No matter what the crew size of that thing, George Kirk Sr. could never have saved 800 people. Less than twenty shuttlecraft left the ship before the crash, and they were all of the same size as the "ambulance variant" that carried Winona and Jim. Those shuttle interiors could never hold forty people...
So we can't really use Pike's statement for estimating the crew size and thus ship size. Perhaps the ship has 800+ people aboard, perhaps not - but only about 100-200 could have been saved. Which makes me prefer the idea that Pike actually said "a hundred", not "eight hundred"...
Timo Saloniemi
I'm not sure I agree with that.
I certainly agree that "less than 20 shuttles left." If the ship carried 20 shuttlecraft, that would be a HUGE payload of shuttles, wouldn't it?
Let's say that each shuttle is able to carry 20 people, max (ten on either side of the aisle) plus a pilot and copilot. This is not unreasonable at all, though it would be a bit cramped. And let's suppose that the ship carried 20 craft (which may be reasonable when considering a "colonization support vessel"). 22 x 20 = 440 personnel.
So, where did those other ~360 personnel go? Most likely into "escape pods" not dissimilar to the one used to strand Pine's Kirk on a hostile alien planet with no expectation of rescue or recovery.
The shuttles would basically serve "sheepdog" duty to corral the shuttles and escape pods into a "pseudo-fleet" while awaiting rescue. Even if the folks in their one-man pods were not able to interact with the people in the shuttles directly, they WOULD have the psychological benefit of not being in total isolation.
Also, while not established on-screen, it's well-established that the intent was that this was basically in contested space (evidently claimed by the Klingons, though presumably not recognized as such by the Federation, if the Kelvin was operating there).
My assumption would be that the same Klingon fleet which captured the Narada and Nero also recovered the "shipwrecked" Kelvin survivors. And probably made a big political point of returning them with some fanfare.... helping out the "poor little Federation," in other words.
From the Klingon point of view, this is a twofer... first, it give the Klingons complete political claim to the Narada, while still coming across as "heroes." And second, it fits with Klingon culture that they'd be impressed by a "warrior" who'd give his own life to defeat a more powerful enemy, so they'd be inclined to honor that action, even if performed by an "enemy."
