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In Memory Alpha, the page on the U.S.S. Defiant states that two Defiant-class ships had that name: the prototype Defiant, and a successor, the U.S.S. Sao Paulo, which was assigned to DS9 and renamed Defiant after the loss of the original. All of this happened during the DS9 series.

In the Star Trek: First Contact movie, the Defiant participates in the opening battle, where a Borg Cube penetrates the Sol system's defenses and besieges Earth. Worf is in command, and is transported out of the crippled Defiant along with whatever's left of his crew by the Enterprise; out-of-universe, this is a rather transparent method to get Worf back into the TNG side of things after the events of ST: Generations, when he moved to DS9 as tactical officer and unofficial envoy to the Klingon Empire.

The question is, was Worf's Defiant in the movie the original, or the Sao Paulo? This would primarily depend on where the movie falls in the overall canon timeline. According to in-movie dialog, whichever one it was was salvageable and therefore would have survived the movie, so the movie would have had little impact on the canon of any running TV series at the time.

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    Either way, it was a good day to die.
    – Junuxx
    Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 16:15

3 Answers 3

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The Defiant in the movie is the original.

The opening scene of the movie takes place at Stardate 50893.5:

PICARD: Captain's log, Stardate 50893.5. The moment I have dreaded for nearly six years has finally arrived. The Borg, our most lethal enemy, have begun an invasion of the Federation, and this time there may be no stopping them.

Unlike original-series Star Trek, the next-gen-era stuff keeps reasonably close track of stardates, at least down to the year/season. Season 1 of TNG got stardates of the form 41xxx; each subsequent season got stardates that were 1000 units higher. So Stardate 50893.5 would be in "season 10" of TNG. Season 1 of DS9 takes place during season 6 of TNG, so First Contact takes place during season 5 of DS9 (and season 3 of Voyager).

Confirming this timing, the pivotal season-5 DS9 episode "In Purgatory's Shadow" has an offhand reference to the events of the movie:

DUKAT: Sorry I'm late.

KIRA: What's he doing here?

DUKAT: Captain Sisko invited me.

SISKO: A Dominion invasion of the Alpha Quadrant will affect Cardassia every bit as much as it will affect us. Besides, we need all the help we can get. The Dominion picked a perfect time to invade. The Cardassian fleet is in shambles, the Romulans aren't much better off, and between the Klingon War and the latest Borg attack, Starfleet's spread pretty thin.

The original Defiant wasn't destroyed until the season-7 DS9 episode "The Changing Face of Evil", roughly two years later.

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    Not to mention that the Sao Paulo Defiant only existed for the last two episodes of DS9, which were released two and a half years after First Contact.
    – jwodder
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 20:46
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    @jwodder: Yeah, I just realized I forgot to mention that half of the reasoning. :)
    – Micah
    Commented Feb 21, 2013 at 20:48
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This is an old thread, but I thought I would chime in with an explanation.

When Worf is transported from the Defiant in First Contact, he asks Picard about the state of the ship. Picard says it's unmoored but salvageable. So it is the orginal Defiant, and therefore fits the DS9 timeline, along with the uniforms, and Worf's switch to command red.

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    "Picard says it's unmoored but salvageable. So it is the orginal Defiant" I somehow don't understand this connection. Would you mind explaining why?
    – Mario
    Commented Jul 16, 2017 at 6:58
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The first one. The Battle of Sector 001 too place in 2373, the Defiant I wasn't destroyed til 2375.

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    We could use more detail. For example, why do you think it's this one?
    – FuzzyBoots
    Commented Apr 30, 2020 at 21:20

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