The Supernova.

[ConRefit79]

Does the novel or any of the other literature which expands on the movie, explain an obvious plot hole, by using a Supernova to threaten Romulus? Unless it was a nearby star(ie < 1ly), or Romulus' parent star, I can't see why they could not have evacuated the planet before the effects of the supernova hit Romulus.

 

[Timo]

The movie itself features no plot hole in this respect.

Nowhere in the movie is it suggested that the supernova would have been anything but the very homestar of Romulus going kaboom. The effects of that explosion would reach the planet in a matter of minutes; it's unlikely that even a single person could escape such doom.

Romulans would not believe Spock's warnings that the star was acting up, so they wouldn't react until it was too late. Spock himself says that the "unthinkable" happened when the explosion consumed Romulus; he was probably hoping that the star wouldn't explode yet and that he would get there in time to stop the explosion with the red matter.

The comic book tries to confuse the issue by suggesting that some distant star exploded and that the wavefront eventually hit Romulus. But in that case, there'd be nothing "unthinkable" about the destruction of Romulus: Spock would have calculated the exact moment down to the sixteenth decimal, and would be well aware of whether he would reach the spot in time or not. He would have to have thought about it if it seemed his ship was too slow or something.

A poorly predictable moment of explosion for the homestar fits the bill much better.

The only thing left unclear in the movie is why Spock bothered to stop the supernova from expanding after Romulus was already lost. Perhaps he wanted to spare the neighboring systems from future destruction, several years down the line? He could also have saved the outer reaches of the Romulan system if red matter indeed stopped the expansion of a supernova.

Note that Spock had a huge ball of red matter with him originally. He only used a fraction of it to stop the supernova from expanding, though. Perhaps the entire ball would have been needed in order to preempt the explosion, but Spock was too late there?

Also, the mechanism for extracting the red matter seems rather haphazard. Perhaps the original idea was to ram the star with the entire ship, which is why a geriatric old fool was sent to perform the mission, and not a young top pilot?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

It couldn't 'threaten the Galaxy' if it were a normal supernova and it would have, as you say, taken months at least to reach Romulus or more likely years. If it were a dual star system and yet they had time to seek aid from Spock, one would have thought that they would have evacuated the nearby planets with more urgency. If it is further away and producing some kind of subspace energy wave then I don't see how Spock could have flown the jellyfish fast enough to deploy the red matter. Thus the only explanation is that the nova was travelling at faster than light speed without a warp bubble? That doesn't make sense to me either.

I'd also like to know if the comics successflly manage to apply any Trek scientific logic to the phenomenon.

One assumes that the Remans, about whom we hear nothing in the movie, left their home planet in plenty of time by their own means, with a parting message, 'So long, and thanks for all the fish.'

 

[Kemaiku]

^Actually, Remus itself has vanished in the film, the shot of Romulus does imply its own star is going nova but Remus is nowhere to be seen.

Also Spock's voice over still mentions the star threatening the entire galaxy, and Ayel reminds Nero they still have to use the Red Matter to stop the same vent happening again, so Hobus/Romii will still explode in the future.

 

[Pauln6]

It can't the Romulans' own star. How would turning their own star into a black hole save Romulus? They'd freeze to death almost immediately and the if the black hole gains any extra mass it will start to affect the orbit of the planets in the system.

 

[Rush Limborg]

The movie itself features no plot hole in this respect.

Nowhere in the movie is it suggested that the supernova would have been anything but the very homestar of Romulus going kaboom. The effects of that explosion would reach the planet in a matter of minutes; it's unlikely that even a single person could escape such doom.

Romulans would not believe Spock's warnings that the star was acting up, so they wouldn't react until it was too late. Spock himself says that the "unthinkable" happened when the explosion consumed Romulus; he was probably hoping that the star wouldn't explode yet and that he would get there in time to stop the explosion with the red matter.

The comic book tries to confuse the issue by suggesting that some distant star exploded and that the wavefront eventually hit Romulus. But in that case, there'd be nothing "unthinkable" about the destruction of Romulus: Spock would have calculated the exact moment down to the sixteenth decimal, and would be well aware of whether he would reach the spot in time or not. He would have to have thought about it if it seemed his ship was too slow or something.

Well, Spock noted in the film: "I promised the Romulans that I would save their planet."

So he knew Romulus was in danger. It was "unthinkable" because, as you stated, his calculations predicted a different time.

A poorly predictable moment of explosion for the homestar fits the bill much better.

Spock noted in the meld that the red matter would absorb the exploding star.

Also, if the star was the Romulan home star, they would simply have to evacuate, of their only option was to "absorb" the star. Without a sun, the ecosystem of the planet would be destroyed anyway, and it would become uninhabitable.

The only thing left unclear in the movie is why Spock bothered to stop the supernova from expanding after Romulus was already lost. Perhaps he wanted to spare the neighboring systems from future destruction, several years down the line? He could also have saved the outer reaches of the Romulan system if red matter indeed stopped the expansion of a supernova.

As he said in the film, the nova "threatened to destroy the galaxy".

 

[Pauln6]

As he said in the film, the nova "threatened to destroy the galaxy".

Sooooo... why and how did one supernova, which happen all the time and generally play an important part in galaxy formation, threaten the entire galaxy?

I'm still not feeling it...

 

[Timo]

I don't see any problem with that one. A supernova that destroys Romulus is obviously a threat to the entire galaxy, even if it destroys nothing else. After all, Romulans are likely to be royally pissed off by that one, and you don't want to piss off the Romulans.

Spock spat a tiny little droplet into the already exploded star with the result of creating a black hole. That probably wasn't what he had planned to do originally, because he had much more red matter with him. We don't know what would have happened if Spock had dropped the whole load into a supernova that had not yet exploded. We don't know that it would have consumed the star; for all we know, it wouldn't even have created a black hole in those circumstances. And even if it did, having a star with a black hole at its core might not be such a bad thing after all.

Just think it through. If the star explodes, there will be death in a matter of minutes. If the star is consumed by a black hole, this is likely to take thousands of years, if not millions. And the star will certainly keep on shining till the bitter end; if one shut down all fusion in our Sun today, the light would only go out a million years from now, because that's how long it spends on its journey from the fusing core to the surface of the Sun.

The science is actually on our side on this one... Whatever properties this fictional red matter has, if seeding of black holes is one of them, then it really is likely to be a good supernova pacifier. Supernovas already have what amounts to a big attractor at their core: they collapse inward before they explode outward. But the outward explosion is essentially a back-bounce from that part of the material that won't fit inside the collapsing core. One may well prevent that back-bounce by eating the material faster, in a controlled manner.

As for the matter of evacuation, it's obvious the Romulans wouldn't evacuate until they really had to, until they had absolute proof. An approaching explosion wouldn't suffice. But an explosion that was turned into a slow and controlled collapse would; the Romulans would have a few centuries or at least a few years to evacuate, now that they really understood they absolutely had to.

As for Remus being missing, I actually hail that development. Data's PowerPoint demonstration in ST:NEM shows that the planets don't orbit each other: they are depicted as being on separate orbits that brush against each other, supposedly at regular intervals. It's probably a similar deal to that of Vulcan: Vulcan has no moon, but every now and then a neighboring planet and its moons come really close...

The supernova simply caught Romulus when Remus wasn't in the neighborhood. Nor was there a companion planet visible in "Unification". In turn, Shinzon in NEM obviously timed his slave rebellion so that the two planets would be in alignment.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

Good explanations. I agree that they are the only ones that make any kind of sense even if the language is tenuous. It's a good point that the red matter might have been intended to do something else initially but I think that placing a black hole at the heart of a solar system is not a very sensible idea. Quasars can be created as black holes feed and the energy release is tremendous. Not really conducive to nearby inhabited planets...

I'm not convinced that, considering they run an 'Empire' to rival the Federation with many colony worlds that the Romulans would have declined any effort to evacuate if there was a possible problem with their own sun even if it wasn't clear how quickly the problem might arise.

Sudden supernovas have recently been discovered actually.

 

[ConRefit79]

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/100104-aas-close-supernova.html

You are right, they don't say which star. Our current theories say a Supernova w/in 100ly of Earth would likely destroy 99% of all life. We don't know what the risk is beyond 100ly. I still see only 3 options. The star was the parent or nearby companion star or traveled FTL. I guess it makes as much sense as what happened to Praxis in ST6. Maybe it was actually a subspace shockwave which threatened Romulus.

As for endangering the entire Galaxy, I guess would mean the Alpha and Beta quadrants known to the Federation.

 

[Timo]

Or it could mean just the UFP and its closest allies and enemies. Statements of that ilk aren't likely to be accurate scientific reports; more probably, they would feature an element of hyperbole. "The galaxy" has been in jeopardy before, even when said jeopardy has actually been a petty war between the UFP and the Klingon Empire, or a nearly harmless planet-eating beast that would take forever to make an observable dent in the Milky Way.

I guess it makes as much sense as what happened to Praxis in ST6.

Praxis blew up and then created a shockwave. We don't know that this shockwave in turn would have blown up anything. At most, it shook Sulu's ship a bit.

Doesn't mean that really harmful FTL shockwaves couldn't be created, too. A star exploding may be a bigger issue than a moon exploding. But what hit Romulus in the movie was a yellowish wall of flame that shattered the planet. A FTL wave wouldn't have been that gentle. It would have slammed onto the planet way too fast to shatter it...

Granted, the FTL wave from Praxis manifested as a relatively slow-moving STL wave when it hit Sulu. Perhaps the FTL wave from the supernova similarly leaked STL components from subspace back to our universe when it went past, and those components then did the destruction?

It doesn't really look like that, though. Spock arrives at Romulus too late to prevent the destruction - but not too late to stop the wavefront with red matter. If the front were FTL, it would have left the vicinity long ago, not to mention overrunning Spock's ship and probably destroying it (either in itself or via the putative STL component).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[beneldon]

I thought Spock meant that the threat to the galaxy was political; power vacuum forms and "opportunity" fills it.

 

[The Wormhole]

Nothing about the supernova makes sense.

How many times does that sentence have to be said? 01000?

 

[npsf3000]

It's not a plot hole, the film is just a bit vague on the actual operation -whether its the Romulus's own star or a FTL shock wave the film continues unhindered.

 

[Timo]

Which is probably for the best. Nero isn't the sort of villain who's supposed to make sense. He's a madman type of villain, one who cannot be reasoned with - the scene where Pike says Romulus is fine and Nero disagrees is a nice example of this. Something drove him mad, and it would be a disservice to offer this something to the audience in too simplistic terms. Nero has his loco motive, needs his loco motive, and the more fantastic it sounds, the easier it is for us to sympathize with the heroes (who really need our sympathy as they all start out as assholes), not with the villain.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

The only light Countdown sheds on the supernova is that it’s the Hobus star (the name was also used in the STXI novel, iirc) and it’s one of the oldest in the galaxy. Spock says something about the energy of the planets it consumes being added to it’s own (not that that makes any sense).

I like to think the Hobus star was due to die millennia ago, and that an ancient super-race did something to extend it’s lifespan with dire consequences in 2387.

Something like: They put an inter-dimensional machine in the heart of the Hobus star, to power it long beyond it’s natural life with vacuum-flux energy from a protouniverse. Then, in 2387, long after said civilization died out, the prototuniverse exploded in it’s Big Bang. Virtually infinite energy was poured though the machine into the Hobus star, which exploded like nothing before. That is how a supernova can threaten the galaxy (or rather, the entire universe).

(and this from a guy who hates technobabble and thinks it ruined Voyager)

I think Star Trek Online is planning to link the supernova with some “ancient evil” or other.

Similar silliness happened when Praxis damaged the Klingon Homeworld from light years away with an FTL shockwave.

Also: It’s just a film. Pretend. Make-believe. Is it really that much sillier than warp speed, time travel and teleporting people?

 

[Timo]

Similar silliness happened when Praxis damaged the Klingon Homeworld from light years away with an FTL shockwave.

Well, that movie was neutral on the location of that explosion, too. And in this case, the paraphernalia suggested that the moon had been orbiting the Klingon Homeworld (hence it being called "the Klingon moon" in the movie), and had left a nice ring of rubble around the planet, along with assorted other damage.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DontFeedPhil]

I am Sooo tired of people on this board saying that things like "The Supernova that will destroy the entire galaxy" aren't plot holes.
And what is the rationale they all use??? Oh, that its not the exact definition of a plot hole. Go look it up man...It's state law!?!? The fact is that to the average movie going person this was a decent sized plot hole. This and the Spock finding young Kirk in the Ice cave...among others are considered PLOT HOLES. You can stand by the textbook definition of a Plot Hole all you want. Sometimes a word takes on different meanings. One time on this board I had some idiot tell me that because I posted the word mongoloid in reference to a person having very mongoloid looking eyes and features, I was being a Racists against Mongols from Asia.
How would we like topics for posts like this? "I cant believe that Kirk would Randomly be beamed down to a Planet and happens to run into old Spock? How Rediculous is that?"
Its a Plot Hole Jim...

 

[Ronson2k10]

How far is Delta Vega from Vulcan? Remember the young Spock wants Kirk off the ship and sends him in an escape pod to the closest planet perhaps to Vulcan. Side note: apparently there is no brig on the Enterprise? Anyway in the story Nero wanted to maroon Spock close enough to Vulcan to witness it's destruction. So it's not that impossible but quite coincidental. That he would then be chased by two creatures ending up in a cave that Spock now calls home is pretty hard to believe though. Oh the things I would do if I were writing it??

I think the Red Matter in the instance of saving Romulas would be the small use of some to keep the star from going nova/supernova. Not to create a black hole. As a star going supernova would likely do that anyway. If you've scene any science shows on Supernova most likely? You'll note a few things they left out..

1 - A supernova takes quite sometime to come about. The effect of which if Romulans are doing any kind of study of their sun would quite detectable with 100's of years to figure out a plan (evacuate).

2 - The star will expand first before it's contraction and explosion. This expansion will take quite some time as well even though the effects could be felt pretty quickly and eventually in all likely hood engulf any neighboring planets.

Nero is a bit of a fool in some ways as he is relying solely on one person (a Vulcan even - remember they hate each other) to save his planet. When all he needed to do was get himself and his family off. He knew there was going to be a catastrophe but did nothing to protect his family as he should have done (trusting a Vulcan to save the planet???)

If on the other hand the Vulcans had the technology (red matter) and refused to use it to stop the star from going supernova under Spocks recommendation that the use could alter time and "Change what must be"?? Then you all got a cool structure to have Nero hate his guts. In the movie Spock tries to stop it from happening so he really can't be held responsible. In Nero's eyes he simply has no one left to hate (ala Beal & Loki)

As they were going to use 'one drop' of the red matter for the planet (both Vulcan and Earth) it would presumable that the entire chamber or red matter would be used on the Star as the ship was equiped for that mission alone. As it's been mentioned creating a black hole where the star was really has the same effect as a supernova (minus the big boom). All the planets in the system would be left as icy boulders of former selves as we know that sunlight even at it's smallest amount is what is needed for life. Well as far as we know anyway?

 

[BurntSynapse]

The science is actually on our side on this one... Whatever properties this fictional red matter has, if seeding of black holes is one of them, then it really is likely to be a good supernova pacifier.

As in nearly all of the film, Here again the science is pretty far off: shock waves from supernova only travel at about 10% of the speed of light, meaning it would take hours for such a shock wave to travel from our own star to the earth. If we sent something to our nearest stellar neighbor at .1c, today’s babies could easily be having great-grandchildren by the time it arrived, 42 years later. Further, we might reasonably suspect that any red matter would need to be delivered at or near the center of the nova, (we will ignore problems of travelling into the supernova remnant and across a “galaxy threatening” shockwave), thus: travelling at the speed of light, the effect would need 4.62 more years to reach and effect the advancing shock wave, depending on the wave’s thickness.

Torturing the language is less productive to me than simply recognizing that the script was hammered out by people who had little time to know or care about science, ST canon, the military, logic or consistency.