I took it as spock succeeding at whatever course correction he was trying to accomplish, through lying to kirk about not mentioning him to get spock to realize what they could accomplish together, etc... Probably also put in in case the movie flopped, they could just leave it as a prequel to the rest of the roddenberry continuity, and not as a new universe, with little disruption of the time line(that is, other than vulcan being kaput).
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