Spock Prime's carelessness responsible for destruction of Vulcan?

[rbnn]

Strangely enough, it was only on fifth viewing that I expressly realized that Nero obtained the red matter to destroy Vulcan from Spock Prime's Jellyfish ship.

This raises the question as to why Spock Prime, after he realized he was to be captured by the Narada, did not at once ignite or disable the red matter (perhaps by jettisoning it).

It might be suggested that the Jellyfish was purely scientific, without autodestruct capabilities. In fact, however, we know from its destruction of the drill to Earth that it had weapons capabilities, so its designers must have had in mind that it might be attacked and captured.

In a sense it is Spock Prime who is responsible for the destruction of Vulcan, because it was he who failed to safeguard the red matter adequately, allowing it to be stolen.

 

[EnsignRicky]

Yeah, that Spock Prime is a real dick.

 

[Checkmate]

Vulcan itself is largely responsible for what happened; they refused to listen to Spock and help Romulus in time.

I never understood the way Vulcans were presented outside of Spock and Sarek, honestly. I don't see how or why they would have ever stopped to help out Humanity all those years ago with the way they act and behave, let alone befriend them as quickly as they did.

Somewhere, somehow, someone totally misunderstood Spock's character. He's not a cross between a Human and Vulcan, thus leading Vulcans to be even more anal and assholish than he is. Instead, he's a half-breed who's grossly overcompensating for the fact; he's more Vulcan than a Vulcan. Unfortunately, we became stuck with the former interpretation rather than the latter, and all the nonsensical wtfness that comes along with it.

 

[Franklin]

I started a thread like this a while back, and the answer that made sense was Spock Prime was probably overcoming the effects of the time travel and couldn't properly react to what was going on. Nero was waiting for him and pounced, after all.

But on the whole, I do agree with your thinking rbnn.

 

[iguana_tonante]

I never understood the way Vulcans were presented outside of Spock and Sarek, honestly. I don't see how or why they would have ever stopped to help out Humanity all those years ago with the way they act and behave, let alone befriend them as quickly as they did.

Somewhere, somehow, someone totally misunderstood Spock's character. He's not a cross between a Human and Vulcan, thus leading Vulcans to be even more anal and assholish than he is. Instead, he's a half-breed who's grossly overcompensating for the fact; he's more Vulcan than a Vulcan. Unfortunately, we became stuck with the former interpretation rather than the latter, and all the nonsensical wtfness that comes along with it.

I completely agree with you. Thank you for pointing that out.

 

[rbnn]

I started a thread like this a while back, and the answer that made sense was Spock Prime was probably overcoming the effects of the time travel and couldn't properly react to what was going on. Nero was waiting for him and pounced, after all.

But on the whole, I do agree with your thinking rbnn.

I found that thread, thanks for the pointer.

I'm still a little skeptical though. Even if Spock did experience effects of time travel inhibiting his reactions, he was strong enough to lower the ramp, and to descend it to meet with Nero. If he can do that, why couldn't he press a self-destruct switch?

Possibly there was no self-destruct switch because the engineers had no time to install one. But there was time to install weapons. A self-destruct switch probably takes less time to install than weapons.

 

[Da'an]

Vulcans are nothing more than emotionally stunted Romulans. This is pretty self-evident after watching Enterprise.

 

[Mr. Adventure]

It had a two-component self-destruct switch, to implement self-destruct one would set the phasers and the accelerator to maximum.

 

[Sci]

Strangely enough, it was only on fifth viewing that I expressly realized that Nero obtained the red matter to destroy Vulcan from Spock Prime's Jellyfish ship.

This raises the question as to why Spock Prime, after he realized he was to be captured by the Narada, did not at once ignite or disable the red matter (perhaps by jettisoning it).

It might be suggested that the Jellyfish was purely scientific, without autodestruct capabilities. In fact, however, we know from its destruction of the drill to Earth that it had weapons capabilities, so its designers must have had in mind that it might be attacked and captured.

In a sense it is Spock Prime who is responsible for the destruction of Vulcan, because it was he who failed to safeguard the red matter adequately, allowing it to be stolen.

What makes you think Spock Prime was able to do that? For all we know, he was unconscious when the Jellyfish emerged from the black hole. Or maybe the Narada hadn't yet acted behaved in a hostile manner towards the Jellyfish when they both fell through the black hole, and Spock had no reason to think Nero hostile until boarding the Narada.

 

[rbnn]

Strangely enough, it was only on fifth viewing that I expressly realized that Nero obtained the red matter to destroy Vulcan from Spock Prime's Jellyfish ship.

This raises the question as to why Spock Prime, after he realized he was to be captured by the Narada, did not at once ignite or disable the red matter (perhaps by jettisoning it).

It might be suggested that the Jellyfish was purely scientific, without autodestruct capabilities. In fact, however, we know from its destruction of the drill to Earth that it had weapons capabilities, so its designers must have had in mind that it might be attacked and captured.

In a sense it is Spock Prime who is responsible for the destruction of Vulcan, because it was he who failed to safeguard the red matter adequately, allowing it to be stolen.

What makes you think Spock Prime was able to do that? For all we know, he was unconscious when the Jellyfish emerged from the black hole. Or maybe the Narada hadn't yet acted behaved in a hostile manner towards the Jellyfish when they both fell through the black hole, and Spock had no reason to think Nero hostile until boarding the Narada.

Spock Prime was conscious when he descended the ramp of the Jellyfish to meet Nero. So he was conscious enough to initiate a self-destruct.

Even if Spock Prime had no reason to think Nero hostile, he had no reason to think Nero was friendly. Since the power of the red matter is so vast, Spock Prime should have retained control over it at any cost.

 

[Sci]

Even if Spock Prime had no reason to think Nero hostile, he had no reason to think Nero was friendly. Since the power of the red matter is so vast, Spock Prime should have retained control over it at any cost.

Irrational. Spock must kill himself in order to avoid the remote possibility of hostilities against a member of the race whose homeworld he just risked his life to attempt to save, and in doing so consign himself and an unknown number of potentially innocent people aboard the Narada to death? Especially when, for all he knows, working together, they might be able to return to the prime universe?

 

[rbnn]

Even if Spock Prime had no reason to think Nero hostile, he had no reason to think Nero was friendly. Since the power of the red matter is so vast, Spock Prime should have retained control over it at any cost.

Irrational. Spock must kill himself in order to avoid the remote possibility of hostilities against a member of the race whose homeworld he just risked his life to attempt to save, and in doing so consign himself and an unknown number of potentially innocent people aboard the Narada to death? Especially when, for all he knows, working together, they might be able to return to the prime universe?

Nero told Ayel to "capture that ship." We can infer from that the Narada "captured" the Jellyfish. As soon as the attempt was made to capture, Spock Prime should have been on his guard.

Furthermore, Spock Prime seems to have known the Narada's intentions were hostile when he exited the Jellyfish. So why would he exit, why not self-destruct?

Finally, one look at the Narada should have been enough to tell Spock to be very wary.

Now, I agree with you that if in fact Nero had tricked Spock into thinking the Narada was friendly, that might explain some things. But that doesn't to be supported by the narrative.

 

[Jax]

Your assuming the ship had self destruct...I mean for one with all that red matter onboard do you really want someone to have the ability to blow up a ship that well will create a MASSIVE BLACK HOLE. The problem with talking about such things is hindsight and you just come out of black hole maybe blowing yourself up is not the 1st thing on your mind.

 

[Franklin]

One valid question may be why the ship was carrying so much red matter for Spock Prime's one trip. I'm sure they would've calculated how much was necessary before Spock Prime set out. Instead, he's carrying a blob larger than a big beach ball, when it turns out that an amount the size of a pea is all that's needed. If that stuff is that powerful, it seems odd (and dangerous) to be carrying that much of it.

Regarding trying to prevent the red matter from falling into Nero's hands, the only thing I can think of after letting this sit in my mind a while is not even Spock Prime could imagine that Nero would use the red matter in the horrible way he intended to use it. At most, Spock Prime may have felt he was a dead man.
It's also possible that Spock Prime knew he went through a black hole, but didn't know he was thrown back in time (after all, Nero didn't know right away). Thinking he's still in the late 24th century, he may have felt Nero wouldn't be a big threat with the red matter. That he'd be easily stopped.

 

[Checkmate]

I assumed (with nothing to back it up; a pure rationalization) that red matter became unstable and deteriorated in small amounts. Hence him having to carry the huge glob with him.

 

[rbnn]

. Thinking he's still in the late 24th century, he may have felt Nero wouldn't be a big threat with the red matter. That he'd be easily stopped.

This explanation is not plausible for each of the following four reasons:

(1) Nero's ship obviously was based on dangerous new technology, just from looking at it;

(2) common sense would suggest that a material one drop of which was capable of creating a planet-destroying black hole is extremely dangerous;

(3) in Countdown, one of the key causes for Vulcan's reluctance to share red matter technology with Romulus is the red matter's danger as a weapon (even if you argue that Countdown is not canon, the reasoning is still eminently clear); and

(4) in Wrath of Khan, Spock and others were well aware of the dangers of allowing Genesis to come into the hands of others because it could be used to destroy a planet; likewise here, Spock would have realized the danger of allowing planet-destroying technology to get into others' hands.

 

[FanFanatic]

Perhaps he is suffering from the early stages of Bendii Syndrome, like his father had, and died from, in the "Prime" universe. Maybe there was a scene cut regarding Spock's abduction by Nero. When he does walk down the ramp, Spock seems to either kneel, or "collapse", in front of Nero, because Spock then looks up at him. Why would Spock do that?