On page 2, we see the drilling platform dangling from Nero's
mining ship, the Narada, that will later be
assimilated as part of the Romulan/Borg ship also called
Narada
in
the 2009 Star Trek movie (beginning with the
"Rebirth" study here on
PopApostle).
Page 7 reveals that a new level of tolerance and curiosity
in Romulan society has allowed Spock-Prime to make a legal
residence on Romulus in the 24th Century and page 8 reveals he has done so for
the past 5 years (though he lived there illegally as an
underground peace ambassador for 15 years before that; the
line on page 5 stating that he lived there for 40 years is
inaccurate according to the official timeline and it was
corrected to 20 years in the trade paperback collection of
the mini-series).
On page 8, Ambassador Spock opens his comments to the
Romulan Senate with, "Friends, Romulans, countrymen...we
share the same ears." This is a humorous reference on
Spock's part to the first line of a famous speech made by
Mark Antony in William Shakespeare's play Julius
Caesar.
The actual line goes, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me
your ears." The Romulan senators and spectators laugh at
Spock's joke, presumably only for the remark about the
pointed ears of Vulcans and Romulans; it seems unlikely they
would be familiar with Earth's Shakespeare (or the Klingons'
for that matter).
On page 9, Spock mentions the rare isotope decalithium. This
may be a relative of dilithium, an element in the hypersonic
series of elements according to Star Trek lore; di-
means two and deca- means ten. The Vulcan Science Academy
later processes decalithium into so-called "red matter". All of
these are fictional substances.
On page 12, Spock warns Nero that his plan would result in
him being sentenced to life on a prison planet if he were
caught by the Empire. Although this doesn't happen in the
course of Countdown, Nero is, ironically, sentenced to
life imprisonment on the Klingon prison planet of Rura
Penthe as a prisoner
of war in "Second Chance".
On page 13, Spock is somehow able to view the growing
supernova in "real time" through his telescope despite
being, presumably, light-years away at his home on Romulus.
It must be some kind of subspace-telescope capable of
fetching live images from across space!
Page 16 reveals that Spock is the Federation ambassador to
Romulus, while another Vulcan, Sular, is the Vulcan
ambassador to Romulus.
Notice that, on page 18, when three unidentified vessels
warp into orbit around the planet in the Kimben system,
Spock vanishes from behind Nero's shoulder on the bridge of
the Narada from panel 2 to panel 3. Presumably, he
wouldn't want to be seen on the communications screen should
the unidentified ships make contact, as the presence of the
Federation ambassador to Romulus aboard a Romulan mining
ship would raise some eyebrows.
The unidentified ships are revealed to be Reman vessels. The
Remans are the inhabitants of the secondary planet called
Remus, sharing the orbit of Romulus. The dual worlds were named, in
human annals, after the mythological twins who founded Rome,
Romulus and Remus,
in ancient Earth history.
Notice that panel two of page 21 reuses the same figures of
Spock and Nero seen on page 19, panel 3.
On the last page of this issue, Data appears as the captain
of the Enterprise-E. Data was supposedly destroyed
in a starship explosion in the 2002 film Star Trek:
Nemesis.
"Countdown" Part 2 reveals that
Data had successfully loaded his programming into the
earlier prototype android called B-4, who was also modeled
after its creator, Dr. Noonien Soong, as was Data. When
Geordi La Forge later installed Data's emotion chip into
B-4, the android was finally able to fully access all of
Data's memories at the time of upload and essentially became
Data, eventually earning the command position aboard the
Enterprise.
Back to Star Trek
Episode Studies