Who picked up the survivors at Wolf 359?

[Christopher]

^Well, sure -- we had warp-capable shuttles in TOS. The starbase shuttle in "The Menagerie" was able to catch up with the Enterprise at warp. Lokai was able to use a stolen shuttle for interstellar travel in "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield." And in TMP, Spock came to the Enterprise in a shuttle with a warp sled attachment.

 

[Timo]

This is all debatable, though, as the chase in "The Menagerie" was deemed a hopeless one anyway (plus starships are known to accelerate out gradually, in addition to having the ability to slam into warp eleventeen right from orbit), Lokai was an extremely long-lived individual, and the TMP vehicle was quite a bit larger than the things called shuttles elsewhere. Also,

But with the El-Baz shuttle (or whatever it's class is called), "In The Mind's Eye" has LaForge make a trip to and from Risa in it, all while the Enterprise is nowhere near the shuttle or Risa. So it must've had low warp speed

Not really - it might have been dropped inside the Risa system for a sublight last leg (very useful if traffic rules or "subspace weather" near Risa dictated impulse-only travel - this would save the mothership hours upon hours of time!), and explicitly hitched a warp ride aboard another mothership for the return leg.

It is curious that several books feel the need to make the distinction between warp shuttles and presumed others...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Idran]

It isn't really relevant that Lokai was long-lived, though, as the shuttle had been stolen only two weeks ago, and the implication of the scenario was certainly that Starbase 4 wasn't within a two-week impulse trip; if it were, there would have been no reason not to immediately make a ~5 minute warp jump or what have you to drop Lokai off before continuing on to Ariannus.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

I would assume they had non-combat hospital/salvage ships closeby to recover survivors when the battle was over.

 

[Timo]

Would these dare move in before the E-D arrived, though? The Borg weren't far away - the E-D immediately caught up with them after doing the cursory scan of the battlefield...

Just as we don't know "canonically" how many ships survived the slaughter, we don't know how many people did. Do any books shed light on this? Was Sisko's lifepod the only one to make it, thanks to divine intervention? Or did hundreds per each ship lost make it to safety, lying low initially so that even the E-D didn't notice them?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SicOne]

^ Those are all good questions, Timo. I'm inclined to think there were a few survivors, perhaps in the low hundreds, mostly in unassimilated escape pods or shuttles, but also a bunch of them in damaged yet intact portions of wrecked starships. We saw ships significantly damaged but there were a lot of sections that were not. I don't see Sisko's lifepod being the only one to make it.

 

[JD]

Didn't we see other shuttles and escape pods leaving the site of the battle with Sisko's?

 

[Kor]

More importantly, if a ship was found adrift, say, right at the border between Federation space and Klingon space.... where would they bury the survivors?

Kor

 

[Idran]

Rura Penthe.

 

[Christopher]

More importantly, if a ship was found adrift, say, right at the border between Federation space and Klingon space.... where would they bury the survivors?

Nowhere, I hope, because the survivors aren't dead.

 

[Paris]

More importantly, if a ship was found adrift, say, right at the border between Federation space and Klingon space.... where would they bury the survivors?

Kor

Old joke. I love it

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

More importantly, if a ship was found adrift, say, right at the border between Federation space and Klingon space.... where would they bury the survivors?

Nowhere, I hope, because the survivors aren't dead.

You got the joke a lot quicker than Hank Yarbo did.

 

[Timo]

I'm pretty sure Klingons do bury survivors. The shame!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Idran]

I'm pretty sure Klingons do bury survivors. The shame!

Timo Saloniemi

That was the joke I was getting at in my own response, myself.