Feature: Eleven Is Prime

[Wowbagger]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Wowbagger, whether or not you took this seriously, you wrote quite a lot of material that made it look like you were. If you didn't believe it, why write it in the first place?

Why did Captain Kirk climb El Capitan?

The act in question is either morally neutral (no life, no harm done -- I lean this way) or atrociously evil (who knows what life might have arisen there someday?). It's either not a crime or the worst crime ever, so let's compromise and call it twenty years!

...but God help you if you save the Boraalans.

I hate what the Prime Directive became. Phlox is one thing; he was always a little morally shady. But I never forgave the producers for allowing Picard to become a mass-murderer-by-negligence.

First take the in-story perspective. A human who had done what Spock did would kill himself. No questions asked, no ideas about redemption, just fly into the nearest star. Assuming Spock didn't do the same, then yes, as in XIP, he would do his best to fix the situation. But in this case, that does not translate to "help Kirk beat Nero, then just hang around in case anyone needs advice next movie." No, unless Spock is utterly devoid of responsibility, it translates to "help Kirk beat Nero, then at the absolute earliest chance, fix Romulus."

Well, I wouldn't kill myself, but I might be depraved.

Still, you raise a point. XIP just sort of dumps a bereft Spock Prime on the 2260s universe and lets him lie there. There were a few reasons for this:

(1) Honestly, I was just mentally exhausted.

(2) Spock Prime is in a predestination paradox, and now *knows* he's in a predestination paradox. He'd know better than anyone who difficult -- and dangerous -- it is to untangle one, assuming it's even possible (and canon evidence on this conflicts). Even crushed by profound grief, it's not clear to me that Spock would do anything besides live out his life, as best he could, in the absolute penance of near-perfect isolation.

(3) The question of "what does Spock Prime do in the past" is sort of out-of-scope, or so it seemed to me. XIP aims to resolve inconsistencies in the two timelines. Whatever Spock Prime does in the past, we know it doesn't have any impact on anything (beyond what I mentioned in XIP) up until at least 2387.

It is, to my mind, entirely possible that Spock Prime does orchestrate a plan to save Romulus and undo his greatest sin. In order to ensure that the predestination paradox doesn't unravel, however, he would have to do it in such a way that the Spock of 2387 still sees Romulus destroyed, and Nero still comes back in time and seeks vengeance for it. Otherwise, the Spock Prime who set the plan in motion will never exist, and the original timeline will reassert itself.

So whatever Spock Prime does to save Romulus, it would have to be similar to what The Doctor (of Doctor Who) did to

Spoiler: MASSIVE SPOILER 

save Gallifrey in "Day of the Doctor."

Telling that story would be a tremendous thrill in and of itself, and I think you're right that Spock The Accidental Genocide could not simply come to terms and give up, any more than he could come to terms with the death of JTK -- but it seemed like Bring Back Romulus was a step beyond the story XIP could plausibly tell. (Of course, some readers might say that XIP was already well beyond the point of plausibility.)

(4) Above all, I didn't want to touch on what Spock Prime did in the 2260s, beyond what seemed necessary, because I was afraid the producers might use him again in Twelve, thus complicating things for me in the revision. And, sure enough, they did -- but pointlessly, I'm glad to say.

There's a line between "this should be explained" and "nah, just ignore it" that each of us draws in a different place. In reading XIP, I was reminded where I draw mine: after events, but before visuals. Wowbagger does a great job justifying the differences between the original and reboot Enterprise. If you like that sort of thing, it's the sort of thing you'll like -- but I wouldn't have bothered.

I actually draw it the same place you do, but I predicted that, if I didn't touch on visuals, that's where the theory would get banged on the hardest. I hate what I came up with, too. "Defit" my foot.

More later, hopefully. Must run now.