Destruction of Vulcan

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Destruction of Vulcan
Date:	2258
Location:	Vulcan
Result:	Total Romulan victory; Vulcan destroyed with near-entire population
Belligerents
United Federation of Planets
Renegade Romulans
Notable commanders
Christopher Pike Spock
Nero
Strength
USS Enterprise Unspecified supporting fleet USS FarragutUSS TrumanUSS WalcottUSS AntaresUSS Hood
Narada
Casualties and losses
Vulcan, with majority of population 7 starships destroyed with unspecified number of dead
Two crewmembers

The Battle of Vulcan was a conflict fought in 2258 between a Starfleet task force, and the Romulan starship Narada.

Prelude

In the far future, a supernova had totally destroyed the Romulan homeworld, Romulus, despite the best efforts of Federation ambassador Spock to prevent it. Spock was able to collapse the supernova into a singularity using a red matter device, before any other worlds could fall victim to the supernova, but an enraged Romulan captain named Nero intercepted Spock's ship and threatened to destroy him. Before he could do so however, the singularity's gravity well dragged both ships inside, with Nero's vessel, the Narada being thrown back to the year 2233, while Spock's craft, the Jellyfish was pulled in a few minutes later and arrived in the year 2258. The Narada intercepted the Jellyfish however, having waited 25 years to do so, and Nero captured Spock and marooned him on the planet Delta Vega, so that he would be forced to witness Nero's revenge for the destruction of his homeworld.

The Battle

Shortly afterwards, the Narada arrived at Vulcan and deployed a plasma drilling device in Vulcan's upper atmosphere to burn a hole through to the core of Vulcan. The planetary government sent out a distress call, and shortly afterwards a Federation task force arrived. They proved no match for the advanced weaponry of the Narada however, and were wiped out in short order. One starship, the USS Enterprise arrived later than the others (owing to a rookie mistake by new helmsman Hikaru Sulu) and nearly hit the debris field made up of wreckage from the other starships.

Nero witnessed the arrival of the new starship and was prepared to destroy the Enterprise, when he realised just which ship it was, and that James T. Kirk and Spock's past self would be on the vessel. He ordered the captain of the Enterprise, Christopher Pike to surrender himself and come on board the Narada, which he agreed to do. Before he went to the Narada however, Pike dropped an assault team comprised of Kirk, Sulu and Chief Engineer Olson onto the Narada's drilling platform (interference from the drill made beaming impossible).

Olson left deploying his parachute as late as possible so as to surprise the Romulans, but his strategy went badly wrong, as he crashed into the platform, fell off the side and was incinerated by the plasma drill. This left Kirk and Sulu at a disadvantage, since Olson had been carrying the explosive charges with which they intended to destroy the platform. Two Romulan crewmembers emerged from the drill and a hand-to-hand fight began between them and the Starfleet officers, which eventually ended when one of them was burned to death by flames from an exhaust outlet, while the other was impaled and thrown off the side of the platform. Using captured disruptor rifles, Kirk and Sulu shot at the mining platform's machinery until it ceased functioning.

Unfortunately, their efforts came too late; the Narada had already reached the core of Vulcan. Nero then ordered a bomb made up of red matter from the Jellyfish to be fired into the planet's core, and when it detonated it created an artificial singularity within the planet. Upon hearing of this, and that the entire planet would be obliterated within a matter of minutes, the version of Spock on the Enterprise (now acting as captain) sent a largely futile evacuation order to the planet and beamed himself down to retrieve the Vulcan elders (including his parents). Most of the elders escaped, but several were killed as the surface began to collapse, including Spock's mother, Amanda Grayson. Seconds later the planet completely imploded into the singularity, leaving no trace of its existence, and resulting in the near-total destruction of the Vulcan species.

Aftermath

The end result of the battle, concluding in the destruction of the planet and the death of all but 10,000 members of the Vulcan race, was one of the biggest atrocities in galactic history and likely the worst defeat in the history of the United Federation of Planets up until that time. By comparison, the Narada had suffered no significant damage beyond some minor, temporary damage to the drilling platform and the loss of two crewmen.

The destruction of Vulcan also had a deep emotional effect on both the younger and elder Spock. As a result of this he eventually stood down as the acting captain of the Enterprise after Kirk provoked him into displaying the emotional effect of his homeworld's destruction, and Kirk in turn became the acting (and later permanent) captain of the ship. Nero subsequently repeated his attack, this time on Earth; however, the crew of the Enterprise managed to prevent him repeating his atrocity. The surviving Vulcans later set up on a new colony world, with the future version of Spock intending to take on a leadership role for the future of his people.