The Enterprise-F, with Admiral Picard onboard, goes out to investigate the Black Hole that Spock and Nero were dragged into. They get accidentally dragged into the thing too. The Enterprise-F arrives in the year 2266. They're soon greeted by a Kelvin Timeline starship and they notice there's some strange stuff going on. The Crew realizes they're not only in the wrong year, they're in the wrong timeline too.. Before they get to explain the whole ordeal, this Kelvin Timeline Starship gets destroyed by a Klingon vessel.
It turns out they arrived at some disputed area in the border of the Klingon Empire and the UFP. They run away only to get ambushed again. The Kelvin Timeline Enterprise-A arrives to save the day. Kirk explains more Federation ships are inbound. However, they're picking up an armada coming from the Klingon Empire too.
We have some minutes of dialogue, both crews get to know each other. Spock explains the Federation developed technology capable of detecting anomalies like the ones that brought Nero and Prime Spock, still, the Klingons were made aware of the whole Time-travel shenanigans and wanted part on it too. The Klingons stole the anomaly-detecting technology and now they will strip apart whatever ship that comes from the future, so they get to acquire new technology for their Empire.
A "dodgy Starfleet Captain" figure is the commander of the Enterprise-F. He's going to serve as the main villain of the Movie. He's motivated by the well-being of his crew and he will go too far to accomplish his objectives. Using the superior technology of the Enterprise-F, he hacks into UFP systems to study better the situation.
Picard is horrified at the idea of Starfleet using future technology to advance itself and even more petrified at how Militaristic the UFP is slowly becoming. The rift between him and the Enterprise-F Captain starts when Picard wants to destroy the ship and evacuate it. The Enterprise-F Captain wants to somehow get his crew back to their own time. So he suggests getting Red Matter into their hands, so they can go back to the past to save the USS Kelvin and use it again to return to the now fixed Prime Timeline. That's obviously that's a no-no for Picard. We have a "Lorca moment" and Picard gets doped and restrained by the Enterprise-F Captain, since he outranks the Captain and will certainly relieve him of duty.
Led by Carol Marcus, now Captain, a UFP fleet arrives at the local. Carol's the leading Scientist in the Red Matter research and secretly holds some of it with her. Oh, also, she's pregnant with Kirk's son.
Our Enterprise-F Captain suspects that she may have some Red Matter around and steals it. Kirk finds Picard and beams him up to the sickbay. Picard then explains to him and to Spock what the Enterprise-F Captain is about to do. Initially, for Picard's despair, they're kinda like "Uh, dude is going to save Kirk's dad and Vulcan ? Doesn't sound so bad".
Suddenly the Enterprise-F starts firing at the Federation Starships and warps away. Kirk knows Starfleet will use the Enterprise-F's technology to create another aberration like the USS Vengeance, so he doesn't give much of a damn. In private, Picard still insists they should go after the Enterprise-F. For curiosity's sake, Kirk asks if he also had a son in the Prime Timeline. Picard confirms it, however, he also tells him that he was absent from David's life and when they finally got to bond, David was killed. Kirk changes his mind. In the Kelvin Timeline he'll probably have a chance of being more close to his kid and avoid him getting killed by the Klingons. They go after the Enterprise-F. But where's Spock ?
He beamed onboard the Enterprise-F seconds before they jumped into warp to offer help to her Captain, so he could save Vulcan. Spock argues that even though they're more technologically advanced, his doppelgänger was the one who developed the Red Matter. The Klingon armada, led by Kor, detected the change of course of the Enterprise-F and arrives there before the pursuing UFP Fleet. Now the Enterprise-F Captain and Spock have little time to create a singularity.
Both Enterprise-A and the UFP fleet arrive at the scene and a big battle between them and the Klingons breaks out. Kirk asks miracle-worker Scotty to develop a way of beaming everyone out of the Enterprise-F. He calls Carol Marcus to ask if there's a way of making the singularity destroy the Enterprise-F instead of dragging them into the past. Kirk also begs her to trust him and to make all the UFP ships jump away. All he has to do now is to beam aboard the Enterprise-F and convince Spock to change his mind and help him instead. At that moment Spock is halfway through the process of creating a singularity. It can't be stopped anymore.
Scotty manages to beam most people out. That includes the Enterprise-F Captain... Directly to the brig.
Kirk manages to convince Spock, who was selectively not transported, to change his mind. There's a catch, however. The changes need to be
in loco. When the singularity forms, whoever is making the changes will have zero chance of escaping it. Spock claims he's the only one with knowledge to do it and chooses to sacrifice himself. Picard stuns him and explains to Kirk that he did pick one thing or two about the field during his very long Starfleet career. He beams the two of them to the Enterprise-A and tells Kirk to enjoy his life by the side of his son. The Enterprise-A jumps away, the Enterprise-F is destroyed by the singularity alongside the Klingon vessels. The movie ends in France, with Kirk and Spock arriving in the Chateau Picard and delivering some random object left by Admiral Picard to a certain young man called Maurice Picard.
