The Man Who Allowed Vulcan to be Destroyed

[UFO]

The scene where Spock is going to ram the jellyfish into the Narada show that a modern Starfleet vessel (if ready) can target and destroy the Narada's missiles.

Over all you make a good case. But re targeting Narada's missiles, the Enterprise should have been ready at Vulcan. They saw the ships, they saw the Narada, they raised their shields, yet the point defence didn't work. An in universe explanation might be that the targeting AI had a chance to work on the data from the Narada's first attack for the second encounter, but I would have thought it should have adjusted faster and from an audience point of view it was a case of sometimes its crap sometimes its great.

What's stopping him dropping Red Matter onto the surface of Vulcan and creating the Black Hole there? I imagine the results would be similar.

Why would you imagine that? The red matter is shown to be sent into the core of Vulcan, why would Nero do this if it wasn't necessary?

Would red matter create a black hole, would it "activate," if it was simply placed on the planet's surface.

Yes, either the drilling was window dressing or it was needed. Thing is though red matter seems to activate if you explode a missile near it or if you crash it into something fast enough, so my vote is window dressing. Sure (again) you could imagine it evaporates quickly if there isn't enough pressure around to keep feeding it but it lasted long enough to destroy (probably) the Narada and it should sink into a planet, so still "action fluff" as far as I can see.

Don't forget to add that his actions indirectly saved Earth and the Federation.

How? His delaying the attack upon the platform resulted in the destruction of Vulcan. After Pike left the Enterprise, he had no more interaction with the ship. And after his shuttle delivered Pike to the Narada, it's implied that he gave access code to Nero. It was Kirk's violating of Pike's standing orders that saved Earth.

Good points, but Kirk was just lucky he didn't get to go after the Narada the first time he wanted to.

 

[F. King Daniel]

It appears the Red Matter requires extreme heat to "ignite" - hence being shot into a star, or the core of a planet, or going off following the Jellyfish exploding.

But, still, playing the blame game after the point and despite such incredibly unlikely circumstances? Sick.

 

[Jeyl]

Well, who's bright idea was it to give all the explosive charges to only one guy when there's three of them? How big are the charges? Are they the size and shape of pencils? It's like... three guns, but only one bullet. Good luck. This operation will be a huge success.

 

[UFO]

Well, who's bright idea was it to give all the explosive charges to only one guy when there's three of them? How big are the charges? Are they the size and shape of pencils? It's like... three guns, but only one bullet. Good luck. This operation will be a huge success.

Probably not Pike's doing, unless he promoted that jackass of an "chief" engineer above his level of competency. On the other hand I loved Kirk's reaction to his over the top enthusiasm in the shuttle.

It appears the Red Matter requires extreme heat to "ignite" - hence being shot into a star, or the core of a planet, or going off following the Jellyfish exploding.

But, still, playing the blame game after the point and despite such incredibly unlikely circumstances? Sick.

Yes, it does seem heat in some form or other is involved in setting off red matter. But in that case, it would had been much easier to just attach some RM to a missile warhead and let it fall to the planet's surface if acceleration is an issue and then detonate it once there (gravity would get it to the core, if the planet lasted that long). That pretty much settles it though. The drill was just there for visual appeal and as a pretext for the space drop, sword fight, parachute failure sequence.

As for the blame game being sick (er, in universe presumably), well I'm no expert but wouldn't there be an inquiry when a major Federation planet is lost, as a matter of course? Aren't we just asking some of the questions they should have?

In Old Trek large portions of the show were about such inquiries or trails. No one expects that in an action film of course, but some lip service, and therefore decent drama, would be nice. If Pike was knocked back a bit instead of promoted, his attempts to redeem/exonerate himself could even be worked into the next film.

I like Pike too. He was one of the best parts of STXI IMO, perhaps because he seemed more old trek and not "badass". I would see this thread as highlighting a source of worthwhile human drama the movie could have used. YMMV.

 

[Kemaiku]

Well, who's bright idea was it to give all the explosive charges to only one guy when there's three of them? How big are the charges? Are they the size and shape of pencils? It's like... three guns, but only one bullet. Good luck. This operation will be a huge success.

That point I agree with, the only explanation I can think of is that Olsen being an engineer had rigged something up to work so close to the jamming field and they others were unfamiliar with the design.

 

[M'Sharak]

As for the blame game being sick (er, in universe presumably), well I'm no expert but wouldn't there be an inquiry when a major Federation planet is lost, as a matter of course? Aren't we just asking some of the questions they should have?

One could quite easily suppose that such an inquiry was indeed held by Starfleet Command, the Federation Council or a select body formed for that purpose—during the same period in which Pike was receiving treatment for Centaurian Slug trauma and the Enterprise was undergoing major repair/warp core replacement, say—and, further, that the promotions received by both Pike and Kirk were indicative of a favorable assessment of their conduct in the whole business, despite the fact that the destruction of Vulcan was not prevented.

 

[Set Harth]

Lost a planet Master Pikey-Wan has.

How embarrassing. How embarrassing.

 

[UFO]

Lost a planet Master Pikey-Wan has.

How embarrassing. How embarrassing.

As for the blame game being sick (er, in universe presumably), well I'm no expert but wouldn't there be an inquiry when a major Federation planet is lost, as a matter of course? Aren't we just asking some of the questions they should have?

One could quite easily suppose that such an inquiry was indeed held by Starfleet Command, the Federation Council or a select body formed for that purpose—during the same period in which Pike was receiving treatment for Centaurian Slug trauma and the Enterprise was undergoing major repair/warp core replacement, say—and, further, that the promotions received by both Pike and Kirk were indicative of a favorable assessment of their conduct in the whole business, despite the fact that the destruction of Vulcan was not prevented.

Oh I agree, in fact part of my reason for mentioning an inquiry was that I do think they would have done that, which is why I don't believe there is anything wrong with discussing this either in or out of the movie. By "should have" I meant it should have been at least referred to on screen. Perhaps not, to be fair, this particular issue, since I didn't think of it and it's a bit debatable (not as obviously a problem as the bar fight for example), but such issues in general. I don't think its Star Trek to ignore the hard questions just to cram in as much action as possible and hope the audience will "shoot" in their heads, the scenes that are left out. They need to make the hard issues more interesting and a backbone for the movie in my view.

 

[Satyrquaze]

Sorry about the tardiness of my reply, I was not at a computer all weekend.

Starfleet was made aware that something was wrong at Vulcan other than seismic activity when they lost contact with the fleet they sent. That was their warning.

Right, their only warning is that there was a seismic event of some kind taking place on Vulcan. The seven ships that went to investigate were lost. That's not warning that Earth or any other Federation planet is also in any danger.

It was only after his conversation with Kirk that Pike raised his shields and called a red alert, suggesting the fleet that preceded the Enterprise into Vulcan orbit arrived with their shields down and expecting a rescue mission. The shields up Enterprise withstood the Narada's first attempt to destroy her.

And the doomed 47 Klingon ships near Rura Penthe? The Enterprise had undoubtably the stongest shields as she was the top-of-the-line flagship of the fleet. And Sulu pointed out that they couldn't take another hit (singular) like that. Another federation starship would likely handle the Narada little better than the Kelvin did.

The scene where Spock is going to ram the jellyfish into the Narada show that a modern Starfleet vessel (if ready) can target and destroy the Narada's missiles.

No, it just proves that the Enterprise is capable of it if ready. Not every other inferior ship in the fleet.

If they had fired at the platform at the the end of Nero's communication, it would have accomplished preventing Nero from completing his drilling into Vulcan.

One of Nero's crew reported that "... we have reached the planet's core. "

He did drill one completely to the core of Vulcan, and started drilling a hole into Earth.

Yes, and after the Enterprise was destroyed, dropping red matter into the hole, even not quite reached the core, would have likely destroyed Vulcan anyway. The only thing that was really shown in the movie was that Red Matter is very, very unstable. Even a hole almost at the core of Vulcan would have likely been enough to ignite the Red Matter. Even if it wasn't he could have fired a missile at it. Yes, it would have required some basic calculations, but Nero was able to calculate when and where Spock Prime was going to arrive in the 23rd century.

Why would you imagine that? The red matter is shown to be sent into the core of Vulcan, why would Nero do this if it wasn't necessary?

Would red matter create a black hole, would it "activate," if it was simply placed on the planet's surface.

I can only imagine what kind of damage a black hole forming within the atmosphere of Vulcan could cause. It could (as I already illustrated) have been ignited by a missile. Again they had a hole that was nearly to the core...

How? His delaying the attack upon the platform resulted in the destruction of Vulcan. After Pike left the Enterprise, he had no more interaction with the ship. And after his shuttle delivered Pike to the Narada, it's implied that he gave access code to Nero. It was Kirk's violating of Pike's standing orders that saved Earth.

It's as simple as, He believed in Kirk and put him where he needed to be. If Pike hadn't been there, Kirk would not have joined Starfleet, let alone been allowed on the bridge of the Enterprise or made first officer. That's indirectly saving the Federation.

 

[Search4]

I'm still thinking that given seismic disturbances, then a big whopping ship defeats 47 Klingons, then seven other starships and is now drilling into Vulcan its time to take out the drill. Period. So you lose the Enterprise - if you might slow down or stop the big whopping ship for a while...

In terms of dropping the red matter / activating it... it does seem pretty easy to activate it when all is said and done. Perhaps Nero dropped it "in the core" not to activate, but to ensure it had enough mass to gobble down before the Narada was exposed? They could not get away from the black hole that Spock Prime created after all, and Nero hardly strikes one as a red matter expert. He didn't even have the matter, or the firing mechanism, until shortly before the attack on Vulcan.

Nero did high-tail it out of there as soon as he could and perhaps, that's with cause, he knows that a nearby black hole forming means its time to get out of town. As further evidence, the Enterprise certainly thought it was threatened even though in the same orbit.