Science Fiction

I'm not sure how well this will turn out. I'd hoped that they would base things loosely on both Star Trek "history" and the events of the first movie. For instance:

Romulans were dashing for the exits of that mining ship at the end of the last movie. Let's say that a few survive, and the Romulan Empire demands them back as Romulan citizens. Naturally, the Federation says "no" because they want to pump the survivors for information on advanced weapons technology - and keep the Romulan Empire from doing so. While the diplomats are working on this, the Klingons stage a raid on the holding area where the Romulans are kept and kidnap them. Then the Romulans extend an offer to the remaining Vulcans to join the Romulan Empire as honored citizens (particularly Spock Prime) and reunify the species. When Spock Prime seems to agree to further his dream of extending the philosophy of logic to Romulus, the Federation, in violation of its own laws, places him under house arrest as "a potentially destabilizing figure" or something like that.

So the Federation and the Romulans declare war against the Klingon Empire in order to keep the future Romulans from providing Klingons with future technology; in the meantime, Romulus plans to use their alliance with the Federation as a smokescreen to "free" Spock Prime from captivity. A brilliant tactical figure swiftly routs the Klingon force - remember Garth of Izar from the original series? - using unconventional tactics. Unfortunately, he is "lost" during the battle in which the Klingons kill the Romulans in order to not give them up... but not so lost. Romulus captures him and tortures the location of Spock Prime out of him (landing him in an insane asylum later... familiar?), then attempts a raid of their own, only to be ambushed by Federation forces (as the location given to any Federation leaders on the front lines is deliberately false). Finally, it falls to Jim Kirk to free his "old" friend from his own government and expose his captivity, causing upheaval in the Federation council. Spock Prime builds a prototype advanced warp ship and heads top speed perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy, self-imposing his own exile in order to not continue damaging the timeline. At the end of the movie, an uneasy peace exists, with the Klingons and Romulans weakened by their defeat and with massive tension between the two over the murdered Romulans, and the Federation in political turmoil. Oh yeah, on edit: the Vulcans are seriously considering the move to Romulus at the end of the movie because they are mightily upset at the Federation military secretly keeping agents of their genocide for potential military information.

That's what I would do for a sequel.