I think we have to assume that Nero and his crew were indeed incarcerated by the Klingons for 25 years, in order to explain why they weren't seen for all that time. And besides, there is a brief shot of Nero actually on Rura Penthe as a prisoner in the scene where Spock Prime mind melds with nuKirk. Of course, we then have the rather awkward problem of what the Narada was doing at Rura Penthe when Nero broke loose...
The Narada
- Thread starter James Wright
- Start date
Inspired and derived from, but clearly not a match. You'd also need to fully understand the tech in order to make it as formidable as the original. It's like how "Q Who" and "Best of Both Worlds" helped steer and advance Starfleet tech and yet a Borg Cube is still a challenge for an entire fleet. Or how modern-day pirates have current weapons but don't have the tech, stockpiles, or resources to truly take on a battleship.
Here's my solution to dealing with the Narada. Ram a ship into it! It works! The Narada obviously looks dead in space after the Kelvin rammed into it. Even the wafer thin Jellyfish took out the Narada's shields and caused it to loose power just be ramming into it. Guess the ship has a glass jaw.
An Achilles heal. Not unlike the one exhibited by the Doomsday Machine in the episode of the same name. Call it the Decker Maneuver.
Nero probably remembers.
Hey, twice we've seen a ship almost ram a Borg Cube, too. And a small Bozeman crashing into the E-D blew it right up (but not the Bozeman?!). When you're desperate, you'll try anything.
Maybe after getting stuck in the past with no Spock in sight the Narada starts harassing the Klingons. They can't go back to Romulas for fear of changing history and killing everyone they ever knew, and they can't go attacking the Federation or they risk altering Spock's life before they can grab old Spock and go back home. True messing with the Klingons will also change history but these guys are miners and they're pissed and lost and Nero could have a mutiny on his hands.
They have great successes but these guys are civilians and eventually some clever Klingon admiral manages to capture half the crew and Nero and severely damage the ship. The rest of the crew try to make it on their own pirating in unknown space until Nero's second in command persuades them to go back - Spock should be reappearing any time now given the captain's calculations before being captured. They go back, free Nero, get Spock, plan on some revenge and then going home.
They have great successes but these guys are civilians and eventually some clever Klingon admiral manages to capture half the crew and Nero and severely damage the ship. The rest of the crew try to make it on their own pirating in unknown space until Nero's second in command persuades them to go back - Spock should be reappearing any time now given the captain's calculations before being captured. They go back, free Nero, get Spock, plan on some revenge and then going home.
Until Kirk brought it up to Pike on the Bridge, they had no reason to look at 28 year old historical records.
We are talking Kirk's entire lifespan up to that point, and most people can't remember what they did last week.
Kirk had a strong personal reason, and all of the necessary data, to put two-and-two together.
Considering the Narada was more ready for them, and what happened at Vulcan just prior to the Enterprise arriving, in addition to the last-didtch nature of a suicidal collision course, it stands to reason that ramming the Narada with the Enterprise, or any other vessel, would be incredibly desperate, and reserved until the last possible moments, even if anyone would think of something that drastic.
It's true the Narada makes no sense. A more interesting plot would have been if Nero had spent 20 years gathering criminals, renegade klingons, and malcontents to attack the Federation.
As it is we have a powerful mining vessel (although mining from space is going to take a lot of energy so that isn't such a stretch) with massively powerful phasers and photon torpedoes (which it either has in abundance or can manufacture at will), feeble warp engines (the Enterprise beat it back to Earth after spending 3 hours travelling in the wrong direction), and one assumes cloaking technology otherwise how could it have sneaked up on Vulcan (but then why didn't it cloak and why did they need to know Earth's defence codes) and very lax health and safety rules (no mining helmets and no rails on its walkways).
As it is we have a powerful mining vessel (although mining from space is going to take a lot of energy so that isn't such a stretch) with massively powerful phasers and photon torpedoes (which it either has in abundance or can manufacture at will), feeble warp engines (the Enterprise beat it back to Earth after spending 3 hours travelling in the wrong direction), and one assumes cloaking technology otherwise how could it have sneaked up on Vulcan (but then why didn't it cloak and why did they need to know Earth's defence codes) and very lax health and safety rules (no mining helmets and no rails on its walkways).
Because the Vulcans were dumbasses in this movie. Narada was parked in orbit, visibly firing its drill into the surface, and they thought it was a natural disaster.
That's right. The most intelligent, advanced, and logical race in the galaxy looks up to the sky, sees a Fukcing Octopus shooting a laser beam onto the planet's surface and assumes this to be natural.
On a more serious note, I got the impression that Narada didn't have a cloaking device, as I would imagine only military ships have that.
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It's "true?"
That doesn't really state why it doesn't make sense, you just stated what it can and can't do.
Why would they need to be wearing "mining helmets" when you just stated the ship was mining from space?
Lol - sorry - I was being facetious!
I come at sci fi plots from the viewpoint of a gamesmaster in a roleplaying game where the concept is to challenge the players (i.e. the heroes). To that end you give your villains a set of abilities and demonstrate them in a way to encourage a solution. The Narada's background and abilities don't gel together; it's not a warship, it's a mining vessel manned by a handful of crew. It also doesn't make sense to me if I don't see the plot progressing along the lines of its established abilities (e.g. it can approach and wipe out Vulcan's defences without being detected at all but limps to Earth at a snail's pace while worrying about Earth's defences - it would make sense if we're told that the Federation ships have damaged its cloaking device or engines, but we're not). If mining vessels have such powerful weapons, and are so good in a fight, why bother to build warships?
I'm not saying that it wouldn't have been possible to justify the Narada with a bit more imagination or explanation. I would have preferred to see some acknowledgment that it was a mining vessel with some kind of limitations - perhaps an exchange such as that between Khan and Joachim in TWoK. Star Wars had a similar villainous machine which the heroes were allowed to explore and it was great fun. Sending in a proper strike team to explore the ship could have been very interesting - we could have learned about the technology, its weak points, and its crew. Still, maybe rescuing Scotty (who himself spent time on mining vessels in the Prime Universe) and Spock Prime from the cells of the Narada would have been a bit too Star Wars even if Scotty's 'prime' knowledge could have been put to good use...
Red matter as a solution to a supernova makes no scientific sense either.
EDIT: Someone on another thread has told me that the comics suggest that the Narada was modified with borg tech AFTER romulus was destroyed. Now that makes much more sense to give us what we have since they would want to equip the ship to be deadly. I still have an issue with the amount of time and expertise that this would require (it took 18 months to refit the Enterprise) but at least the ship makes more sense this way.
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Borg technology has a tendency to build in on itself. Although I hate to bring up an ENTERPRISE episode for an example, but "Regeneration" features a simple federation craft that gets captured by the Borg and during the course of the episode, it gets bigger, bulkier and more Borg like.
Since this is Romulan spliced Borg technology that hasn't been used before (for smart reasons I assume. Their world is gone, empire crumbling, what do they have to lose?), I find it logical that the Narada bears no basic shape or consistency since this happened in a fairly short time. Heck, the interior looks like the borg technology ripped sections of the decks apart which is why there's no railings or walkways to get from one place to another.
With Countdown, the Narada does make better sense. It's just a bummer the man behind the whole scheme believes that this is in fact what a Romulan mining ship is supposed to look like in Star Trek.
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