meant to be otherwise. Why can't you simply accept that?
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I am certainly not going to die in the ditch attacking that issue myself but like one or two others you appear to be trying to down play the capabilities of the Narada. That’s understandable but I don’t think it holds up, either on the evidence, or without making a few additional assumptions such as the Klingon massacre never happening, or at least not as implied. Thing is, there is no hint given in the movie that it didn’t and the characters accept it as fact. But like most things there aren’t a lot of details, so there may be some unlikely loop holes.
Given the enemy were using missiles, it still shouldn't have happened. Not that the outcome would have differed! 
) , "we're the only ship available sir", and plots which flat out don't make sense like a villain trying to kill his blood donor are why a clean-sheet reboot was needed. Much like an actual computer, Trek had accumulated too many errors and needed a re-start.
