Other stuff:
Why is the Federation fleet so always tactically inept?
If you can deliver three cadets via “space diving” to a drill head, why can't you deliver three smart bombs, or the future equivalent thereof?
And why isn't your boarding party heavily armed?
And why don't phasers have lanyards?
If you are using a risky means of delivering troops to a small target (like “space diving”), why don't you spread the mission-critical equipment between the boarding party members so that any one or two them can accomplish the mission? (Also why don't you just shoot the cable or drill head with your phasers - it worked for Spock...)
If you're going to beam on to an enemy ship why don't you take a BIG party equipped with all sorts of nifty future mayhem, so that you can lay waste their ship and crew while rescuing the hostage?
Why did the Vulcan Science Academy send the entire blob of “Red Matter” with Spock, instead of one or two primed “devices.”
And why didn't Spock jettison the stuff before he was captured?
Anyway, I got in a lot of trouble bringing this up with my wife...
BTW: I was raised on first-run, first generation Star Trek and liked it to the point of fighting for a later bedtime just to watch it...
Off the screen stuff - Got this from a well informed fan.
Nero is apparently the most competent sapient in the known universe:
He got the technology to turn his humble mining vessel into a super-dreadnought by stealing it from the Borg.
He spent some or most of the missing 25 years in a Klingon prison; somehow he managed to escape and reacquire his ship; somehow the Klingons never captured it or or didn't learn anything from it and left it intact for him to steal back. I guess that's when they lost those “47 warbirds.”
Why is the Federation fleet so always tactically inept?
Because they’re the Federation, like Pike said “peace keeping and humanitarian efforts”, not much tactics.
If you can deliver three cadets via “space diving” to a drill head, why can’t you deliver three smart bombs, or the future equivalent thereof?
Because shooting would have been noticed. The plan was to blow up the miner before the bad guys noticed and maybe even have time to run away having successfully stopped it from hurting the planet anymore.
And why isn’t your boarding party heavily armed?
Which boarding party? The divers? Para-infantry don’t tend to be that well armed.
And why don’t phasers have lanyards?
Same reason most people don’t lanyard their pistols today, strings are great at getting caught in stuff.
If you are using a risky means of delivering troops to a small target (like “space diving”), why don’t you spread the mission-critical equipment between the boarding party members so that any one or two them can accomplish the mission? (Also why don’t you just shoot the cable or drill head with your phasers - it worked for Spock...)
OK only having one guy with the bombs was dumb. As for shooting the cable, same reason they didn’t shoot the bottom, they were trying to be sneaky.
If you’re going to beam on to an enemy ship why don’t you take a BIG party equipped with all sorts of nifty future mayhem, so that you can lay waste their ship and crew while rescuing the hostage?
The more people you send over the more people you have to worry about getting back. The plan was they’d beam into an empty room and get to be sneaky, large boarding parties don’t sneak well.
Why did the Vulcan Science Academy send the entire blob of “Red Matter” with Spock, instead of one or two primed “devices.”
Who says it was the entire blob? And who knows how much they would have needed to stop that super nova, that thing was supposed to be a threat to the whole galaxy, just might need more than one black hole for that.
And why didn’t Spock jettison the stuff before he was captured?
Jettison it where? He came out of the black hole with Nero’s ship right in his face.