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While no definitive list of the 40 ships was ever made, it's also important to keep in mind that the dialogue doesn't necessarily indicate any ships escaped or survived the battle unscathed. Here is Admiral Satie's quote with a slightly different emphasis:

SATIE: It must have been awful for you, actually becoming one of them, being forced to use your vast knowledge of Starfleet operations to aid the Borg. Just how many of our ships were lost? Thirty nine? And a loss of life, I believe, measured at nearly eleven thousand. One wonders how you can sleep at night, having caused so much destruction. I question your actions, Captain. I question your choices. I question your loyalty.

Most of the ships we saw in the aftermath were complete losses, floating about in numerous pieces. It's entirely possible that the last ship had fairly minor damage and the crew died to a radiation leak, loss of atmosphere, or some other similar catastrophe that would kill the crew without necessarily harming the vessel. In such a case, the ship itself would not have been considered lost, even though the crew was lost or forced to evacuate.

In fact, just knowing that thousands of crew members were forced to evacuate their own ships brings up another interesting point. Several crewmembers - including Benjamin & Jake Sisko - were using escape pods, which are short-range and would need to be recovered by a ship before they could leave the system. If this was done immediately following the battle (and therefore before the Enterprise arrived), then that certainly accounts for at least one ship that would have HAD to escape the battle in one piece. It would also explain why the Enterprise detected no life signs when we know for a fact that hundreds of people survived the battle and would have been floating around in escape pods or damaged shuttles otherwise.

UPDATE: At least one ship - the USS Ahwahnee - was salvaged after the battle & repaired, being back in active service less than a year later. The point about evacuation aside, and even if we assume all other vessels were outright destroyed, then this could be considered the one ship that wasn't lost (from a logistical viewpoint).

TRIVIA: According to the game Star Trek: Borg, during the fight the USS Righteous was transported ten years into the future, therefore surviving the battle relatively undamaged. At the time of The Drumhead, however, the ship would have been presumed destroyed and most likely counted among the thirty-nine lost vessels.

While no definitive list of the 40 ships was ever made, it's also important to keep in mind that the dialogue doesn't necessarily indicate any ships escaped or survived the battle unscathed. Assuming Hanson wasn't just rounding up to 40 in casual conversation, it simply means that all but one of the ships were destroyed or irreparably damaged in the battle.

Here is Admiral Satie's quote with a slightly different emphasis:

SATIE: It must have been awful for you, actually becoming one of them, being forced to use your vast knowledge of Starfleet operations to aid the Borg. Just how many of our ships were lost? Thirty nine? And a loss of life, I believe, measured at nearly eleven thousand. One wonders how you can sleep at night, having caused so much destruction. I question your actions, Captain. I question your choices. I question your loyalty.

On-screen, most of the ships we saw in the aftermath were complete losses, floating about in numerous pieces. It's entirely possible that the last ship had fairly minor damage and the crew died to a radiation leak, loss of atmosphere, or some other similar catastrophe that would kill the crew without necessarily harming the vessel. In such a case, the ship itself would not have been considered lost, even though the crew was lost or forced to evacuate.

In fact, just knowing that thousands of crew members were forced to evacuate their own ships brings up another interesting point. Several crewmembers - including Benjamin & Jake Sisko - were using escape pods, which are short-range and would need to be recovered by a ship before they could leave the system. If this was done immediately following the battle (and therefore before the Enterprise arrived), then that certainly accounts for at least one ship that would have HAD to escape the battle in one piece. It would also explain why the Enterprise detected no life signs when we know for a fact that hundreds of people survived the battle and would have been floating around in escape pods or damaged shuttles otherwise.

UPDATE: At least one ship - the USS Ahwahnee - was salvaged after the battle & repaired, being back in active service less than a year later. The point about evacuation aside, and even if we assume all other vessels were outright destroyed, then this could be considered the one ship that wasn't lost (from a logistical viewpoint).

TRIVIA: According to the game Star Trek: Borg, during the fight the USS Righteous was transported ten years into the future, therefore surviving the battle relatively undamaged. At the time of The Drumhead, however, the ship would have been presumed destroyed and most likely counted among the thirty-nine lost vessels.

While no definitive list of the 40 ships was ever made, it's also important to keep in mind that the dialogue doesn't necessarily indicate any ships escaped or survived the battle unscathed. Here is Admiral Satie's quote with a slightly different emphasis:

SATIE: It must have been awful for you, actually becoming one of them, being forced to use your vast knowledge of Starfleet operations to aid the Borg. Just how many of our ships were lost? Thirty nine? And a loss of life, I believe, measured at nearly eleven thousand. One wonders how you can sleep at night, having caused so much destruction. I question your actions, Captain. I question your choices. I question your loyalty.

Most of the ships we saw in the aftermath were complete losses, floating about in numerous pieces. It's entirely possible that the last ship had fairly minor damage and the crew died to a radiation leak, loss of atmosphere, or some other similar catastrophe that would kill the crew without necessarily harming the vessel. In such a case, the ship itself would not have been considered lost, even though the crew was lost or forced to evacuate.

In fact, just knowing that thousands of crew members were forced to evacuate their own ships brings up another interesting point. Several crewmembers - including Benjamin & Jake Sisko - were using escape pods, which are short-range and would need to be recovered by a ship before they could leave the system. If this was done immediately following the battle (and therefore before the Enterprise arrived), then that certainly accounts for at least one ship that would have HAD to escape the battle in one piece.

UPDATE: At least one ship - the USS Ahwahnee - was salvaged after the battle & repaired, being back in active service less than a year later. Assuming all other vessels were outright destroyed, then this would be the one ship that wasn't lost.

TRIVIA: According to the game Star Trek: Borg, during the fight the USS Righteous was transported ten years into the future, therefore surviving the battle relatively undamaged. At the time of The Drumhead, however, the ship would have been presumed destroyed and most likely counted among the thirty-nine lost vessels.

While no definitive list of the 40 ships was ever made, it's also important to keep in mind that the dialogue doesn't necessarily indicate any ships escaped or survived the battle unscathed. Here is Admiral Satie's quote with a slightly different emphasis:

SATIE: It must have been awful for you, actually becoming one of them, being forced to use your vast knowledge of Starfleet operations to aid the Borg. Just how many of our ships were lost? Thirty nine? And a loss of life, I believe, measured at nearly eleven thousand. One wonders how you can sleep at night, having caused so much destruction. I question your actions, Captain. I question your choices. I question your loyalty.

Most of the ships we saw in the aftermath were complete losses, floating about in numerous pieces. It's entirely possible that the last ship had fairly minor damage and the crew died to a radiation leak, loss of atmosphere, or some other similar catastrophe that would kill the crew without necessarily harming the vessel. In such a case, the ship itself would not have been considered lost, even though the crew was lost or forced to evacuate.

In fact, just knowing that thousands of crew members were forced to evacuate their own ships brings up another interesting point. Several crewmembers - including Benjamin & Jake Sisko - were using escape pods, which are short-range and would need to be recovered by a ship before they could leave the system. If this was done immediately following the battle (and therefore before the Enterprise arrived), then that certainly accounts for at least one ship that would have HAD to escape the battle in one piece. It would also explain why the Enterprise detected no life signs when we know for a fact that hundreds of people survived the battle and would have been floating around in escape pods or damaged shuttles otherwise.

UPDATE: At least one ship - the USS Ahwahnee - was salvaged after the battle & repaired, being back in active service less than a year later. The point about evacuation aside, and even if we assume all other vessels were outright destroyed, then this could be considered the one ship that wasn't lost (from a logistical viewpoint).

TRIVIA: According to the game Star Trek: Borg, during the fight the USS Righteous was transported ten years into the future, therefore surviving the battle relatively undamaged. At the time of The Drumhead, however, the ship would have been presumed destroyed and most likely counted among the thirty-nine lost vessels.

While no definitive list of the 40 ships was ever made, it's also important to keep in mind that the dialogue doesn't necessarily indicate any ships escaped or survived the battle unscathed. Here is Admiral Satie's quote with a slightly different emphasis:

SATIE: It must have been awful for you, actually becoming one of them, being forced to use your vast knowledge of Starfleet operations to aid the Borg. Just how many of our ships were lost? Thirty nine? And a loss of life, I believe, measured at nearly eleven thousand. One wonders how you can sleep at night, having caused so much destruction. I question your actions, Captain. I question your choices. I question your loyalty.

Most of the ships we saw in the aftermath were complete losses, floating about in numerous pieces. It's entirely possible that the last ship had fairly minor damage and the crew died to a radiation leak, loss of atmosphere, or some other similar catastrophe that would kill the crew without necessarily harming the vessel. In such a case, the ship itself would not have been considered lost, even though the crew was lost or forced to evacuate.

In fact, just knowing that thousands of crew members were forced to evacuate their own ships brings up another interesting point. Several crewmembers - including Benjamin & Jake Sisko - were using escape pods, which are short-range and would need to be recovered by a ship before they could leave the system. If this was done immediately following the battle (and therefore before the Enterprise arrived), then that certainly accounts for at least one ship that would have HAD to escape the battle in one piece.

UPDATE: At least one ship - the USS Ahwahnee - was salvaged after the battle & repaired, being back in active service less than a year later. Assuming all other vessels were outright destroyed, then this would be the one ship that wasn't lost.

While no definitive list of the 40 ships was ever made, it's also important to keep in mind that the dialogue doesn't necessarily indicate any ships escaped or survived the battle unscathed. Here is Admiral Satie's quote with a slightly different emphasis:

SATIE: It must have been awful for you, actually becoming one of them, being forced to use your vast knowledge of Starfleet operations to aid the Borg. Just how many of our ships were lost? Thirty nine? And a loss of life, I believe, measured at nearly eleven thousand. One wonders how you can sleep at night, having caused so much destruction. I question your actions, Captain. I question your choices. I question your loyalty.

Most of the ships we saw in the aftermath were complete losses, floating about in numerous pieces. It's entirely possible that the last ship had fairly minor damage and the crew died to a radiation leak, loss of atmosphere, or some other similar catastrophe that would kill the crew without necessarily harming the vessel. In such a case, the ship itself would not have been considered lost, even though the crew was lost or forced to evacuate.

In fact, just knowing that thousands of crew members were forced to evacuate their own ships brings up another interesting point. Several crewmembers - including Benjamin & Jake Sisko - were using escape pods, which are short-range and would need to be recovered by a ship before they could leave the system. If this was done immediately following the battle (and therefore before the Enterprise arrived), then that certainly accounts for at least one ship that would have HAD to escape the battle in one piece.

UPDATE: At least one ship - the USS Ahwahnee - was salvaged after the battle & repaired, being back in active service less than a year later. Assuming all other vessels were outright destroyed, then this would be the one ship that wasn't lost.

TRIVIA: According to the game Star Trek: Borg, during the fight the USS Righteous was transported ten years into the future, therefore surviving the battle relatively undamaged. At the time of The Drumhead, however, the ship would have been presumed destroyed and most likely counted among the thirty-nine lost vessels.