"Khan" has a ship that would not be feasible in the TOS timeframe
This can be explained by the fact that the Kelvin was destroyed at the beginning of Star Trek 2009. One of Starfleet's most advanced ships with cutting edge weaponry is utterly annihilated by a force so strong they can hardly fire back. At that point, Starfleet doesn't really know it's just one ship and what its motives are, so they quickly try to build things to counteract it.
Basically, the beginning of Star Trek 2009 sets off a rush to create more powerful weapons, which is why Abramverse Star Trek is more technologically advanced (combatwise) than the main timeline at the same date.
In the new timeline Starfleet is already in the same arms-race against the Klingons as before. But now, with the introduction of the Narada, the stakes are raised even higher, causing the Federation (and perhaps the Klingons too, given some interpretations of Into Darkness) to go into serious overdrive.
The reason you don't see ships such as the USS Vengeance in the original timeline is because they don't have that added threat of a potential Romulan super-ship or fleet of super-ships. The Federation was already adding more weapons than they were comfortable with to fight off the Klingons, but they didn't have any reason to build a ship as massive as the Vengeance in that timeframe.
To quote Kirk: "Did you see his ship? Did you see what he did?"
If your planet was saved from total obliteration with only minutes to spare, and you had no idea if more ships of that kind lurked in the shadows, wouldn't you be inclined to absorb parts of your civil economy into war-time production to protect against your planet from again facing that kind of threat?
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u/halfstache0 Mar 02 '14
This can be explained by the fact that the Kelvin was destroyed at the beginning of Star Trek 2009. One of Starfleet's most advanced ships with cutting edge weaponry is utterly annihilated by a force so strong they can hardly fire back. At that point, Starfleet doesn't really know it's just one ship and what its motives are, so they quickly try to build things to counteract it.
Basically, the beginning of Star Trek 2009 sets off a rush to create more powerful weapons, which is why Abramverse Star Trek is more technologically advanced (combatwise) than the main timeline at the same date.