Star Trek part 3:  the death of Vulcan

In examining the new 2009 move Star Trek, we explored the problems posed by a little matter, the passing of a formula from the future to its own discoverer in the past.  In a way that seems a silly place to have started, because it happened within sight of the much bigger change to the past, the complete annihilation of that planet which was in story terms the only Federation planet besides Earth that ever really mattered until the Bajorans joined the Federation, home of Spock, Sarek, Tuvok, and Valeris just to touch the most notable, Vulcan.  It is consumed by a black hole created within it.

The notion that a black hole can be created by a drop of otherwise apparently containable "red matter" is excusable as a science fiction advance; we are not expected to know how it works, because it is centuries beyond us.  A bigger problem is what we might call the foolishness of using black holes to treat other problems.  Once a black hole is created, it thereafter grows larger and more powerful for the rest of time, consuming everything in its reach and extending its reach as it feeds.  There might be such a thing as a "little" black hole, but it will not stay little.  It is also unlikely that a black hole could send someone into the past.  The science of the fiction, though, is not our concern.  It is the impact of the time travel that catches our attention.

It is difficult to gauge just how much impact this event has on the history of the universe.  We get glimpses, now and again, of Vulcan involvement in the Federation.  In one episode, a ship crewed by Vulcans is reported lost in an instant.  Vulcan officers appear here and there.  Ambassador Sarek stands by Earth with the power that comes from representing one of the Federation's most technologically advanced members.  All of that has been at the very least threatened, as the young Spock notes he is now a member of an endangered species and the older Spock eventually reports having set up a colony on a small planet for the scattered survivors of the lost world to start anew.  Yes, their culture and perhaps the best of their knowledge was all preserved in the rescue of the elders, but they are not the force in the universe that they were.

More significantly to our time problems, though, is the fact that the Spock who failed to rescue Romulus was traveling from Vulcan on the best ship Vulcan could provide, apparently carrying Vulcan technology.  As mentioned last time, he was mere minutes shy of saving Romulus, and the N-jump resolution of time depends on the next Spock failing to rescue Romulus and being caught along with Nero in the same temporal vortex he creates, so as to be thrown into the same past.

The unknowns here are too great even for speculation.  Has Vulcan's technology been set back such that the ship will be the poorer, or the black hole technology not ready?  Will the new Vulcan home be closer to or farther from Romulus?  The impact on the young Spock himself cannot be discounted.  Will his determination to save his mother and his home drive him to find salvation for Romulus sooner?  Will his knowledge of his previous failure cause him to look for a different solution, or call for the evacuation of Romulus in sufficient time to save the people?

On the other hand, the older Spock is likely to recognize the importance of preserving time, and although he may have fewer years left to him than the actor who plays him, he could take steps now to protect the necessary events of the future and enable his younger self to follow that part of the path into the past.  Time could be saved even here.

That raises the next question:  what happens when the two Spocks meet?