Not for people in ships, but if the supernova threw off massive amounts of gamma radiation, you could easily have an extinction level event in a very, very large area of the galaxy. Nothing “galaxy wide” like Spock says in the movie, but it’s a real threat, and evacuating the huge number of planets in its path may not have been an option.
I have no idea whether an artificial black hole would suck gamma rays back into itself, though. I guess so, theoretically, since nothing can escape a black hole except the USS Enterprise.
I think evacuating even one planet would be problematic. Let’s assume for a moment that you have 1,000 ships the size of the Enterprise D (which is probably being generous; there are probably a lot fewer ships than that, but there also may be some that have a larger capacity), and that you can squeeze 2,000 evacuees on board each (in addition to the ~1,000 or so crew). In order to evacuate a planet of 6 billion people in two years, each of those 1,000 ships would have to make ten trips per day. That entails getting all of those people on board, and then traveling far enough to reach a habitable planet outside the range of the supernova, and then get all of the people off, and then going back for the next load. Really, I think even one trip per day is probably pushing it. It’s likely that you’d actually only get ~10% of the population off the planet in the space of two years.
As common as planetary disasters seem to be in the Trek Universe (thank god no stellar catastrophes completely obliterated the Earth for millions of years before were able to advance enough to defend against them), you’d think the Federation would establish a lifeboat program.
Or maybe, like, mass teleporter evacuation station.
bago
204
Transporting a melon more than 100 miles was a feat.
Kael
205
I really enjoyed the movie. Most of my technical quibbles have already been brought up so I won’t go through them again. Needless to say they didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the film. So I’ll simply go for the things I really enjoyed:
Things I loved:
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That the enemy ship wasn’t a superpower, but a mining ship from the future. Im so accustomed to the bad guy having some sleek high tech pimp ride that this really caught me off guard and I loved it. The bad guy wasn’t a super genius, he was the captain of a mining vessel.
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Lens flare. I know a lot of people didnt like this. But it gave the movie a very unique look. When we went long stretches without it the movie started to look “normal”. I think it was a risk, but a risk that paid off well.
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Lots of good quotes, but my favorite is from old Spock speaking to young Spock: “Ill forgo my customary farewell as it would seem oddly self serving…”
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Throwing all the time continum stuff out the window. Its about time.
Things I hated:
- Kirks boyhood scene with him driving the car off the cliff. Unbelievable, stupid, and introduced his character by making him into an ahole. Didnt tell me anything I liked about the character except he spent a lot of time hanging off of ledges.
It’s possible to transport people while falling through the atmosphere, however. So surely a ground station and relay should be able to improve that … While I’m making shit up, that is.
Now that they’ve got Original Spock, anyhow, they should be able to baby-proof the entire Quadrant.
I might’ve absolutely loved the lens flare if there had been half as much of it. As it is, I got a bit annoyed by it.
In the New Universe. In the classic Trek Universe (where the supernova took place), Scotty has already developed his advanced transporter theory, and transporters were apparently limited to about 40,000 km.
Since Spock is really old, I’m pretty sure that the supernova occurred around the time of TNG or later, in which case, there was apparently an experimental sub-space transporter capable of interstellar warp (wikipedia source for everything)
That being said, if the Federation doesn’t have some sort of plan for a planet-wide evacuation (2 years is a fairly reasonable timeframe), they are the worst inter-stellar government ever.
Edit: Also, I’m assuming that the entire Federation and the entire Romulan fleet would be working together on this.
Edit 2: Hee hee. From wikipedia: “However, there are apparently safeguards in place to prevent people from being beamed into hostile environments such as under water and into lava pits”
I suppose it wouldn’t be such an issue if it weren’t such a recurring obstacle. But planetary populations are always in danger.
If even a long-range starship can devote some resources to mass evacuation, then surely a planet, with arguably more per capita resources, should have the capacity. Certainly while rogue space waves roam the galaxy, threatening to turn everyone into raging monsters/Alzheimer’s victims/sex-maniacs.
Essentially, the Feds need to resolve the problem so it isn’t a weak plot device in the future.
I finally caught the movie last night, and my opinion is … that I really need to see it again. Not so much because I loved it that much, though I liked it just fine. Rather I think I need to absorb it this time. It seemed like a great deal was going on and yet nothing really happened.
I read (probably on these very boards) someone describe a film they had seen as a 6-year-old’s dream – ‘see, this happened, and then this happened, and then boom!’ and that kind of describes how this movie felt to me. Hey look, it’s Kirk! And there’s Spock! And the Enterprise! and they connected the dots to bring all the players together, and they save the day, and then we all went home. The whole thing was a little more conventional than I would have liked.
Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it, I just think I had my hopes a little too high, and I need a second viewing to realign me and my expectations. Having gone through my minor complaints, I really am looking forward to the inevitable sequels. I’m stoked that we’ve broken away from the last few rounds of Technobabble Trek and getting back to the original series’ brand of wide open horizons and strange new worlds. I have hopes for what they’ll show us next … but there I go again.
Unless the emission was inside the event horizon, then no. That part of the technobabble was complete nonsense. Outside of the event horizon, the escape velocity is, by definition, less than the speed of light.
While I didn’t care for the scene much myself, it establishes that JTK is a rebellious, reckless, thrill-seeking kid with daddy issues. [I’m presuming the guy who talks to him is his step-father, but he’s never identified IIRC.] Also, someone in the other thread made a good point when the trailer with that scene first came out: you can also see it as a visual metaphor - “out with the old, in with the new,” since it was a classic 60sVette I think, same era as TOS.
Joe_M
212
The entire movie is complete nonsense. Lets not get hung up on technical details.
Who was / what was the significance of that kid Kirk passes while out on his joyride?
Kael
214
Yeah, I understand what your saying. I just think there are 100 better ways they could have conveyed that outside of this scene.
bloo
215
Kirk: born 22 March 2233 (stardate 1277.1)
Spock: born 2232
Many differences with TOS universe before the events in the movie, such as Kirk not living on Tarsus IV before going to Star Fleet, no Mallory helping him get into Star Fleet.
I think it is easier to list what similarities Abrams’ Trek has with Roddenberry, Berman, et al.
Arguably, the timelines diverge the exact moment Nero’s ship entered it via the black hole, i.e. the day that Kirk was born. So Kirk’s entire life is different, but Spock was still born in the exact same manner and date since that had already happened, although everything past his first year of life could be different.
Bones’s childhood and early life was exactly the same until he was 6 years old (born 2227).
That is, the events of ST:Enterprise and history, Cochrane, etc. happened as recorded in the original universe.
Although…in First Contact, the TNG crew essentially is the impetus to get Cochrane to finish his warp engine, to be seen by the Vulcans…and that happened before the timelines diverged. That gets a little confusing, but not overwhelmingly so.
Once they stopped accelerating and hit maximum velocity it would be easier to calculate their trajectory.
PeterK
218
Last night I watched “The Man Trap” from the original series (the first non-pilot episode, I believe) and there is a scene where it seems like Uhura is flirting with Spock. Perhaps that was the inspiration for the Spock/Uhura romance?
I saw this today (in IMAX, for free, thanks Cisco!) and I have to say, Flawless Victory.
Seriously, the only way the Trek franchise could have possibly continued was with a total reboot like this. Anything else would have been stale and boring. Going in, there was so much hype, angst and hate on the idea of a reboot and recast of the Original Series that I didn’t think there was any way J.J. Abrams could pull this off. It was like his very own version of the Kobayashi Maru scenario. And yet, like Kirk, Abrams managed to find a way to not only do it, but in incredible style. This was quite honestly my favorite Trek movie of all time. All props to the original cast, as this movie would be nothing without them, but I left the theater for the first time since Wrath of Khan actually thinking “Damn, I want to see another movie with these guys!”.
The casting was spot on, and the actors did a great job owning these iconic roles while paying due homage to the original characters. Urban in particular was amazing as McCoy, and I think James Doohan would have been delighted with Simon Pegg’s Scotty. The rest of the cast was well played, especially Kirk, who let’s face it, needed to be somewhat overhauled versus his original Shatner-based persona. The pace was frenetic and the visuals were stunning. I even liked the plotline, though it was obviously contrived to relieve this and future films from having to stick to any Star Trek cannon outside of the base personalities of the main characters.
As I said before, I look forward to another movie featuring this cast, which is pretty much the mark of success you’re shooting for when you produce a total franchise reboot.
