The Romulan Supernova: The final, canon word

[Longinus]

There is still no explanation why the Romulans couldn't save themselves. They must have known years before that their sun was going to explode. The Federation at least had enough time to build tons star ships. The Romulans should have, too. Not to mention they had tons of space ships already. I don't get why they write the Romulans in need of rescuing when they are not planet bound primitives.

If the series use proper science for supernovas now, meaning they only threaten their own solar system and it was definitely the Romulan sun going kaput, it does make even less sense that Romulans needed rescuing. They could have just transported their population on Romulus over time to some of their colonies.

Relocating billions of people is not exactly a piece of cake. And as Federation was supposed to 'only' evacuate 900 million, it seems Romulans themselves must have evacuated majority of the population.

As for why didn't the begin sooner, I'll repost what I said in another thread:

Also, about 'without the warning,'we now a have a reason to suspect that Betelgeuse will go supernova soon. That 'soon' may mean tomorrow or it may mean in hundred thousand years. So even with better tech it might not be exact science. The Romulan scientists may have indeed known that the star will explode within next couple of millennia, and the empire may still have not taken necessary precautions. You don't need to look far to see how that sort of insanity could happen. Supernova talk gets branded as leftist fear mongering, and the Praetor promises to 'make the Romulus great again' instead of spending immeasurable resources and upend peoples lives to prepare for a calamity that probably doesn't happen during his lifetime. And people buy that, as the truth would be too uncomfortable and accepting it would mean making serious changes to their lifestyles.

 

[thribs]

If they just made it the Romulus sun, why would they need the Jellyfish and red matter? Just let the nova run it’s cause.

 

[Yistaan]

If they just made it the Romulus sun, why would they need the Jellyfish and red matter? Just let the nova run it’s cause.

Spock got the jellyfish and red matter because he was the last hope to save Romulus. These were people he had been living with for 20 years.

As far as evacuation, I wondered why Scotty's transwarp beaming was being ignored, before realizing that transwarp beaming millions of people likely required far more power than anyone had at their disposal.

 

[Longinus]

If they just made it the Romulus sun, why would they need the Jellyfish and red matter? Just let the nova run it’s cause.

A safe distance from a supernova is at least 100 LY. If one happens to go off in a centre of your stellar empire, it is most the oldest colonies gone or badly damaged.

 

[XCV330]

If they just made it the Romulus sun, why would they need the Jellyfish and red matter? Just let the nova run it’s cause.

"It will spread!" -Lawrence of Arabia


A supernova in a crowded bit of galactic real state would be a disaster for any nearby settled areas. If Alpha Centauri were to go supernova tomorrow (It can't, but lets say we live in a Star Trek world) we'd be fine for a few years. It would be until we knew about it that we'd be screwed. Anything within 100 light years to Romulus would likewise be screwed, so there were very good reasons to try and contain it.

 

[Longinus]

The biggest flaw of the 2009 movie is the lack of explanation because you know a TV show would of chucked some techno babble to explain it all. If I was forced to write an explanation for ST09 then I would say a Star (the biggest in the known Galaxy) laid on a subspace breach so as the Star died it's Hypernova travelled through subspace and exited at random junctions all over the Galaxy (most nowhere near Solar systems or habitable ones because the Galaxy is quite large after all). One exit point was the Romulan system, which blew up Hobus and the entire Solar System with it.

With all due respect, I'm really glad that they didn't ask you to write it...

 

[Timo]

^^Especially as Romulus doesn't appear to be particularly far away from the major sights. Indeed, it might well be next door neighbors to Vulcan in certain stories.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[thribs]

A safe distance from a supernova is at least 100 LY. If one happens to go off in a centre of your stellar empire, it is most the oldest colonies gone or badly damaged.

Any other star that goes nova would take years for the wake to reach the planet. It would move under the speed of light. Not to mention the further the distance the less powerful the wake will become.

 

[thribs]

Spock got the jellyfish and red matter because he was the last hope to save Romulus. These were people he had been living with for 20 years.

As far as evacuation, I wondered why Scotty's transwarp beaming was being ignored, before realizing that transwarp beaming millions of people likely required far more power than anyone had at their disposal.

But as soon as the sun goes nova, they would only have minutes before it hits Romulus. It would also be mute since with no star, the planet is as good as dead anyway.

 

[Longinus]

Any other star that goes nova would take years for the wake to teach the planet. It would move under the speed of light. Not to mention the further the distance the less powerful the wake will become.

So? They will still be fucked, it will just take couple of years.

 

[XCV330]

Any other star that goes nova would take years for the wake to reach the planet. It would move under the speed of light. Not to mention the further the distance the less powerful the wake will become.

If you have, like apparently the Vulcans had, the means to stop a supernova, why woudln't you try?

Spock took "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one" literally when he risked his life to stop the supernova. As Longinus mentioned, whether the neighboring populations could be saved, there were still people on Romulus who could not be evacuated.

 

[Longinus]

But as soon as the sun goes nova, they would only have minutes before it hits Romulus.

Again: so?

It would also be mute since with no star, the planet is as good as dead anyway.

But not instantly. With trek tech they can manage for a while and relocate the people to nearby colonies, which thanks to the nova being stopped will now be spared.

 

[Paul Weaver]

A safe distance from a supernova is at least 100 LY. If one happens to go off in a centre of your stellar empire, it is most the oldest colonies gone or badly damaged.

But not immediatly - you have time -- the effects travel at the speed of light. Unless subspace is damaged in a way we haven't seen before from supernovas (something like omega particle damage), you'd have years to evacuate nearby solar systems

 

[thribs]

So? They will still be fucked, it will just take couple of years.

Not really. That would be plenty of time to evacuate.

 

[Yistaan]

But as soon as the sun goes nova, they would only have minutes before it hits Romulus. It would also be mute since with no star, the planet is as good as dead anyway.

Good point. The Picard producers didn't think this through.

 

[thribs]

If you have, like apparently the Vulcans had, the means to stop a supernova, why woudln't you try?

Spock took "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one" literally when he risked his life to stop the supernova. As Longinus mentioned, whether the neighboring populations could be saved, there were still people on Romulus who could not be evacuated.

I don’t think it stops supernovas. It was just a way to stop the wake from hitting a planet.

 

[XCV330]

I don’t think it stops supernovas. It was just a way to stop the wake from hitting a planet.

You are splitting hairs for reasons that I do not understand. You do agree then that Spock was trying to save Romulus. From a supernova. There.

 

[Yistaan]

At this point we might have to assume some technobabble that the red matter was to absorb excess supernova energy while Romulan scientists reflected the remaining energy back into the Romulan sun to sustain its life, or some other nonsense.

You are splitting hairs for reasons that I do not understand. You do agree then that Spock was trying to save Romulus. From a supernova. There.

He's not splitting hairs, the fact is with the Hobus supernova stopped, Romulus was in no danger if the Hobus sun died as it was in another system. If the Romulan supernova was stopped by Spock, Romulus wouldn't have a sun and would quickly freeze.

The producers caused more problems than they fixed when they clarified the supernova was the Romulan sun to be more "realistic".

 

[thribs]

You are splitting hairs for reasons that I do not understand. You do agree then that Spock was trying to save Romulus. From a supernova. There.

The supernova had already happened. He was just trying to stop the planet from being hit.

 

[Longinus]

Not really. That would be plenty of time to evacuate.

But not immediatly - you have time -- the effects travel at the speed of light. Unless subspace is damaged in a way we haven't seen before from supernovas (something like omega particle damage), you'd have years to evacuate nearby solar systems

Yes. And if those colonies have hundreds of millions or billions of people that will take a lot of time too. And besides, they only talked about evacuating Romulus, which obviously would be first to be hit, almost instantly after the explosion. I really don't get what part you guys don't understand.