On the scale of one to ten, my trekkiness score tops off in the mid thirties. I’m like a walking trek encyclopedia. I’ve seen every episode of every series at least fix or six times, some seasons (See: TNG & DS9) I’ve watched a dozen or more. My obsession with Star Trek is truly pathetic. Perhaps it stems from my tragic obsession with science and technology. Maybe it’s because Star Trek is the single greatest collection of stories in the history of man. I don’t know, I’m no scholar.
So, let me be frank here. Up until just a few minutes ago, my expectations of the new Star Trek movie were through the floor. I wish they’d stop trying to ruin the single greatest universe ever created.
It was recently told that this films villain is a pointed eared fellow named Nero. J.J. Abrams has yet to indicate on Nero’s race. We can infer he’s either Vulcan or Romulan by the points on those ears.
Since Abrams says that this movie would agree with established Trek Cannon, we can infer the following. Star Fleet knew virtually nothing about the Romulan Race until The Enterprise intercepted a Romulan War Bird destroying Federation Star Bases along the Romulan Neutral Zone (“Balance of Terror”, TOS 1×08). According to Spock, Humanity and the Romulans fought a war over a century prior, where the technology was so limited, that no Human had ever seen a Romulan. It wasn’t until Spock was able to tie in to the ships communications system did they learn that Vulcans and Romulans shared a common ancestory.
Now, if we go back that century and consider ENT canon, we can safely say that this Nero isn’t an unrealistic interpretation of some of the Vulcans of that era who abandoned the teaching of Surak. The mood filled look on his face would certainly indicate that he doesn’t hold the IDIC, or the Teaching of Surak in high regard. The Tatoos on his face, for me, imply that he’s not a Romulan. Romulans, from all we know about them, are Nationalist; almost to the point of Facism. They are extemely Xenophobic.
The Vulcans, on the other hand, have a diverse culture and there were several instances of Vulcans leaving the homeworld and exploring other religious avenues that could more easily explain his strange tattoos.
This is Star Trek, so whomever the villain is, in all likilhood, is a goverment official who would like nothing more than to drag the battered hull of the Federation Star Ship to the homeworld as a trophy of the glorious defeat of the Federation.
As was made clear in Star Trek X (If you consider it a real Trek Movie) the Romulans don’t really care who you are, or what you look like, just so long as you can beat the bloody hell out of your foes. So, it’s hard to say. It’s just important to note that pissed off person with pointy ears doesn’t automatically make them romulan.
Kirk (played by Chris Pine) is in a Black Uniform, instead of the usual gold for command officers during the TOS era. According to Co-Producer Damon Lindelof, the Black uniform is significant to the story leading up tot his scene. I don’t know what to make of this. Surely, when thinking of Federation Officers in Black Uniforms, my mind quickly drums up Sloane from Section 31.
In Deep Space 9, Sloane was an operative of a rouge organization known as Section 31. It’s an officially non-existent and autonomous organization within Starfleet Intellegence. It’s the Federation equivilent to the Romulan Tal’Shar or the Cardassian Obsidean Order.
The goal of Section 31 was to deal with threats to the Federation in cases where the Federation wasn’t in a position to deal with them itself. One example is when Section 31 secretly made Odo a carrier of a virus that would hopefully infect the Founders in an attempt to destory the race. As the Federation were in the midst of a war with the Dominion, killing the Founders would topple the Dominion.
Of course, one important factor of being an operative of Section 31 is that no one is suppose to know you’re a member of Section 31. Hell, nobody’s even suppose to know of the existance of 31.
However, it’s been established that Section 31 dates back to the Federation Charter, and that the prospect of a story line where Kirk isn’t bounded by the Prime Directive would put a twist on the beaten-to-death righeous Star Fleet versus The Big Bad.
One could speculate that perhaps Kirk was commissioned by Section 31 to deal with said Big Bad, when dealing with them would be a clear violation of The Prime Directive. Perhaps the B-Story is Kirk’s struggle between his institutional beliefs of non-interference and the nessesity of protecting the Federation from this threat.
It would be a great story for McCoy, who historically was Kirk’s conscience. McCoy could disagree with the entire premise of Kirk’s plan, and would provide Kirk with a needed voice of reason as his good intentions lead him to hell. This would play off well with Spock, who’s perspective would most likely be the logic of not handing over the federation to the romulans… or the bad vulcans. Whatever. One of the main themes of Star Trek was that wherever Kirk led, Bones and Spock followed – rather they agreed with it or not. Even though they’d tell Kirk how they felt, it took a whole hell of a lot before they’d work against him.
One Last Question: What’s going on here? This doesn’t look like Romulus, and the light side of Remus is too warm for a winter wasteland. It could be the Breen Homeworld, however there’s conflicting accounts on rather or not it’s even cold there (The Breen wear refridgeration suits because their homeworld is so cold, however Weyun says that the Breen homeworld isn’t cold at all). This could indicate that it’s Andor or, at least one of it’s sister worlds, however it’s important to note that the galaxy is filled with cold worlds covered in ice. If it is Andor, this would agree with the Vulcan theory earlier in this post.
So, in conclusion, I have no idea about any of this. Your guess is as good as mine. It’s fun to speculate though. Who knows, maybe I’m right. All I’m saying is that Star Trek is awesome, and I can’t wait for this movie!
