J. J. Abrams destroyed the world!

[Tobian]

With regards to time travel, that's the prevalent theory on what would happen if anyone ever time travelled: That by doing so, your actions would spawn the existence of a new parallel universe. Of course the existence of these parallel streams is kind of moot, given no one in Startrek has built a normally working "Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge" (ala sliders), so travel between the streams is impossible, outside of the abilities of beings like the Q or Wormhole aliens The Startrek online game takes that basic premise, since the universe continues unabated, other than the disappearance of Spock and Narada, and of course Romulus: Spock ends the effects of the Supernova using the red matter, and disappears into the wormhole. Since from the relative perspective of the 'prime' universe, travelling into the past caused such a parallel universe, which Spock and the Nerada now exist in, no one would be able to travel back in to the past to recover him.

and Spock's knowledge wouldn't be entirely useless, since almost all the elements still exist, just the outcomes would be different now, obviously.

[C5]

My point was that, actually, the universe had already diverged before Spock (or even Nero) arrived. It could have become one of the universes that were seen in Parallels (only now it has diverged further).
Yeah, this is complete and utter speculation without any solid basis whatsoever ,)

[Owen E Oulton]

I'm starting tinker with the ramifications in the original universe when Romulus goes boom. Remus wound go along with it, but the rest of the Star Empire would still be around, with all its colonies and such. A significant off-world population of both Romulans and Remans would still exist. I'm trying to figure out what would be the likely consequences for the Federation, Klingons and everyone else in the Galactic neighbourhood. My current campaign is set in the early 2380's, so it's just a few years off. Right now, the Star Empire is reeling from the loss of the Continuing Committee and a large part of the Senate, the split between the military and the Senate, and the quickly snuffed-out regime of Shinzon. In my campaign, the destruction of Romulus will shatter the Star Empire into a dozen or more bickering, competing mini-empires and result in total anarchy. the Klingons will invade across the Triangle and a Klingon/Romulan War will begin. The Klingon Empire will take the chance to swat the IKS as a side issue. I've still got a lot of details to work out. For instance, will this cause one or more factions to seek to reunite with Vulcan, even though Ambassador Spock is no longer on the scene? How large an area will the supernova devastate? Luckily, I've got lots of time to work things out...