That's the beauty of it - no explanation is needed, in dramatic or story-logical terms. Nero cannot accomplish anything in those 25 years, because he has to wait for Spock to arrive.
He could accomplish a great deal. He can easily overwhelm any Starfleet vessel, assassinate leaders, raid shipping, destroy bases, etc. Killing child Spock, once they realize when and where they are, would be childs play.
Of course I don't buy as plausible the idea he would ever blame Spock for anything in the first place. It makes no sense whatsoever to me that he would. Nor that a miner, of all things, would have any knowledge of what was happening.
In any case, the main limiting factor for his actions is the crippled state of his ship. If he isn't captured, he would indeed have to have the ship repaired. Romulus would be the best place to get help. His only reasonable concern would be that the Tal Shiar and Romulan government would want that ship and its technology. I cannot imagine him not sending them specs on his ship, its weapons, etc. But he would not likely have wanted to risk having it taken by them.
Were Nero somehow hindered, detained or hurt by outside forces in those years, this would only detract from the story and weaken the impact of the wait.
I was not a big fan of the captured by Klingons idea. But the alternatives seem worse. He doesn't initially seem to realize what century he is in, and that no one is going to know who "Ambassador Spock" is. Let alone that he us just going to sit around waiting week upon week, month after month, decade after decade until Spock suddenly appears.
Without an expert in temporal physics it is more likely that he did not know if Future Spock was coming through or not. Either way he could not just stay where they were, as the survivors of the Kelvin would have signaled that position to Starfleet, and there is no doubt ships went to investigate.
For all Starfleet knows, the Romulans have astonishingly built an 8,000 meter ship capable of blasting through starship defenses with ease. This would have been a major incident throughout the quadrant. Starfleet would have mobilized, conducted extensive searches of the area, and of the neutral zone for Romulan activity. It must have been both a relief and a surprise, as months went by, that all was quiet on the Romulan frontier. No unusual signs of activity, no invasion force, no other signs of Romulan ships of this magnitude etc. I am sure Section 31 swung into action on this news.
But the idea that an 8 KM ship could just have sat around in that sector for 25 years unnoticed while waiting for Spock is beyond implausible. The captured by Klingons idea at least had the benefit of explaining why the Starfleet, which undoubtedly mounted a massive search for it, was not able to find this enormous, but crippled ship.
He doesn't know anybody or anything about the era he is stuck in. Nero needs knowledge, but he must obtain it without being challenged, lest all be lost.
I assume that he, his crew and his ships records have some information on the 23rd century. None of it should be too surprising to him. And he of course has knowledge that none of the contemporary civilizations do. He should know of civilizations that they are as yet unaware of, planets where he might get supplies, affect repairs, etc.
If he did, we'd have a different movie.
Indeed! And therein lies the real explanation for these issues!
This is the movie they wanted, and how they wanted to tell the story.
We don't know whether he did so or not. If the star that goes kaboom is not Romulus' homestar, Nero could have harmlessly blown it up (down?) with red matter at 2230 hours for all we know...
Timo Saloniemi
Of course if it wasn't a naturally occurring Supernova,
and it could not have been, it probably wouldn't matter, since whatever nefarious alien force is responsible for it would just choose a different one and destroy Romulus anyway.
