Am I missing something here?
No. The prime timeline will exist in parallel with the Abrams timeline, so both continuities will exist following the supernova and the subsequent disappearance of Spock and Nero into the past.
This is a bit tricky to discuss without getting into story ideas but I would simply say that it's surely highly likely that we either get a series that reveals some hidden element of *why* it went nova and more certainly a series that pick up on the aftermath.
I would guess something will come out of it. The destruction of an interstellar empire's home planet is a significant event. Given the tumult after the turnover of the Romulan government caused by Shonzon's actions, it's likely there will be a significant political fallout depicted in the novels.
I wonder if the destruction of Romulus will be the end of the Typhon Pact storyline. That would be how I might do it. If you take the Romulans out of the Typhon Pact, that makes it very hard for the other lesser powers to pose much of a threat to the UFP/Klingon/Cardassian/Ferengi alliance.
I've always had a problem with this line of thought. The Romulans control a vast interstellar empire. Why do people assume that the destruction of their capital means the empire will collapse and Romulan civilization will end? Yes, I know Nero identified himself as "the last survivor of the Romulan Empire," but he was a delusional madman who overestimated his importance in the universe.
The loss of Romulus will no doubt be a crippling blow, but it won't be the end of the Romulan civilization.
Unless they kill him off in the next film, he could also pack his stuff and return.
By altering the past, Spock created a new temporal events sequence separate and distinct from the prime universe. If he traveled into the future from 2258 of the Abrams timeline, it would be the future of
that reality in which he would find himself, not the future of the prime universe.
Many Trek castmembers have died, yet had their characters live on in the novels. Should anything happen to Nimoy (and I hope not!!) I'd like to see the elder Spock's adventures continue in novels and comics.
Agreed. The beauty of these novels is that the characters can be kept alive long after the actors have died.
And yet at the same time we have Nero, who had 25 years to delve into temporal physics (he calculated exactly when and where Old Spock would appear, for example), and who wanted to save his home planet by changing the timeline. Old Spock simply didn't do anything because he didn't have the means to - no Jellyfish, no red matter, and no 25 years to think about it - (and because the writers turned him into a passive bystander anyways, who was ready to jeopardize Earth's existence because of his faith in Kirk's and Spock's friendship. Senile, perhaps?).
I think you're overstating your case. Spock wasn't willing to sacrifice Earth so much as he was willing to save the rest of the quadrant by helping Kirk and Spock recognize the potential that their friendship could have for themselves and for the Federation. How many times did we see Kirk and Spock stave off disaster in the prime timeline? Spock wasn't senile because he wanted the inhabitants of the Abrams universe to have the same chance. He was being rational.
--Sran