Where were the frakking Vulcan ships? (SPOILERS)

[Captain Fine]

Yeah the talk about the lightning storm and what we actually saw of the lightning storm wasn't shown consistently in the movie. It bothered me on my second viewing. Visually, it only happened when a ship came into the past, which only happened twice: when the Narada met the Kelvin, and when Spock's ship bumped into the Narada 25 years later.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Maybe the Vulcan ships saw the Narada and quickly made the logical decision to withdraw to figure out another way to defeat it and gather more data, rather than waste themselves uselessly in a frontal assault.

Maybe that's where a good number of the 10,000 came from - the crews of those ships.

 

[writergal]

Actually, I was more concerned with where all the defense ships were when Nero attacked EARTH! He shows up and starts drilling and all anyone can do is run down the steps at Starfleet and goggle at the water boiling in San Francisco Bay.

I know most of the Federation ships were elsewhere, but I have a hard time believing Earth had NO defenses. But no ships appeared to challenge Nero, no laser beams appeared to try and stop him, nothing.

It particularly bothered me that it looked like the Starfleet Academy was unprotected. If you were a bad guy and you hated the Federation, where is the ONE spot on Earth you'd attack?

Otherwise, loved the movie. McCoy rocks! :-)

 

[Timofnine]

Actually, I was more concerned with where all the defense ships were when Nero attacked EARTH! He shows up and starts drilling and all anyone can do is run down the steps at Starfleet and goggle at the water boiling in San Francisco Bay.

I know most of the Federation ships were elsewhere, but I have a hard time believing Earth had NO defenses. But no ships appeared to challenge Nero, no laser beams appeared to try and stop him, nothing.

It particularly bothered me that it looked like the Starfleet Academy was unprotected. If you were a bad guy and you hated the Federation, where is the ONE spot on Earth you'd attack?

Otherwise, loved the movie. McCoy rocks! :-)

Did they not learn anything from the Xindi attack? :P

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

The Vulcans were too busy helping the Feds fight off some Laurentian Autobots or rebel Laurentian Canadians

 

[Silent_Bob]

Actually, I was more concerned with where all the defense ships were when Nero attacked EARTH! He shows up and starts drilling and all anyone can do is run down the steps at Starfleet and goggle at the water boiling in San Francisco Bay.

I know most of the Federation ships were elsewhere, but I have a hard time believing Earth had NO defenses. But no ships appeared to challenge Nero, no laser beams appeared to try and stop him, nothing.

It particularly bothered me that it looked like the Starfleet Academy was unprotected. If you were a bad guy and you hated the Federation, where is the ONE spot on Earth you'd attack?

It seems the Starfleet of this version excels at getting caught with their pants down. Perhaps Pike was right when he said Starfleet could use men like Kirk, ie competent officers.

About the only other explanation is that the defenses were destroyed offscreen, which would be a fault of the filmmakers rather than in-universe idiocy.

 

[Pindar]

Actually, I was more concerned with where all the defense ships were when Nero attacked EARTH! He shows up and starts drilling and all anyone can do is run down the steps at Starfleet and goggle at the water boiling in San Francisco Bay.

I know most of the Federation ships were elsewhere, but I have a hard time believing Earth had NO defenses. But no ships appeared to challenge Nero, no laser beams appeared to try and stop him, nothing.

It particularly bothered me that it looked like the Starfleet Academy was unprotected. If you were a bad guy and you hated the Federation, where is the ONE spot on Earth you'd attack?

Otherwise, loved the movie. McCoy rocks! :-)

He took Pike prisoner to get the information he needed to bypass earth's defences.

 

[Tom]

One thing that is made clear in the film is the Vulcan council does not like Vulcans entering starfleet, so there are probably very few Vulcans beyond Spock in Starfleet during that era. That said, it just seems unlikely that the Vulcans would totaly depend on Starfleet for there defense given there obvious distaste for the organization and lack of there race in it.