I missed most of the TNG novels, they weren't cracky enough for eleven year old me. I didn't remember any Orions not being slavegirls (though I know I read something where they rescue Orion slave from behind fake bulkheads and the whole books was pretty much an AoS anti-slaver mission.

The Captain of the Kelvin, or at least his actor, is Pakstani. (I totally had to look him up on imdb the figure that out.)

I think Spock must actually be older than Sarek now, which has to be odd, even in the we're not talking about way that Vulcans sometimes have. Amanda was so freaking awesome. I loved her from the books. She was competent and intelligent and wily and wry.

Also, I was thinking today, did they basically just obliterate all of Star Fleet along with Vulcan? Because all the adults were off somewhere in a battle right? And then all the cadets were killed too. Does Star Fleet have any ships left besides thee Enterprise?