Star Trek (film)/WMG

The aesthetic/technologic differences of the alternate universe starships (and those of other technologies) were caused by reverse-engineering debris from the Narada
When the Kelvin crashed into the Narada, there was most likely a lot of debris spread into space from the crippled ship. With the loss of a Federation starship, it can be assumed that more would be sent to investigate. When the ships finally got there, the Narada had already made sufficient repairs and left, however, also abandoning the wrecked Kelvin's debris and the debris of its own. In addition to being a 24th century starship (albeit a rather shoddy one), it was enhanced with Borg technology, which contains nanites that could possibly contain information from databanks of the 24th century. Gathering this information, whether in bits and pieces or all together, the Federation was successfully able to upgrade its fleet with advanced technology, which may have had an impact on the aesthetics of said technology.
 * Combine this with the theory below that the Kelvin was outfitted with experimental technology at the time, this would triple the priority for the Federation to salvage it.
 * Or it could be like the Flashpoint crossover from DC, any major change in the timeline sends massive ripples to the past and future and radically changes events, like technology being more advanced.

All the attempts to correct the timeline in various pre-2009 Trek episodes were failures
There are many, many episodes of the various Trek series in which someone goes back in time to alter or restore something, and ends up happy that they have fixed the 'main' timeline. These alterations often include heroic sacrifices by characters who think it won't matter because their actions will be undone when the timeline is restored. However, the 2009 film stresses that all Nero's time-meddling does is create a spin-off alternate universe. So, all those 'original timelines' in which the Federation is losing a war to the Klingons, Voyager crashed on the ice planet, Voyager got home 20 years later, Kes went mental and tried to kill everyone, the Borg assimilated Earth, Picard destroyed the whole universe, Jake Sisko grew up into a loser, etc., etc., are still running - full of supporting characters who are now in even more trouble as a result of the main cast's absence.
 * There are actually books out there with deal with this. At least one of those books is based off the timeline which the Enterprise-C vanished from, and the aftermath of the Enterprise-D's destruction to send it "back," needless to say it is not a happy universe.

Nero was working with the Shadows prior to the destruction of Romulus in Star Trek XI
"Mining ship?" Sure it was. The Narada looks a lot more like a Shadow vessel from Babylon 5 than any Romulan ship we've seen previously, which means Nero was allied with the Shadows and thoroughly evil even prior to the destruction of Romulus.
 * The prequel comic shows that the Narada was, originally, indeed just a mining ship, but then it was upgraded with scavenged Borg tech, turning it into the freakish thing seen in the movie.
 * The prequel comic is only deuterocanon. And after Janeway's experiences with the Borg, Federation tech in the original timeline's 24th and 25th centuries was at least at that level on its own, if not better; they just rejected the design aesthetic. And messing with Borg tech is not something to be done lightly. At least the Shadows don't immediately try to assimilate anyone that interests them.
 * During the director's commentary, JJ Abrams flat out states the comic is canon and recommends people read it to get the full backstory. That's good enough.

The "main Trek" timeline will be restored to a "Close Enough" Timeline.
The Star Trek XI timeline crew is now different than the TOS crew, and as such will be subtly (or not so subtly) different than the characters we've seen, and may take action their main-timeline counterparts would not. Also, old Spock might work with new Spock, given the knowledge old Spock has. As such, Romulus may yet be saved from the supernova in the Star Trek XI timeline, meaning Nero would never travel back in time and the main Trek timeline would be restored.

There is precedent in the Trekverse for taking several decades to restore the "correct" timeline. See Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's "The Visitor," which suggests that the timeline we were watching had been subtly wrong and uncorrected for centuries! It was fixed only near the end of the episode.
 * That would just create a divergent timeline where Romulus is saved.
 * Call it a "divergent timeline" if you will, but that "divergent timeline" might be identical to the main timeline. Or even better, a timeline nearly identical to the main one except that actions are taken such that Romulus is not destroyed.
 * Star Trek changes the rules of time travel on an episode-by-episode basis, but the system they seemed to be going for in the movie was the many worlds model. The original timeline still exists, but the actions in the past created a new timeline that runs concurrent to it. The prequel comic carries on for several pages after the Narada goes back in time, with no indication that everyone is about to blink out of existence.

The "altered" timeline is the "main Trek" timeline.
This. If you have a 'lot' of free time (and if you're troping, then you do), then it's worth a read. The author uses an enormous time paradox to explain "red matter," the destruction of Romulus, Nero's motivations, Future!Spock's erratic behavior, the destruction of Vulcan, the Enterprise redesign, and about a million other minor continuity problems in the movie. It makes a surprising amount of sense, given that it is completely insane.

Old Spock comes from another divergent timeline
First Contact has the Borg attempt to change Earth's past. Their encounter with the Enterprise-E leaves Borg debris on Earth, which is found by the NX-01 Enterprise. This is already a divergent timeline, since in the original there were no Borg near Earth for several centuries yet.

Romulus is destroyed years later in this timeline, and Spock goes to the new movie.

Somewhere, the pre-"First Contact" timeline still exists, and Romulus is not destroyed. The Old Spock we see is a second hand original Spock.
 * Third-hand. He died and was reborn on the Genesis planet... Maybe even fourth-hand.
 * Not necessarily. It could be a Stable Time Loop, and there actually isn't any First Contact timeline without Federation and Borg assistance/interference. Who knows whether Cochrane's ship would have got off the ground without Geordi getting his paws on it.
 * Temporal Investigations hates when this happens. The fact that they outright state that they hate it means that it has happened, so this is entirely plausible.

The destruction of Romulus and Vulcan is an act of sabotage, part of the Temporal Cold War.
A star goes supernova and destroys Romulus, threatening the galaxy and universe? No natural supernova or black hole can do that (with our current understanding of science, anyway) -- it's against the laws of physics.

The entire thing seems like an act to cripple the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire, two of the major powers in the Alpha Quadrant, in a single stroke.

Remember, this is an universe where Admiral Archer livesas in, the man who was involved in the Temporal Cold War. Now, if this is an act of sabotage by an agent in the TCW, then a lot of things suddenly make sense: the star was destroyed by means yet unknown to Nimoy!Spock using future technology; the Romulan and Vulcan governments may have been manipulated (or not, since their prejudice and distrust might have been enough without further interference); the crippling of two major Alpha powers would lead to favorable outcomes to various third parties; etc.
 * FTL, time travel and transporters are also against the current laws of physics. Just go with it.
 * Quantum physics and a number of other newer fields of research tend to make every single one of those things completely plausible within the context of real-world science. Newtonian and Relativistic Physics are not the be-all, end-all of our understanding. And while FTL travel and time travel both remain theoretical at best based on our current understanding, the physics which would potentially allow FTL communication and teleportation of non-organic matter are currently being researched with a significant degree of potential success.

The Romulan empire was radically changed in the reality that Spock Prime originated from (original or otherwise).
If the supernova was big enough to destroy Romulus, then it is almost certainly big enough to destroy Remus too. Thus, the two most critical planets to the Romulan empire are gone. This leaves the surviving Romulans with a choice: Take destructive revenge like Nero did or, if relations improved as Star Trek: Nemesis suggested, ally with the Federation. It's even possible that they could ally with the Cardassians, Vulcans or Klingons.
 * Much like Federation assistance following the destruction of Praxis in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country led to improved Klingon-Federation relations.
 * This is just what I've been thinking, and hoping we see in the next Trek movie. Hints for a Federation-Romulan alliance. The Romulans would have to be appalled by what Nero has done, so I'd imagine them being at least a bit friendlier. Hell, this may even lead to the unification of Vulcans and Romulans, something Spock Prime had been struggling to achieve in the TNG era.
 * One of the subtle reasons that the reunification hasn't occurred in the Prime timeline is because both Vulcans and Romulans are worried about the other's culture destroying theirs. With so few Vulcans left the Romulans might be far more willing to reunify. And if the Romulans do reunify with Vulcan then an alliance or even outright joining the Federation would make alot of sense.
 * It might be worth noting that the novelization changes the whole "supernova threatening the galaxy" to "supernova threatening everything in its vicinity."

In the new universe, all events that involves Vulcans are wildly changed. Therefore:
Star Trek V the Final Frontier either never happened or changed dramatically.
 * Sybok is said to have been exiled from Vulcan, and it's implied that this happened while Spock was fairly young. The loss of his world would undoubtedly have changed his history, but he's one of the few Vulcans we should put in the "Very likely to still be alive" category.

Star Trek Voyager is radically different: Tuvok is gone, replaced, or perhaps more sympathetic to the Maquis. It's even possible that it never happened, since Tuvok was the spy who brought the ships together.
 * According to Tuvok's biography on Memory Alpha, he was born on a Vulcan colony, so I think we should put him in the "very likely to be alive" category as well. In the original timeline, he was a baby during the original series's missions, but if Chekov can be born SOONER to attend Starfleet Academy with Kirk and Co., then so can Tuvok. Besides, it would be interesting to see a full-blooded Vulcan like Tuvok working with Spock, esp. since in the original timeline, Teen!Tuvok fell in love with a Terrelian girl, and was quite the rebel himself.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture will be ten minutes shorter. No complaints.

Most of Spock's conversations in Star Trek I-VI will not happen, but it has enough shout outs to make up for it. 

Christopher Pike won't be crippled due to delta radiation. One can hope.
 * Wasn't he crippled by Nero's interrogation? He's in a wheelchair at the awards ceremony.
 * He's in a wheelchair shortly after the torture. He could get better.
 * If hes crippled only from the waist down that is a pretty big improvement over being unable to do anything at all physically but with his mind still intact.
 * Since the events of this movie accelerated the careers of the Enterprise crew, causing Kirk to take command years earlier than he should have, it may be Kirk who falls victim to delta radiation poisoning.
 * No, Pike's accident occurred when he was a Fleet Captain not in command of the Enterprise, so unless Kirk is on an ispection tour of another Captain's star ship this couldn't happen.

The expanded universe novels mentioning the Kobayashi Maru do not happen, including The Kobayashi Maru. (If they ever happened before.)

The game Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury will not even get the opportunity to be canceled.

"Unification" I-II doesn't happen, assuming the events of TNG occur.

Star Trek IV the Voyage Home will begin differently because Spock will be taking a different test with a different examiner, and it will be on whatever colony planet the surviving Vulcans colonize. (Spock Prime did find one.) It should get back on track fast enough, though. That's the optimistic interpretation, natch...

If the new colony planet doesn't have the right spiritual parameters or if the wrong Vulcan elders were killed, then the end of Star Trek III the Search For Spock won't happen. This will be tragic for McCoy (or Uhura or Kirk, if the Spock-McCoy friendship fails to happen). It will also be sad for Spock but, since it's unlikely he suffered more in that film than he did at the end of "The Wrath of Khan," not quite as tragic.
 * A lot of Star Trek III wouldn't happen, would it? The Klingons would still destroy the USS Grissom, presumably capturing the away team (whoever they were,) and getting away with whatever data they could. With Starfleet so far away from the Genesis Planet and no dead Spock to retrieve, no other ships would be close enough to investigate the missing Grissom before Reverend Jim and his crew could get away. Then who knows what might have happened? A most radical revision of the timeline then, hm?

Similarly, any event involving descendants of Starfleet personnel will be changed:
It is certain that Starfleet suffered a large number of casualties in the showdown with Nero; they lost all the cadets on the seven ships that arrived before the Enterprise, and likely seven instructors as well. This should presumably lead to changes in the timeline.

Besides the actual deaths, some shuffling of personnel will occur; retirements may be delayed; enlistment numbers and requirements may change to make up for the lost cadets...

This will change events for characters who were directly related to Starfleet officers in the original timeline (for instance: Janeway, Riker, Troi, Paris). This, in turn, could change how other events, like the fight against the Borg, would play out.

Hey, we can already see it happening. Pavel Chekov clearly has different genetics in this 'verse than the original, and this has made a noticeable difference.

The only people who will graduate Starfleet for four years -- from the year above Kirk to two years below him -- will be either cadets aboard the Enterprise or cadets who, for whatever reason, were ineligible to leave Earth at all. Everyone else is dead! That means that, in the period corresponding to TOS, there should be no more than a hundred or so people in Starfleet near Kirk's age. We do not know if Lieutenant Kevin Riley or Yeoman Janice Rand are even alive.
 * When McCoy was yelling for some hypo or other to counter an allergic reaction, he called for "Nurse Chapel!" who responded immediately with "Yes sir!"
 * Highly unlikely Yeoman Janice Rand is dead. She probably started as an NCO, and likely would not have been in the training cruise. Or she wouldn't even be of Starfleet Academy age at this time.

In the new universe, Kirk and Spock aren't friends.
Kirk insults Spock's dead mother and goads him into a humiliating public tantrum. It has to be stopped by his father and costs him his first captaincy. Even a Vulcan has to bear some sort of grudge for that. Later Spock comes up with a plan and Kirk helps him out, risking his life and saving Spock's in the process. But that's just his job, and he never apologises for the original insult. Spock recognises Kirk is a excellent captain and volunteers to serve with him, but there's no friendship involved.
 * Classic Spock directly told New Spock to be friends with Kirk. Spock's the type to take his own word for it. Also, Original Kirk did almost the exact same thing to Original Spock once, and their friendship got past it.
 * That was in the TOS episode "This Side of Paradise". Spock actually complimented Kirk on his sharp thinking as to how to push Spock's Berserk Button and counteract the effect of the spores. It's likely New Spock now thinks the same way about New Kirk's actions.
 * It should be noted that it's still early days yet in their acquaintance.

The Spock of the new universe will be more comfortable with his emotions than Spock Prime ever was.
The aforementioned public tantrum, his relationship with Uhura, and his decision regarding Nero at the end of the film all imply that the Spock of the new reality will be able to integrate his human emotions far better than Spock Prime ever could have. It's evidenced all throughout the movie, especially when dealing with other, pure-bred Vulcans. The conclusion being that we will have a Spock who is more comfortable showing emotions and is better at dealing with them, and won't take any implication of an 'emotional response' as an insult like his original version would have.
 * The reverence with which Spock Prime speaks of his friendship with Kirk Prime seems to suggest that he may have become comfortable with having emotions if not outright showing them.
 * There's also the earlier revelation of the connection between Vulcan and Romulus, which makes the flaws of Vulcans very clear to the rest of the Federation, which in turn leads to more scrutiny and less political clout.
 * Something else to consider - part of why Spock has always tried to play down his emotional side is because he felt it made him stand out when compared to other Vulcans. In a world where Vulcan culture undergoes a radical change (and it absolutely will with the destruction of their homeworld and loss of most of their population), and a new awareness of the Vulcan/Romulan connection much, much earlier, Spock will almost certainly have less reason to maintain his emotional detachment - likely coming to terms with his own human side more easily.
 * There's also the fact that this universe's Sarek seems to be easier with Spock's emotions than the original Trek's Sarek. Note that there is not one mention of the Noodle Incident scene cited in TOS's "Journey to Babel" in which Original Sarek virtually disowned Original Spock for eighteen years after he chose to attend Starfleet Academy instead of the Vulcan Science Academy. To the contrary, to every appearance, Sarek appears to be proud of Spock for his Take That to the Vulcan High Council.

In the new universe, the events of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier still happen, more or less as shown, but with the roles of Spock and Sybok reversed.
This is a combination of several of the above theories. New Spock might become so comfortable with his emotions that he becomes as openly emotional as Sybok in Star Trek V, eventually leaving Starfleet to search for Shaka-ri. Meanwhile, Sybok (as noted above, "very likely to still be alive") might turn to cold logic as a means of dealing with his grief over the destruction of Vulcan and perhaps eventually be led to join Starfleet. Also, when Spock left Starfleet at the start of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kirk specifically requested a Vulcan science officer. If this Kirk does the same when Spock leaves, then Sybok is more likely to be available than Saavik is.

Nero is a Reman.
He looks a lot more like Shinzon in Star Trek Nemesis than he looks like any other Romulan we've seen. (Shinzon was a human clone, but he was raised as a Reman, so his personal style would be Reman.) Secondly, all the interior spaces of his ship were dark; Remans have a strong aversion to light, Romulans do not, and all interior spaces of Romulan ships we've seen previously are lighted normally. As a Reman, Nero would not be particularly upset about the destruction of Romulus; it is the destruction of Remus (the twin planet of Romulus and almost certainly also destroyed in the supernova) that set him off. He claims to be Romulan and seeking revenge for the destruction of Romulus so that any pre-emptive Federation counterstrike will fall against Romulus, not Remus.


 * The only way this works is if they got some crazy effective Magic Plastic Surgery. Consider that they look far more like Romulans than they do Remans.

Nero is a hybrid.
Half Romulan, half Reman -- the laws of Trek biology allow for this easily. He claims to be a miner; Remans are also miners. We know that Remans rose to power on Romulus in "Nemesis"; perhaps, by the time that Future Spock comes from, there were many hybrids on the mining worlds -- maybe even enough to crew an entire mining ship.

The Narada is a Reman ship that Nero was assigned to.
Remans are Miners, after all. And the Narada doesn't look like any Romulan ship.

In the newest film, Chekov has a speech impediment.
He could get Super Cool Space Therapy for it, but he would rather not.

It is much more appealing than just a really bad accent.

The accent Chekov uses in this film is the normal Russian accent in the Federation in his century.
Regional accents do shift over time.
 * Isn't Chekov's speech impediment one of the few things this universe has in common with the "Prime" universe? "Nuclear wessels", ring a bell?
 * Well, his prime universe accent is slightly less caricatured, but that might be since it wasn't based off of any prior portrayal. And we meet the fella about seven years later. His accent could reasonably soften over time.

Spock is Sylar
Sylar can shapeshift to change his ears, and is immortal so he could live into the Star Trek timeline. Wanting the logic, mind meld, and neck pinch powers he kills and replaces a young Spock, and slowly reveals his original face as he grows up so he doesn't have to stay as Spock forever.
 * He wanted to examine Spock's brain, so he just watched the episode SPOCK'S BRAIN, and that was close enough.

Spock is not Sylar but is a direct descendant of him
Sylar, or Gabriel Gray, has a son who, wanting to distance himself from his father's assumed name and back to his family roots, takes the surname Gray's Son or Grayson...several generations down the family line a girl is born that the family name Amanda, who goes on to marry Sarek of Vulcan and have a son...
 * Are you me?

In the altered timeline, Spock is no longer betrothed to T'Pring
With the video and eyewitness accounts from the Kelvin, Starfleet learns that Romulans look like Vulcans thirty years earlier than in the original timeline; it could put enough of a strain on Vulcan/Earth relations that T'Pring's parents would be reluctant to bond their daughter to a half-human who's the son of the Ambassador to Earth. As an adult, this allows Spock to have a relationship with Uhura, even though at a similar point in his life in the original timeline he "couldn't even put his arms around" Leila from This Side of Paradise.
 * Plus, with most of the Vulcan population now dead...
 * Yeah, but I'm going with the assumption that he was involved with Uhura pre Vulcan going boom (and that that's why they have the discussion about whether it'd be favouritism to assign her to the Enterprise).
 * It is never definitively established that no one knows what Romulans look like prior to "Balance of Terror" -- only that the Enterprise bridge crew doesn't. They may just be too young and only know about the Romulans from books. Given that within seconds of seeing one, an Enterprise crewman decides that Spock and all Vulcans are traitors, the relationship is probably just played down in schools.
 * Given that the Enterprise was on a mission on the Romulan border, it would be very, very uncharacteristically stupid of them not to learn all they could about Romulans-- and the fact that they're related to one of the Federation's major races would be an implausibly big fact to miss. At the very least, Spock would do the research.
 * Even if this were true, it would not preclude Sarek arranging another betrothal for his son as having a bondmate when the time comes is a matter of life and death. If not T'Pring, then any of potentially thousands would do. It is possible that she died before he met Uhura and just as likely that she had not, though it is almost certain that she died by the end of the movie.
 * It all makes sense now! Because Spock isn't betrothed to anyone, during Pon Farr, he has to make do with someone on the Enterprise. Someone he's very close to. Insert bad Slash Fic here.
 * With so few Vulcans left, the ritual of pon farr may no longer be something that Vulcans can biologically afford to honor. They may find it necessary to become polygamous, with each woman taking several mates that live apart from one another, rather than lose precious genetic lines to men killing each other in a Mate or Die rage.
 * It's altogether possible that he was betrothed to T'Pring, but got with Uhura as a measure of rebellion. Then T'Pring died when Vulcan was destroyed, adding to his angst. (read: guilt that he technically cheated on his "wife")
 * OR, he was never bethrothed to T'Pring due to obvious Vulcan prejudice about him being half-human. I highly doubt that there would have been a lot of candidates willing to bond their daughter to Spock considering how racist most Vulcans seemed in the movie.

Spock gave a different salute to go along with that vitriolic "Live Long and Prosper".
He gave them the "Trudeau Salute" instead.

Older Spock's view of the destruction of Vulcan was a telepathic impression, not an actual view.
Makes more sense than seeing it in the sky I feel.
 * Hey, that's just what I was thinking! Except I probably would've found an excuse to put a certain Star Wars line in.
 * "As if millions of voices all cried out at once, and were suddenly silenced."
 * The concept of a sensitive being aware of a large number of deaths without direct evidence is Older Than You Think Well before Obi-Wan Kenobi, there was a TOS episode where Spock was visibly discomforted at the destruction of a ship with 400 Vulcans on it even though they were nowhere near it. Imagine the feeling of 6 billion.
 * That could(?) explain why he was waiting in the cave for Kirk rather than going to the Federation outpost to warn them too- If it goes like this: ::Spock exits wormhole->Spock put on planet->Vulcan destroyed->Spock=Psychic shock type thing:: it could work. Maybe.
 * Or Older Spock has enough experience with black holes, planets being destroyed, and Vulcan that when he saw the planet go he could tell what it should look like it pretty well with out seeing it at all.

All the other changes in the new Universe are due to future time travel being changed.
In the original timeline, the members of the various Enterprise; Deep Space Nine; Voyager etc. go back in time a lot. Now that they are different, those "future" time travel changes will either not happen, or will happen differently. This results in technological and social differences in the current timeline not explainable by Nero's actions alone.
 * Yes! This explains both major changes (how exactly did Nokia survive into the 23rd century?) and minor ones. (TOS McCoy had very blue eyes; this film's McCoy has dark eyes; and he was almost certainly born before the Kelvin was destroyed.)

The Movie-verse Federation was founded by Roy Mustang.
All the women wear tiny miniskirts as part of their uniform. Just look at Uhura.
 * We are looking, thanks.
 * This Troper cried laughing.

In the original timeline, by the end of the 24th century, the Federation is approaching collapse, or at least a major dark age.
The apparent continued existence of the Federation in the 29th century could be taken as Jossing this theory, but it could be that they returned to prominence. In any case, ~240 years is a long time for a state as heterogeneous as the Federation to endure so changelessly. See also 'The Federation is becoming more warlike' above.
 * Confirmed by Star Trek Online, I think, which describes the current galaxy as a Crapsack World.

The Star Trek XI Timeline, prior to the arrival of Nero, is a continuation of the 'Enterprise' Timeline, whereas TOS, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager belong to a separate timeline.
This would explain why noone outside of Enterprise has ever heard of the NX-01, why the NX-01 is not on Picard's ship display on the Enterprise D nor on the display of ships on the recreation deck in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, why the technology and general look of Trek XI is conserably more advanced looking and any other change that occurs to the history pre-Nero...it also explains the mention of Admiral Archer and his Beagle.
 * The implication was that "first contact" was a predestination paradox. The Borg's attempt to stop the flight of the Pheonix actually assured that it would happen. The Enterprise timeline 'is'' the original timeline. References to enterprise are few and far between in the TNG era but do exist. In fact in "Nemesis" there was a ship called the U.S.S. Archer apparently named after him.
 * As far as This Troper knows, this is practically canon.
 * More advanced looking?
 * This troper always assumed that one of the things sparked by the destruction of the Kelvin was the cause of massive research into star ship designs to combat any similar event. Which led to tweaks in the designs of preexisting ships.

The scene in which Kirk is promoted to captain and assigned command of the Enterprise occurs a few years after the rest of the movie.
Even given his saving the planet, an instant promotion from cadet to captain would be unlikely. And a happy, congratulatory ceremony such as we see would be highly inappropriate just days or even weeks after the loss of six billion lives and one of the major planets in the Federation. The dark red uniforms Kirk et al. are wearing in that scene are not (as is commonly assumed, but never explicitly stated) merely cadet uniforms but a sort of dress uniform which is worn by officers on certain occasions as well as being the usual cadet uniform. And since Kirk, McCoy, and Uhura do not appear to visibly age between the time they enter they academy and the crisis on Vulcan three years later, the main crew might also not show signs of aging for another two or three years after that.
 * This is genius. Think about how long it would take to fix the catastrophic damage the Enterprise took in the fight, as well. Not enough to make it NCC-1701-A, but it would require some hefty TLC.
 * Except, given the movies use of loaction/date subtitles (ie, 25 Years Later, VULCAN), the fact that they didn't include one on this scene seems to imply that it was immediatly after the preceding one.
 * Imply, yes, guarantee, no. If nothing else, this is more plausible than the idea that an entire shipload of rookies would be promoted to command slots in a major naval vessel when half of them don't even have a college-level degree in shiphandling and command skills yet.
 * Also, the ship was getting badly torn up structurally as they tried to escape the black hole after the final battle and the destruction of the Narada. We saw a viewscreen on the bridge crack under tidal stresses. That implies major damage to the ship's hull frame that would would be difficult to repair; you'd pretty much have to take the ship apart and put it back together, a process that could easily take nearly as much time as building the ship in the first place.
 * More logically: Brevet promotion, with full promotion guaranteed after completion of appropriate training. Oh, and Cadet Kirk, it looks like even with your brevet command, you've a lot of free time while we put your ship back together from you nearly flying it into a black hole. So, off you go, studying to do.

Q was playing merry havoc with probability in the new timeline
We know that, for all his bravado, he has a soft spot for Earth and the Federation. Knowing that without the whole crew the Enterprise wouldn't be able to succeed, he manipulated events to ensure that Kirk would make it onto the ship NOW rather than years later, Scotty would be in position to get onto it despite not being appreciated enough at that time, Chekov would be helmsman even though he was but 17, Uhura would feel strongly enough about serving on the Enterprise that she demand placement (rather than transfer later; this desire may be because of a new relationship Q instigated between her and Spock), etc. One is at first tempted to label all these unusual circumstances unrelated to the change that did not probably happen in the original timeline as Deus Ex Machina. The thing is, we know a local deus, and, while he doesn't rely on machina, he does have a soft spot for Earth and enjoys poking things until they fit the way he wants them to.
 * If it seems at all like he wouldn't do so much, remember that if he doesn't do this (all quite easy for someone like him, minor things that don't even bend reality), he won't get to play with Picard eighty years later. He enjoyed Picard waaay too much to not be willing to intervene to ensure that there would be a Picard to poke fun at.
 * Q has the power to ensure that ol' Jean-Luc will be born in the new timeline too.
 * Isn't everyone forgetting another powerful Godlike continium that is also very fond of a Starfleet officer? Why not the Prophets? The Prophets need a Sisko.

The Q Continuum was responsible for the events of Star Trek XI.
Star Trek Voyager episode "The Q And The Gray" involves Voyager coming across lots of stars going supernova. It turns out the reason for this is because the Q Continuum is in civil war. Fortunately, everything was solved by the end of that episode. But unfortunately they decided to have another spat, which caused the Romulan Sun to go nova.

This would explain why the star apparently threatened the entire galaxy. And how Kirk managed to meet everyone, it was all arranged by the Q after they realised Earth history was now in whack -- Q realised that if Nero blew up Earth, he wouldn't be able to play with "dear old Jean-Luc".

Data will be involved in the next movie
As you'll recall, at one point in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Data was sent back to the 19th century, and he took The Slow Path home. Well, the path just hit a fork in the road, but technically, he should still be there on earth. With the future changed, he may end up being prematurely dug up and become involved in things again.
 * Without a body? Only his head took The Slow Path.
 * Yes. Chances are he knows his circuitry well enough to instruct them in constructing him a body; worse case scenario he gets uploaded to a ship and becomes an AI (possibly having them make a holo-projector for him, also from his own memory of the designs).
 * And if Data would become the ship computer it would solve the computer voice acting problem the next movie is going to have.
 * Or his head will be found by Dr. Noonian Soong.
 * Data as a Starship Boy? With Spock being more emotional, it could make sense to add another logical character. Brilliant.
 * That would be a truly brilliant way to both get around the aging/changing-actor problem and also gently introduce sympathetic AI as a mainstream element of the verse (that is, both commonplace and accepted by the majority of characters). DO IT DO IT DO IT!

"The Cage" still happened.
Spock is the first officer, so he was evidently promoted after the last first officer left. So they still went to Talos IV and met those aliens.
 * however, it will happen with Kirk and "his" core crew.

Spock knew that going back to regroup with the rest of the fleet while Nero went on to destroy earth was illogical.
His planet had just been destroyed, and he was pretty pissed at Kirk as well. He might have subconsciously wanted to just let Nero have his way with Earth.
 * Or he was stoically suffering from a Heroic BSOD and falling back on standard procedures.

Red Matter Creates Reissner-Nordstrom Black Holes
In theoretical physics, Reissner-Nordstrom blackholes are charged black holes with two event horizons; beyond the second horizon is thought to be a parallel universe. Therefore, when Spock and Nero went through the black hole, they were not launched back in time to create an alternate universe, they were sent into a universe that was already alternate (possibly with time travelling slightly slower--hence why they are only in the early twenty-third century, while the 'prime' universe is at the end of the twenty-fourth). This accounts for the minor differences already existing between the two timelines.
 * This was practically confirmed by Word of God in an interview (though the writers said they were Kerr [i.e., rotating] black holes rather than Reissner-Nordstrom [charged] ones).
 * Using a combination of warp field and black hole for Time Travel is canon since the Original Series, it's called a temporal slingshot maneuver. In ST 4 they even use the sun to do it.
 * That involves flying around a black hole/star at warp speed, not going through it.
 * The fell through the first event horizon, slingshotted at warp speed past the singularity and were ejected out the second event horizon, thus ending up in the alternate universe.

Gallifrey is part of the federation...
and Timelord Tech is being used on board Starships. Explaining the oft stated difference in size between the inside of the Enterprise and the outside. Its bigger on the inside. So none of the characters are a Timelord...but the Enterprise is.
 * Well in the "Prime" timeline (at least the novels of TOS) there * is* a planet that matches Gallifrey's description mentioned in a couple of novels (Kirk refers to "time travellers" from a planet in the Kasterboros Constellation). And a number of people who look like the Doctor turn up (the second and the fourth at the very least).

The Narada was streaming recordings of the prime 23rd century
Listen closely during scenes inside the Narada and you'll hear odd voices chattering. To this troper, they sounded somewhat familiar and half expected a clip from the original series to be shown on a TV somewhere aboard the ship. Kinda helps with the fact that the ship is from the future, and the troper remembers seeing a screencap of Countdown where Nero is looking over files on Kirk, complete with a hologram of Kirk Prime's head.

The cop that chased young Kirk is actually a human in a suit
This was theorized by someone else after I mentioned the improbability of robots/androids in the TOS era.
 * Why would this be a wild guess? I see no reason to believe anything different?
 * It was a Breen who joined the Federation to piss off his conservative parents.
 * The proof against it? His speech pattern. Since when does a regular human address someone as "Citizen"? Plus his tone.
 * Since when does a regular human address someone as "citizen"? It's basically a common sci-fi trope for any near-future culture with at least something of a repressive society. Which in itself could be something of a mood marker demonstrating that the world we're seeing isn't quite as shiny-happy as the original series and TNG liked to pretend the Federation was.
 * Then again, (1) the cop could originally be from Russia. The police customarily address people as "Citizen" there, and there's no real reason a militiaman from St. Petersburg couldn't move to Iowa to join the Iowa State Police (note it's still called that ih the 23rd century.) (2) The cop is addressing somebody who's been driving at recklessly high speeds and has just crashed a car into an open quarry. There's no reason for him to address young James Kirk in an amiable tone at all. (3) We don't know much about the political makeup of Earth in the New Trek universe yet, but Alan Dean Foster's novelization makes reference to government officials from Washington, Moscow and Beijing coming out to Riverside to inspect the Enterprise as it's under construction. Unless the various agencies concerned with starship building are spread out all over the planet - a definite possibility, bureaucracy being what it is - it's arguable that in New Trek, the old national governments of Earth retain at least some authority and sovereignty at least at the time of the movie.

A central part of the next movie's plot will either be Khan, the Borg, B4 (Data's "brother" from Nemesis), or any combination thereof.
Khan, because I don't think they'll be able to go for long without revisiting one of the "classic" Trek films, the Borg because they love the Borg (look at their appearance in Enterprise), and B4 because he's a loose end from the last Trek movie.

I just want you all to know that some guy who doesn't even have an account here called it first when we finally get Star Trek 2: The Other Wrath of Khan.
 * Almost certainly, if it does happen, it'll have to be some kind of remake of the classic Trek episode Space Seed, where Khan first menaced the Enterprise crew. How can you have another "wrath of Khan" if the original meeting between Khan and Kirk never takes place? You can't, that's how.
 * "Hello, Jim? This is Spock-Prime. Since the timeline is FUBAR anyway, let me warn you about a bastard named Khan you may encounter..."
 * Ooh! Why not Khan and the Borg and B4? Let me try to have a Stardate 2260.5, Mutara sector, the alternate universe. An anomaly similar to the one in Star Trek XI appears. But what emerges out of it is not a huge über-ship like the Narada. It is instead a smaller vessel. The pilot: B4. Channeling Data's intellect and experience, he recreated the the red matter incident and followed Nero and Spock into the 23rd century. His mission: To search for Spock and bring him back to the 24th century. / While B4 programs in a route to Federation space, he doesn't notice a smaller vessel de-attaching from his. A few Borg drones have used him to take a piggyback ride into this alternate 23rd century. The Borg vessel soon encounters a certain DY-100 class ship lonely drifting in space. The Borg board it... / Two weeks later on the Enterprise. The crew is troubled by a varity of news. Firstly, there is this group of cybernetic humanoids terrorizing the Mutara sector, stealing various resources and somehow "assimilating" people who had the bad luck to get to close to them. Oh, and their spokesman, the so-called Locutus, is eerily similar to 20th century dictator Khan Noonien Singh! Secondly, there is this mysterious highly advanced (although quite ditzy) android who appeared at roughly the same time as the cybernetic beings. Starfleet suspects there to be some connection and is holding him in custody on Jupiter Station. / A shuttle of Vulcan design falls out of warp and asks for permission to land in Enterprise's shuttle bay. The man who climbs out of the shuttle is no other than Spock Prime! Since his true identity is only known to Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Keenser, he officially goes by the name of Selek, and claims to be young Spock's distant cousin. In a private conversation with Kirk and Spock, he explains himself... / He of course recognized the Borg as well as B4 from his own time. He knows that it is hundred years to early for the Federation to face the Borg, and that this could end disastrous. He also knows that deep within B4's positronic brain, there is all of Data's vast knowledge and experience regarding the Borg. B4 is the key for defeating the Borg. Therefore he has to bring B4 into the Mutara sector, but the paranoid people at Starfleet Command would never allow this, if he officially asked them to permit this. So he has to seek for help from the only two people in this universe he can trust 100 %: James T. Kirk and his own younger counterpart. / What follows now is one of those Kirk-and-crew-violate-the-rules-for-the-greater-good-antics. The Enterprise heads for Jupiter Station and the bridge crew beams into said facility, in order to smuggle out B4. In order to distract him, Uhura starts a flirt with the guy assigned to study and guard B4, a brilliant computer scientist named Richard Daystrom. But before things do get more intimate, Uhura draws a phaser and forces Daystrom to retreat into a wall closet until B4 is safely on the Enterprise. Meanwhile, Sulu gets in conflict with the other guard, a member of Keenser's race. After an exchange of insults regarding each other's height, Sulu departs with the words : "Don't call me huge!" After successful android-napping, an enraged Captain Decker (Sr.) attempts to follow the fleeing Enterprise, but is soon outwitted. / Shortly after, the Enterprise arrives in the Mutara sector. They find the borgified Botany Bay next to an unlucky big Starfleet ship which the Borg are in the process of assimilating. B4 notices drones working on this ship's deflector dish, and immediately recognizes that the Borg once again want to try out their "contact-the-Borg-native-to-this-time"-scheme. / The big showdown follows: While Kirk and B4 challenge Khan/Locutus directly, Sulu and some redshirts beam down to the deflector dish to fight the drones there. (At this opportunity, Sulu can once again show off his katana-skills!) Meanwhile, McCoy desparately tries to de-assimilate a few borgified Enterprise crewmembers he managed to detain before they were able to wreak havoc on the ship. (Perhaps even one of the main characters is among them, for greater emotional impact.) Spock Prime ponders if he should give Bones access to 24th-century knowledge regarding de-assimilation. In the end, he decides against it, and instead gives Bones the hint that he should look up an obscure medical report Dr. Phlox has written in the 2150s regarding a mysterious cybernetic race the NX-01 did once encounter... / In a bombastic finale, the bold crew of Starship Enterprise defeats Khan and his Borg drones. Spock Prime and B4 use the last drop of red matter (hidden in B4's torso!) to return to the prime universe's 24th century. The end. And yes, I am aware that all this is probably way to much continuity porn and not entirely free of plot holes...
 * But you haven't been paid lots and lots of money to fix said plot holes and whatnot. If they took this plot (which is EPIC) they could tighten the bolts.

The Kelvin, if not all of its class, was equipped with experimental technology
As in the blue reflector dish, the interfaces, the biosign reader and whatnot. It was sent on a mostly exploratory mission to see if there would be anything that the technology would be useful for, and the Point of Divergence is when the Kelvin is on its way back to Earth. In the prime timeline, the Kelvin's voyages were so-so. The Federation decided that its technology wasn't that useful for their time, and scrapped it when building later starships. On the other hand, we have the alternate timeline which, according to Word of God, influenced the Federation to be more militaristic, and they decided that, considering Nero's attack, the experimental technology would be useful after all, so they added to it and used it on later ships.

The injuries Kirk receives here account for his later distinctive speech patterns
Notice how much he gets beaten, choked and slapped around? It's entirely possible that he suffered mild brain damage during all of those fights, later causing him to pause and overemphasize every word. (There'd be some sort of equivalent injuries in the original universe.)

The Red Matter doesn't create a black hole, it opens a wormhole to a black hole

 * ...Isn't this already covered above?

Starfleet is intentionally suppressing Trans-Warp Beaming technology to avoid sharing the fate of the Iconians
In The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, the Iconians are mentioned as an ancient, advanced race that had teleportation technology that let them instantly travel across interstellar distances. They created a vast empire because they could send entire armies anywhere in the galaxy in the blink of an eye -- but their power led to their destruction, as other alien races came together and bombed their home-world into dust. In the new film, Scotty comes up with Trans-Warp Beaming, which lets him and Kirk get onto the Enterprise even though it's been travelling away from their ice world for hours at high warp speeds -- in other words, Scotty builds an interstellar teleporter. This is actually the same technology the Iconians developed in their own time. (Though theirs eventually got much more advanced). This device has huge potential (it could even make starships almost entirely obsolete), but will be suppressed by Starfleet because they fear it will upset the balance of power, and cause the other empires to feel threatened enough by the Federation to destroy it -- since both the Federation and the other major powers of the galaxy all know the myth of the Iconians, at least (and secretly, perhaps even more).

In fact, that was why Scotty got sent to that out-of-the-way ice world in the first place -- his experiments with beaming things across increasingly vast distances was seen as leading up to an Iconian transporter, and so Starfleet needed to get rid of him quietly -- Archer's poor beagle was just an excuse.

The beagle was fine.
Expanding on the above example, Archer's dog wasn't harmed in any way by the experiment, right up until Section 31 sabotaged it.
 * He knew too much

Admiral Archer's beagle is the several-times-grandpup of Porthos.

 * Keep in mind that extending the lifespan of a beagle even 5 years is a 33% increase. That's hard. More likely Porthos found a nice bitch to settle down with, and Archer has always had one of his descendents.

There are other colors of exotic matter besides red.
Green Matter stands for willpower, Yellow Matter stands for fear, Violet Matter stands for love...
 * Don't forget Dark Matter.
 * Or Dark Matter. Or Dark Matter, or Dark Matter...
 * Which color matter is Heart?
 * It's sucky, that's what color it is.

The next movie will feature the Klingons, and there will be a female captain.
Played by Rosario Dawson. She is a huge Trek fan, and can speak Klingon. And she can definitely kick ass like a Klingon.
 * "That is sex."
 * I hope she gives good bIj...

Star Trek XI is an insidious attempt by J.J. Abrams to turn Star Trek into a shonen franchise
Think about it. Kirk wants to be a starship captain. Encouraged by Captain Pike, he grapples with Spock, his more intelligent than him black-haired  rival on matters of both tactics and the love between them and Uhura. They have enormous heapings of Ho Yay, particularly Foe Yay between them. Kirk is beaten up all the time, but gets through it through sheer grit. He's blond. He scorns Starfleet regulations when he needs to because he doesn't believe in no-win scenarios. Friends with Bones, friends with Sulu, friends with Scotty, friends with Old Spock - he's a Magnetic Hero. He even tries a Defeat Means Friendship on Nero in the end, come on!
 * As if it wasn't already.

The USS Kelvin was accompanying one or more other starships in a convoy
Let’s first assume Captain Pike was being literal when we claimed that George Kirk "saved 800 lives" when the Kelvin encountered the Narada. If that is the case, then there must have been more than one ship present, because the Kelvin couldn’t have supported over 800 passengers and crew. Although the concept design put the Kelvin at 450 metres long, considering the given number of decks possessed by the Kelvin, she actually couldn’t have been much longer than 315 metres. Find some blueprints and do the calculations; they add up with a 300 metre long Kelvin. And considering the size of the shuttles she carried, there’s no way 800 people could have fit in the 10 or so that we see escaping. So Kirk must have allowed not only the shuttles to escape, but also a number of unarmed ships, which would probably have picked up the Kelvin survivors before warping the heck out of there. That would also explain how the survivors made it back to the Federation from the Klingon border, where Robau claims there’s "no help" for them.

In this new Verse, where Starfleet is a peacekeeping force. They will latter rely on ship board Political officers to handle Federation policy.
As we saw this Federation is not afraid to bring the fire power. But now and then they will have to come across new races. Each ship of the line that goes beyond Federation ship with have a Policy Officer who opens negotiations and handles all the talk between the Federation and who they come across. Leaving the Captain to command the crew and focus on the more militant aspects if needed. In this new time line the Enterprise 7 ship of the line is Captained by respected soldier Captain William Riker, his XO is a battle hardened hero. Dubbed the Savior of Bajor Commander Ben ' Emissary of Vengeance' Sisko. Riker's ex-wife is ships Intelligence and Shadow Ops Officer Lt Troi. And ships Policy officer respected negotiator Professor Jean Luc Picard...

In this new timeline, they have scrapped the Primedirective.
After the movie the universe finds itself in a new cold war. Klingons are accelerating hostilities grabbing what land and resources they lost due to Nero. Romulans smelling blood in the water are making aggressive moves. Faced with all this the Federation has scrapped the Prime Directive. The Vulcans don't protest judging the 'Needs of the few..' and all that. In a move that will have fanboys screaming for blood. The Federation approach worlds they judge protectorates. In exchange for tech, and military support to provide stability. The Federation can extract necessary resources for the greater good. 'Helping' a society reach balance and harmony in exchange for materials needed. In charge of this..Section 13.

The Narada was named after the Vashta Nerada from Silence In The Library.
In naming the Narada, Abrams was cashing in on an already pants-wettingly terrifying alien species from Doctor Who. Vashta Nerada - run. Just run. And count the shadows.
 * It helps that his ship is really dark. Possible passengers/ support?

How much of the future is Spock Prime going to reveal to the new continuity?
So I think it's probably obvious that future Spock's knowledge has the potential to drastically reshape the future, especially depending on what he decides to reveal and what to hold back on (afterall, he's not shied away from being interventional so far), so I thought it would be an interesting tpic of speculation. Assuming he keeps technological spoilers to a minimum, my two pence:
 * Spock will share with the Federation his intelligence on the Borg, Q and Dominion at the very least. The Borg and Dominion pose too great a threat not to, especially with the Federation weakened, the political situation in the Apha Quadrant probably on a knife edge and simply because not doing so would endanger lives. The Q are likely to make themselves known to the Federation soon enough anyway but it seems prudent to make your superiors aware that there's a race of bored space gods who like to screw around with people who amuse them.
 * Speaking of Gods, there's also a lot of other incidents and places that it makes sense to mention in his inevitable epic debreifing. While Spock probably doesn't want to give the Federation a road map to simply dominating the entire quadrant, there are a lot of dangerous places that he could get quarantined or contacted peacfully before people get hurt there, like the planet of the Greek Gods, or the aliens with the power to project illusions into people's minds, or warning them that they need to go back and get some Humpbacks or else Earth'll be destroyed by a Space Whale, the fact that warp drives damage space-time...you get the picture
 * There are also some things that Spock could easily leave out but may not wish to, he knows that Khan's out there drifting, he may very well know about the space jellyfish from Encounter At Farpoint, the Caretaker Array etc. etc. none of it's stuff that requires immediate attention, but all of it could be resolved earlier or better with a bit of forewarning
 * Spock's information could be used to explain why some of these threats never happen in the new timeline. Spock reveals just enough information to neutralize the threat, and the Enterprise gets to have a completely different adventure at the point in time the original Enterprise handled the threat. Take That obsessive fanbase.
 * Spock will provide Kirk et al with enough knowledge regarding Khan to prevent the death of David. Just because that's the sort of thing I like to think he would do for Kirk.

Nero's clash with Starfleet indirectly doomed their universe's Romulus.

 * The higher-ups at Starfleet, in fear of how a Romulan ship was a hair away from destroying their entire organization, decide to bring the current Romulus down hard. They'll end up sanctioning the planet and making sure by all means necessary that it won't be able to have so much as a phaser left. And in the end, it'll be doomed to be a barren civilization.
 * Of course, Kirk and Pike could argue that the Romulus had no idea about the Narada, but would the Admirals really listen?

A sequel movie will feature Daniels under orders from Temporal Investigations to "fix" the new timeline to make it fit the old timeline.
Daniels will represent Old Trek fans that want events to happen exactly as the did in the original series, while the new crew will represent the New Trek fans who want to see something different. Daniels will enlist "Kirk Prime" to help force the "correction" only for Kirk Prime to undergo a Heel Face Turn thanks to Spock Prime and keep the new timeline on it's present course. There will be some Techno Babble saying the timeline can't be "fixed" before the previous movie due to Spock Prime arriving then, but Daniels will attempt to do so anyway after Kirk Prime's Heel Face Turn and this will trigger a Time Crash. That will convince Daniels to give up and undo the attempt to "fix" the timeline and uncrash time, allowing the Enterprise to continue on it's merry way.
 * Fortunately in this Timeline Daniels doesn't exist because Nero pretty much wiped out that future. No Vulcan, no perfect Federation with a peacekeeping force instead of a military force that exists in this timeline. Of course according the the PTB the original Timeline still exists next timeline over . We just won't be seeing it for some time.

Robert April was onboard the USS Kelvin and was killed before the evacuation.

 * Or, he was the Captain of the Enterprise before Pike and after Archer.
 * In the Prime Universe April was Captain of the Enterprise before it had even left space dock, and was directly involved for the design and construction the Constitution Class. It's more reasonable to assume that he has command of his own ship or perhaps an admiral/ambassador by the time the Kelvin was destroyed in the shifted timeline. More likely the second option given that his command of the Enterprise was from 2245 to 2250 and the alternate Enterprise wasn't launched until 2558.

Captain Kirk is named after James Tiberius Yorke.
Either J.T. survived in this universe and achieved the sort of great deeds that lead people to name their sons after him, or Degrassi exists as a show in the rebooted Trek universe and Kirk's parents are fans of the show.
 * Except it is shown in the movie in the last conversation between Kirk's mother and father, as he (his father) protects the fleeing Kelvin shuttles, to name J.T. 'Jim' after his mother's father. Since the mom wanted at first to name J.T. after his father's father (Tiberius) but was convinced not too, she later opted to make that his middle name.

In this universe's timeline, Wesley is FAR from a canon sue.
In fact, he's an underconfident brooding teen who ends up being put on the enterprise out of sheer dumb luck, is genuinely traumatized by some of the events on board, and is a Complete Failure at being the protagonist. If there is a movie or TV series with this type of Wesley, and it's done well, then he could even have a fighting chance of becoming a bizarre Ensemble Darkhorse.

In the Alternate Reality The Federation existed before humans invented the warp drive.
The novelization mentions that after humans discovered the warp drive, they started exploring and met the vulcans and were then invited to join the federation. This implies that humans weren't founding members. It also implies that in this universe vulcans may not have contacted humans

In the sequel and possibly a second sequel, Elder Spock will be revealed to be Mirror Universe Spock
Im kinda hoping this would happen, it just sounds cool to me. But Ive enver seen that ep or anything else relating to Mirror! Spock.

The Narada uses all those strange extensions in the front to wrap around an asteroid to be mined the way a squid attaches itself to things by wrapping its tentacles around it.
I was thinking about what a funny-looking ship it is and this was my best explanation.

The Narada has replicators to reload its weaponry
It can hardly swing by a planet and pick up more missiles.

Should the movie series continue, one will have a time-travel plot which will show you how the timeline change effects the Star Trek the Next Generation era.
They can recast or use the original actors.

Somewhere off in the depths of space, the entire El'Aurian civilization has just realized that history has changed
...and this time, they're going to take steps to ensure that they aren't wiped-out by the Borg.

The next film will begin with Kirk cooling his heels in a prison cell somewhere.
Because, well, he is constitutionally incapable of staying out of trouble. Maybe he violated orders to help someone or maybe he just got into a fight with an ambassador or something, but here he is, sitting on the toilet in his cell when Spock and Scotty arrive, announcing that they've arranged for his release.

Of course, this pretty much just restores the Status Quo from the bulk of the first movie, with Spock being the cool-headed guy in charge, and Kirk the loose cannon constantly pushing the boundaries of what he can get away with.

Kirk, Scotty and Future Spock all winding up on Delta Vega is not an accident.
What are the odds that these three main characters could be exiled to the same planet by different people for different reasons and all end up only a few miles from each other? Pretty infinitesimal, right? Someone or something had to be guiding their destinies to the planet. Based on what we already know about this universe, there are two main options: (1) Q. That's pretty unlikely, though. He probably wouldn't care enough about earth or the Federation to make such a move, and if he did, it wouldn't have been so subtly. Which leads us to... (2) Captain Ben Sisko. We know that at the end of DS9, the Prophets pulled him out for some unspecified task. Since the Prophets are not bound by time, they would know about what would happen, and since by then Bajor is a member of the Federation, Bajor would be in danger. Sisko was charged with finding a solution, and he knew that only Kirk, Scotty, Regular Spock and Future Spock had what it took to beat Nero. He made sure that the three were at Delta Vega at the same time at the same location. When Sisko returned, as the novels say he did, he didn't tell anyone so as not to violate the Temporal Prime Directive. Continuity is maintained and a large plot hole is healed

The forehead ridges seen on Romulans in TNG is a trait of the upper-classes
Throughout the entirety of Star Trek IX, the only Romulans we see are poor, lower-class miners. Their ship is dark and dirty, their holographic projectors are obviously centuries behind Starfleet standard of the 24th century, etc. In TNG, most Romulans onscreen are military, from the Senate, or part of the Tal Shiar for DS9.

At some point between Star Trek VI and TNG, the Romulan upper-class modified themselves so that they had a disctinctive look that sets them apart from not only their Vulcan cousins, but also from the lower-class workers around them. The poorer could not afford or were not allowed these modifications, and so look like Nero and the rest of his crew.

Spock and Nero did not go back in time
Instead, they went to an alternate reality where time passes at a slower rate than the prime universe. To the observers in the prime universe, the alternate universe would look like it was moving through molasses. Conversely, the prime universe would look like it's being fast forwarded to observers in the parallel universe.

Kirk is a trans woman
Many Transsexualism women, pre-transition, "compensate" for their transness by pushing themselves into highly masculine careers (police, military, trucking are common) in (vain) hopes of feeling like a "real" man, and push themselves to excel in those careers. Also, macho BS like Kirk's can be fairly common as a compensatory/deflection mechanism.

The cop that stopped Young!Kirk was actually future version of RoboCop
. Which is why he addresses Kirk as "citizen".

== The second J.J. Abrams movie will be a remake of Space Seed, and Spock will learn about his death in Wrath of Khan. == Benicio del Toro has been tapped to play the villain of the sequel due out next year. As del Toro is Latin it seems likely that as an homage to the original series, he's been tapped to play the alternate universe incarnation of Khan Noonien Singh. However, given that Wrath of Khan canonically takes place sometime further down the line, they will instead make the movie a theatrical release of Space Seed, the TOS episode that introduced Khan. If this is the case, you can bet that Spock (and possibly Kirk) will find out that he dies sometime in the future fighting Khan. Therefore, a large part of the movie will be altering the events of Space Seed so that Wrath of Khan never happens; either by relocating Khan to another planet besides Ceti Alpha V, or, perhaps, simply by killing him in the present to avoid the events that lead up to the Battle of the Mutara Nebula.

In the next movie, Pike will mediate a treaty negotiation between the Romulan and Vulcan ambassadors, played respectively by Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Why? Because it would funny, seeing them bicker like siblings(like they do in Donnie Darko) over a peace treaty, and I can totally see them playing those respective races.

Carol Marcus never becomes important in Kirk's life because:
If she is the "little blonde" that Gary Mitchell introduced Kirk to back at the Academy, then the introduction never happens because in the new timeline his best buddy is McCoy. As far as we know, Kirk and Mitchell aren't even friends, and/or Mitchell was one of the many cadets killed in the ambush by Nero. Carol herself could have even been on one of those ships.

The Star Trek the Next Generation episode "Parallels" was partly set in the alternate timeline of this movie
Because one of the alternate Enterprises followed aesthetic criteria similar to those of this movie. Case in point.
 * As a corollary: if the Next Generation era is revisited in the sequels, we will see events that characters were talking about during the part set in that alternate universe: Worf will become engaged to Troi after his spinal implant and will eventually marry her, Picard will be killed when he is captured by the Borg, Riker will become the captain, Worf will become the first officer, Wesley will be the security chief, there will be a Cardassian helmsman and the Bajorans will be bad guys, like in that other universe. This will either end in the main timeline being re-established, or the destruction of many universes.
 * As a further corollary: any possible outcome will result in butthurt fans.

This movie really is a straight reboot of the Star Trek franchise.
The universe that the Narada and Spock Prime come from is not the original Star Trek universe, but its own thing (which may or may not be very similar to the original universe). The reason the film creates yet another alternate reality within itself is to minimize backlash from Star Trek fans over stories in post-reboot 'Trek being so different from pre-reboot ones.

The Borg don't exist in this timeline
Based on a theory on the Voyager WMG page about the Krenim wiping out the Borg if Voyager didn't interfere. Spock Prime will likely give the Federation advanced warning of lots of threats, including the Cardassians, meaning there might not be a Cardassian War. If the war doesn't happen, there won't be an awkward peace/ceasefire treaty for the Maquis to spawn as a result of. Without the Maquis, Voyager isn't in the badlands for the Caretaker to grab. Without Voyager, Annorax completes his quest to restore his wife to life, probably also dealing with the Borg problem nearby.

The Vulcans are not as endangered as a race as Spock says in the immediate aftermath of Vulcan's destruction.
That he would say so is more a function of his "emotionally compromised" state. There is no way there isn't several millions, if not billions, of Vulcans throughout Federation space.