History Headscratchers / StarTrek2009

** He didn't. I]got the distinct impression that he'd been waiting patiently that whole time.

** This Troper actually read an interview with J.J talking about that. Apparently, he was considering why Chekov was the youngest guy in TOS. So he decided the logical reason was that he was some sort of prodigy (of course, the real reason he was so young was that Walter Koeing was MrFanservice, but there you go).

*** Considering that ENT ended with "Computer, end program," this troper is sometimes amused to give it the St Elsewhere treatment and say the TNG crew made the whole thing up. In which case, that's not safe, either. Of the 32,861 moments of Star Trek, only one episode survives, by that standard: Voyager's "11:59," the only episode set in the past that doesn't involve time travellers from the crew of whatever series the episode is a part of.

** Personally, this troper cringes every time he sees San Francisco in the background when the shuttle carrying the crew to the ''Enterprise'' takes off. They've left the Golden Gate Bridge alone, thank God, and Starfleet Academy seems to have nice design, but San Francisco itself is butt ugly in the future, almost CityNoir.

** This Iowan troper would like to point out that the real Iowan countryside is nowhere near as flat as the one in the movie. Iowa has rolling hills.

** That made my day. You, troper, get a shiny internet ;~D

** This Troper could've sworn there were at least a couple women wearing pants. Background, non-speaking roles, yeah, but they were still wearing pants.

*** The troper above you said "perfect replica", implying it's a copy. In any case it's a HandWave that started because they didn't have the budget for shuttles. [[BellisariosMaxim Best not to examine it took closely]].

** And while we're talking about Transporters, how come no one has mentioned "Transwarp Beaming?" I mean, transporters were already a little too handy in the old continuity, which was one of the reasons this troper was looking forward to the new film being set before they had so many transporters they seemed on the verge of installing them in bathrooms. So suddenly, when Kirk is stranded on Hoth and needs to get back to the Enterprise which is currently dozens of lightyears away, warping to earth faster than the speed of light, Spock Prime introduces the equation for Transwarp Beaming, which Scotty would later invent, allowing them to achieve their goal of getting Kirk back on the Enterprise. First of all, Scotty invents this in the future? Is this the same future where they could never just beam things onto the ship because they were "out of Transporter range?" Even well into the TNG era, they never had this capability, since the writers weren't complete morons. Think of the ramifications of Transwarp Beaming for a second. If Scotty can beam Kirk from one planet across dozens of lightyears to a ship moving faster than light, why do we even need starships? Why not just beam whole colonies to distant planets, since transporters no longer have a range limit? Why worry about having to catch up to enemy ships in a fight, since Transwarp Beaming vastly supercedes the fastest warp speeds? Why not beam a whole fleet of warships into enemy territory to perform a surprise attack? Transporters were already a problem for creative drama, since when taken logically most problems could be solved with them. Now, thanks to Transwarp Beaming, there are even more ways transporters can solve everything. Anyway, it doesn't really matter since Abrams and crew won't even remember having thought it up by the next movie. Whether that's something to be thankful for, or just annoyed by remains to be seen.

*** I personally am in agreement with the above Troper. I think of Nero's antics as a ''very'' extreme version of the ButterflyOfDoom. If one single woman's life being spared could cause the Nazis to take over the world in 'The City On the Edge of Forever', I think a massive mining-craft-turned-warship blowing up a Starfleet vessel and causing the deaths of probably quite a few people could cause some less than obvious changes. That still doesn't explain Pike's age, though.....This may belong in Wild Mass Guessing, but perhaps this Pike is rather the father of the one in 'The Cage'?

** According to what I read, Uhura was born in 2233 (same year as Kirk), Sulu was born in 2230 (same year as Spock) and Chekov was born in 2241 (which would make his age correct). I'm not sure where the other troper got their dates from, but there would be no need for this Headscratcher if these dates are correct.

* What bugs This Troper in the 2009 movie is that red matter. Spock created it to save the Romulans by destroying the star that was... whatever. The problem is that if he intended to destroy JUST ONE STAR and he only needed JUST ONE DROP of the stuff why did he have a giant ball of death on his ship, instead of a prepared ampule ready to be launched at a moments notice (somehow having a giant ball of death seems both impractical and ''illogical''). Another thing is that BigBad travels back through time and instead saving his homeworld he hides and broods for 25 years and decides to take revenge for something that has yet to happen (admittedly from his perspective it ''did'' happen), and even comments that he waited 25 years for his revenge and that he can't even lead a normal life when he spent the last 25 years brooding and planning his revenge.

*** Nero didn't hide for 25 years, he spent them stuck in Klingon prison. God only knows what he would have done if he'd been free all that time--and, as the tropers above have said, showing up at Romulus with knews that the planet was going to go boom in a century and a half might not have gone over so well. It's been established in several of the series' that Romulans are extremely paranoid; if somebody who looked like one of them showed up with a gargantuan ship claiming everyone was going to die (even 150 years later) would have almost certainly ended...badly.

*** This troper is quite surprised that everyone who watched the movie assumed that the threat posed by the supernova was that it would blow up the galaxy. I read that line completely differently -- the threat to the galaxy was that the destruction and irradiation of the capital of a major power would destabilize the political situation and lead to war. As mentioned above, the Romulan Empire would probably dissolve into a bunch of competing warlords, and I have no doubt that the Klingons, Cardassians, Federation, maybe Breen, and possibly even Dominion would end up supporting different warlords, and then suddenly you have a war across two, maybe three quadrants.

* Kirk goes from an admittedly talented officer candidate to captain of the Federation's most prized warship? [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale In a few days]]. And no, being a [[BigDamnHeroes big damn hero]] isn't enough of a justification. Most people get a nice medal and a promotion for that - not a medal and ''six'' promotions. Also, Spock was just as important in the overall victory and outranked Kirk to begin with, already holding the rank directly ''below'' captain? So why didn't, by the same logic, he get promoted to Starfleet Command? Honestly, this troper really liked the film overall... but this bugs the crap out of him.

*** The above comment made This Troper smile. :)
*** Um ... James T. Kirk, Admiral of Starfleet? Little film called "Star Trek IV"? (Okay, okay, he was ''demoted'' to captain instead...) :D

*** That doesn't matter. Heroics =/= command ability. In order to be an effective commanding officer it is ''essential'' ([[http://trekmovie.com/fan-reviews-star-trek-film/ as several fans serving in the military have said in their reviews of the film]]) to have extensive ground experience. Command is more than about luck and leadership ability. It's also about having experience. Kirk does ''not'' have experience. There may be no precedent ''against'' said situation (since said situation has never occured, thereby meaning it is neither evidence against, nor for) but there are ''similar'' incidents in history. Napoleon, for instance, is reputed for having an ''exceptionally'' quick rise in the chaos of the French Revolution, where officers were being killed off left and right, going from lieutenant to general in eight years. That's more ranks than Kirk jumps, to be sure (though not by much), but the ratio is overwhelming and vastly different. The only circumstance This Troper can come across that resembles the situation at all is Nathan Bedford Forrest, who did indeed rise to the rank of colonel (the equivalent rank within the army and air force) within a few years of his enlisting as a private. But I've still yet seen anyone who did it in a matter of days and whose multiple superiors were overlooked (Uhura, Scotty, [=McCoy=], Sulu, even Chekov, Spock, etc, etc.).

*** To the above troper, that quote is made of more win than James T. Kirk. Well, not really, but pretty close.

** He didn't. [[Tropers/SchizoTechnican I]] got the distinct impression that he'd been waiting patiently that whole time.

** [[Tropers/SlvstrChung I've]] been calling it a "preboot", since that seems to cover the salient topics.

* The "new" phaser design just bugs [[@/VF1SValkyrie This Troper]]. To switch from stun to kill (or vice versa), the entire nozzle/emitter has to flip 180 degrees. Who in their right mind would design something like that?! If A. Something gets stuck, and it can't flip, then B. It crushes anything in order to successfully flip, thus C. Fingers (and anything else in the way) get crushed. Plus, what happens if the nozzle/emitter gets stuck partially turned around?

** Watch again; during the Kelvin attack, nobody actually references Nero's crew as Romulans. It's only once we've skipped forward 20-odd years that anybody mentions Romulans at all. This Troper is of the opinion that the Kelvin's crew probably did complain about crazy tattooed Vulcans, but were set straight by the Vulcans themselves.

* ''Really'' superficial, but: why is Chekov's hair curly? Seriously, This Troper could deal with pretty much every military/physics/timey wimey situation listed above, but Chekov's hair is still bugging me a year later! It seems like an UnnecessaryMakeover. I would almost even prefer the terrible TOS Monkees wig make a comeback.

*** I would have to say that since 1) every ship we currently have that has gone into space was built on the surface and 2) you have no real idea what Federation technology is like that would make the process efficient, inefficient, or anything else, your definition of stupidity is merely your own opinion. It's not that they didn't care, it's that they didn't agree with your viewpoint, the same as the replying troper didn't.

* How about the fact that those Starships are really, really heavy? The Enterprise, at least from the specs this troper could find on beta memory wiki, weights 190,000 metric tons. Can Starfleet tech accelerate that much mass to the 11 kilometers per second required to escape Earth's gravity without damaging the surrounding area as that would require a lot of force? Second observation, their tech also needs to be able to compensate for stuff like drag if it spends any time going through atmosphere since that ship might not be the most aerodynamic thing ever constructed.

** Kirk also did not emotionally compromise Spock. Kirk revealed that Spock was already emotionally compromised and thus was not making rational decisions. At first they just disagreed about which was the rational course of action, and Spock proves he's irrational by not just having Kirk put in the brig but ''removed from the ship'', against regulations, as Kirk points out. At the second confrontation, Kirk knows that he has to show that Spock is irrational because he's acting on information that says it's vital that he does so. Once Spock removes himself, Kirk is in command. It's not just the troper above who says that, y'know... Sulu, who was there when it happened, points out "Pike made him first officer."

* Really. No one's mentioned the [[YouAreInCommandNow cadet to captain thing]] yet? I mean, sure, This Troper and his friends always made jokes about low-ranking ensigns making admiral in Star Wars given [[StarWars Darth Vader's]] [[YouHaveFailedMe violent tendencies]]. But they never expected Abrams and company to play this '''''straight''''' in the new film. Kirk goes from an admittedly talented officer candidate to captain of the Federation's most prized warship? [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale In a few days]]. And no, being a [[BigDamnHeroes big damn hero]] isn't enough of a justification. Most people get a nice medal and a promotion for that - not a medal and ''six'' promotions. Also, Spock was just as important in the overall victory and outranked Kirk to begin with, already holding the rank directly ''below'' captain? So why didn't, by the same logic, he get promoted to Starfleet Command? Honestly, this troper really liked the film overall... but this bugs the crap out of him.

** Could be a deliberate reference to the MainCharactersDoEverything that Star Trek casts are infamous for; it's just this time, he isn't a main character from out pov. Also, he'd probably have the best idea of where to plant the explosives, but again, thankfully wasn't neccesary.

** Just because a species is spacefaring doesn't mean that they establish colonies. THe Bajorans didn't colonize outside their own solar system, and they were travelling at warp speed when the Vulcans were still trying to figure out fire. Between Vulcan isolationist tendancies, the environmental requirements (Vulcan has an atmosphere is half as thin as Earth's, with twice the gravity and an average temperature on par with the Middle East).[[note]]While Vulcans are often shown working in environments more conducive to humans, there are long-term physical effects of living in conditions where the gravity is too low for too long, specifically a weakening of the bone structure[[/note]], and the tremendous loss of life and culture (odds are that artifacts weren't an evacuation priority once they realized that their planet was turning into a singularity), it's fair to say that the Vulcan race is endangered both in terms of numbers and in terms of their survival as a culture.

%% * ZeroContextExample

*** Nope. [[YouFailGeographyForever There aren't any fault lines in Iowa.]] Besides, no earthquake could do that.

*** Riker established 50 million living on Luna and Alpha Centauri was sufficiently progressed to be considered a separate founding member of the Federation. Going with TOS numbers, Kirk lived on Tarsus IV with 8,000 colonists. To put the numbers in perspective assuming a stable 5 billion humans on Earth over the course of Trek let's assume something outlandish like 1 billion colonists. In that average then we'd assume roughly 4-5 human cast members to be born elsewhere than Earth. We have Tasha, Beverly, and Chakotay and many that aren't explicitly mentioned one way or the other, so it's entirely possible. Even assuming a relatively paltry 1:20 ratio in the TOS era would only grant an "average" of .35 senior officers born elsewhere than a homeworld, so even then it's not conclusive. And that's using a still huge number of colonists. Among the aliens we have Neelix, Tuvok (Vulcan lunar colony), and Ezri Dax (New Sydney) confirmed. So we'd expect a massive downgrade to the absolute number of Vulcans and their contributions in time as they adapt and rebuild, but they are almost certainly not as dire as suggested by the 10,000 figure and Spocks' ruminations imply.

** They had to leave Earth in a hurry. Pants were due to be delivered on [[StarTrekGenerations Tuesday]].[[note]]"You left Spacedock without ''pants''?!?"[[/note]]

** Speaking of Iowa, did the movie's relocation of Kirk's birth cause the entire real-world population of Riverside, Iowa, to say ItJustBugsMe? That was their town's one self-proclaimed claim to fame!

*** This explanation is 100% correct, but it opens up its own whole separate can of JustBugsMe... gets kind of philosophical, but isn't everyone who gets transported somewhere essentially being murdered? What emerges from the destination pad is a perfect copy, one that ''thinks'' it's you, and to all intents and purposes ''is'' you... but you're dead. The copy will even step off the pad saying ''Whew, guess I was wrong, it doesn't kill you after all...'' and, when that copy is transported/murdered, the next copy will think the same thing, and the next, and the next... Long story short, you'd never get me in one of those things.

** Also, um, how many do ''you'' think is reasonable? The average Earth colony in TOS seems to have a population of a few ''dozen''. Have you ever noticed that in the entire history of 'Trek, there's only been about four characters who weren't born on the homeworld of their species? (Beverly Crusher; Tasha Yar; Neelix; Kevin Riley)? In the TrekVerse, the vast, overwhelming majority of each species lives on their home world.

*** 1) We're supposed to have a somewhat negative impression of Kirk in this version, they're very much playing up his "renegade bad boy" aspects, and 2) some of us grew up watching FerrisBuellersDayOff back before [=NuMorality=] decided the DeanBitterman principal was the real hero, so we're not inclined to demand a rowdy kid dance a gallows jig just because he bent some rules and busted up a car.

** That's actually canon in the prime universe. Dialogue makes it clear that Earth is one of the most heavily fortified positions in the entire Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Even at the height of hostilities, the Klingons never even ''considered'' assaulting Earth. The Breen, who have one of the more fearsome militaries in the ''Star Trek'' universe, ''did'' manage to conduct a demoralizing raid on San Francisco in the [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]] episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E20TheChangingFaceOfEvil The Changing Face of Evil]]," but none of the Breen task force actually managed to survive the raid.[[note]]To put that in perspective, later in the episode, a Breen fleet almost single-handedly [[CurbStompBattle destroyed 311 allied warships]], at an (on-screen) cost of just 4-5 ships of their own at the [[http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Chin%27toka Second Battle of Chin'toka.]][[/note]] There's really no reason that this version of Earth wouldn't be just as well defended as its counterpart in the regular timeline.

** That's actually canon in the prime universe. Dialogue makes it clear that Earth is one of the most heavily fortified positions in the entire Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Even at the height of hostilities, the Klingons never even ''considered'' assaulting Earth. The Breen, who have one of the more fearsome militaries in the ''Star Trek'' universe, ''did'' manage to conduct a demoralizing raid on San Francisco in the [[Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine DS9]] episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS07E20TheChangingFaceOfEvil The Changing Face of Evil]]," but none of the Breen task force actually managed to survive the raid.[[note]]To put that in perspective, later in the episode, a Breen fleet almost single-handedly [[CurbStompBattle destroyed 311 allied warships]], at an (on-screen) cost of 4-5 ships of their own at the [[http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Chin%27toka Second Battle of Chin'toka.]][[/note]] There's really no reason that this version of Earth wouldn't be just as well defended as its counterpart in the regular timeline.

** If it was intentional, it's definitely an application of the RuleOfCool. Kirk's supposed to be a stallion or [[BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure (Stallyn!)]], not a colt.

* What precisely is the timeline change moment in the new film? Its implied heavily that it was George Kirk being killed (hence why James Tiberius grows up to be Jimmy Dean instead of a [[WilliamShatner large ham]]). But even before this, the command structure and technology of the USS Kelvin when it first encounters Nero's ship is way ahead of anything that would have been in the original series timeline at around the same time. So do we know exactly when the timeline diverged? Did it become an altered timeline the moment Nero's ship passed through the black hole (ala TNG episode "Yesterday's Enterprise")? I guess I would have just found all this timeline change stuff easier to swallow if the pre-timeline change ships looked (even vaguely) like they did in the 1960s series, so we've got some kind of "before" and "after". It really bugs me.

** It's said that they "outfitted their fastest ship" - it was likely built for some other purpose, which did require weapons, and then modified to contain the red matter. It's also possible that unfriendlies were expected - there are certainly some in the galaxy who could benefit from Romulus's destruction. Alternatively, Spock, having had about 200 years of experience in dealing with weird space anomalies, was GenreSavvy enough to add a little firepower, just in case.

** Probably. Nero's ship seems to have exotic ordinance, so it may take time to manufacture more. He did just plough through 47 Klingon warbirds and several Federation starships, and when he tells his crew to "Fire everything!", the arsenal that is launched seems impressive, but is kinda small if you think about it.