It's been stated a number of times that although it isn't shown in the theatrical release of ST XI, the reason Nero isn't heard from for twenty five years is because he and his crew were captured by Klingons shortly after George Kirk rammed the USS Kelvin into the Narada, and were incarcerated on a penal planet. But if the Klingons had the Narada for all that time, why do they appear not to have revers-engineered its technology and applied it to their own? Klingons are hardly likely to just lock it up somewhere and let it gather space dust. But they apparently don't, and a large number of their ships are later destroyed by the Narada when Nero finally reclaims it, so they were still significantly behind it in terms of technology, and the Klingon cruisers in the Kobayashi Maru training sequence don't look much more advanced than they would be if the Narada had never arrived in the 23rd century. So how come they made so little progress with Nero's vessel? 82.2.136.93 19:52, August 29, 2011 (UTC)

It's been covered in the IDW comics: Narada#Klingon captivity. They tried, but made little progress it seemed. After all, it's the most ridiculously powerful ship of 150 years later, souped up with Borg tech and state-of-the-art Romulan advances, and viciously defends itself. Reverse-engineering that would be a hard task for anyone, especially Klingons.

But, given the way the Abramsverse is shaping up, the Klingon ships will probably eventually be more powerful as well. -- BadCatMan 01:41, August 30, 2011 (UTC)