Before Star Trek: Discovery was around, back in 2009, J.J. Abrams set up several mysteries during the first Kelvin Timeline movie. The imaginatively named Star Trek. The most significant one of these for the 'Prime' Star Trek timeline was the Romulan Supernova. But is Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 e...
Even the Romulan-heavy Star Trek: Picard Season 1 avoided addressing or explaining the supernova in any detail.
Explaining? Stars go supernova occasionally, there's your explanation. There doesn't need to be further cause or intervention behind it.
IMO this is a solution (or really several) looking for a problem that just doesn't exist. As it stands and despite fan speculation, Romulus was destroyed by a natural disaster, which is actually something that happens on Earth and in the wider universe.
Not spontaneously, with only a handful of years' notice, they don't.
I'm all for Trek science being a little weird, but it seems very likely that there was some funny business going on for the star to suddenly blow up and threaten the entire galaxy.
Explaining? Stars go supernova occasionally, there’s your explanation. There doesn’t need to be further cause or intervention behind it.
Stars don't just randomly supernova. Stars have extremely predictable lifecycles. It's hard to believe a warp-capable species never made it past a 19th century understanding of how their sun works, especially given how fundamental the underlying principles are to our own ability to observe and understand the universe.
It's a plot hole in ST '09, though I agree that maybe it is best ignored unless they can come up with a truly compelling explanation.
Uhm, I don’t need the Romulan Supernova to be tied up with a bow.
But I also appreciate that writers like to be able to be the ones to bring closure to their own stories. Alex Kurtzman was the cowriter of Star Trek (2009). I can see how he would like to be the one to lay down the incontrovertible canon that ties the loose ends that the Kelvin movies and Picard have left us with. And he’s co Showrunner of Discovery so it was his vehicle to do it with.
So, I would be cool if this resolves some things and helps us to understand better the butterfly effect that destroyed a civilization, split the resilient Prime time and perhaps even give us some deeper hints on what caused the Mirror Universe to split off.
There’s enough evidence with the shear amount of canon inaccuracies in Discovery, Picard S1 & S2, LD & SNW that they are actually set in the Kelvin timeline.
They can’t all be down to bad writing, a lot of them sure, but not all.
The whole premise of the supernova in ST 09 was the product of terrible writing.