Star Trek by the Minute 080: Enroute to Laurent

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Kirk asks Spock Prime, "So you do feel?"  Spock Prime: "Yes." "Going back through time you changed all our lives..."

Spock Prime, bored by Kirk's inane repetition of the obvious,  decides their fireside male bonding time in the cave is over, (perhaps the lack of drums?) and it's time for action.  "Jim," he announces, "we must go. There is a Starfleet outpost not far from here."

That's another pretty amazing coincidence in a long string of them, isn't it?  Nero invests a quarter of a century by an entire ship and crew to capture this one Federation Ambassador he deemed  most responsible for a "genocide", then for revenge he puts Spock on a Federation planet, unsupervised, and right next to a Starfleet outpost?  Ridiculous!  It goes completely against Nero's own justification for decades of planning, waiting, and temporal mechanics calculations to exact revenge by forcing Spock to watch Vulcan's destruction. 

After this long wait, Nero must have captured the Jellyfish near Romulus (or wherever), warped over to the Klingon space to breeze through their 47 battlecruisers without a scratch, then headed to the Federation planet Delta Vega, beamed Spock down next to the outpost, and then warped off to attack Vulcan and mop the floor with everything Starfleet had, including their best ship.  Why does Spock not alert Starfleet that there's a genocidal lunatic about to destroy all life in the Federation?  Apparently, our pointy-eared super genius thought it more important to sulk in a cave, hide from the Starfleet people at the outpost, and gawk at the sky for hours. 

It has been proposed that Spock Prime did nothing to save Vulcan and the Federation because he was  "emotionally compromised" as he explained later.  But this compromise was presented as primarily the result of witnessing his home and Mother being destroyed, which occurred after his period of senseless, criminal inaction.  Also, people who have really given up don't go to all the trouble to gather the materials needed to fuel toasty campfires on ice worlds and fashion torches, to say nothing of actually starting any kind of combustion under such conditions - its very hard.  Yet we are to believe Spock did all this while fending off ravenous bugblatter monsters roaming the surface and even larger ones ambushing from beneath the glaciers.  Spock, trained in philosophy would more likely have encountered one of the beasts and from its Shamu-like jaws, considered how lucky he was that life had been good to him or alternatively, if he thought it hadn't been good so far, (which given his circumstances, seems more likely), considered how lucky it was that life won't be troubling him much longer. :D

 Kirk asks: "Wait.  Where you came from did I know my father"  Spock Prime answers "Yes.  You often spoke of him as being your inspiration for joining Starfleet. He proudly lived to see you become captain of the Enterprise."  Kirk: "Captain..."  Spock Prime: "A ship we must return you to as soon as possible."

We cut to the Enterprise as Sulu reports: "Warp Three Sir," followed by Chekov: "One five one mark three, the Laurentian system, sir."  Spock confirms with "Thank you gentlemen."

 McCoy asks from offscreen, "You wanted to see me?"  Spock answers "Yes, I am aware James Kirk is a friend of yours.  I recognized that by supporting me as you did must have been difficult." 

"Is that a thank you?"

"I am simply acknowledging your difficulties."

Of the six speaking roles in this segment, none are female.

Vulcan sarcasm irritates McCoy in our next episode, Star Trek by the Minute 081: Green-blooded Hobgoblin