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In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the first Borg were shown to Jean Luc Picard because Q decided to tamper with the fate of Humanity and show them how grosly unprepared they are for what lies in the unknown. If Jonathan Archer had an encounter with the Borg, Jean Luc Picard should've already had prior knowledge or at least had some reference to go on when encountering the Cube.

So how is it that the Federation has no information on the Borg in TNG? It's been said that Star Trek: Enterprise was not in an alternate timeline.

Mithical
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TheIcePhoenix
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    The question is why did the Enterprise encounter the borg since it was established that they didn't in TNG and not the other way around because of the linearity of our time. The answer of course is that the short-lived Enterprise series was not very good and just went with what was popular = the Borg because of that mediocre movie they did. Also, Star Trek was never big on continuity. I think one could fill more than one book with continuity errors in star trek. – Raditz_35 Sep 04 '17 at 12:04
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    I'm not sure what of the events in enterprise was recorded. They found a cyborg race frozen on earth that captured a freighter and enhanced its warp drive. They were destroyed. It's like many other "adventures" in this time I think. And even if this story is in the archives in TNG, who would have found it? And how would they have known that this were the same cyborgs? And also, the Borg in enterprise were more advanced than the first Borg in TNG. So they could be overseen and be taken as another species of cyborgs. – Hothie Sep 04 '17 at 12:47
  • The Memory Alpha site seems to be consistent in with the idea that there are continuity issues within the series as Raditz_35 notes. http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Borg "Through the course of Star Trek history, further retroactive continuity changes appear to have been made in respect of the Borg." – beichst Sep 04 '17 at 13:03
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    Enterprise might not be set in a different timeline to the one TNG ended on, but the timeline did change, more than once I believe, during TNG's run. Notably, the Borg themselves went back and changed history in First Contact. While the Enterprise-D succeeded in saving humanity, it seems two Borg drones ended up frozen, leading to the events of the Enterprise episode "Regeneration". – DisturbedNeo Sep 04 '17 at 13:59
  • My comment was just off the top of my head. I made an answer after some research confirmed it. – DisturbedNeo Sep 04 '17 at 14:22

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Star Trek: Enterprise is NOT set in the same timeline as the TNG episode "Q Who"

In "Q Who", Q sends the Enterprise hurtling across space and forces them into an encounter with the Borg, to teach Jean Luc and the rest of Starfleet how woefully unprepared they are for what awaits them outside their quadrant of the galaxy.

Later, the timeline is changed in the movie First Contact, where the Borg go back in time to assimilate a defenceless Earth, and the Enterprise-E follows them. They succeed in helping Zefram Cochrane achieve warp speed and capture the Vulcans' attention, whilst also defeating the Borg, assuring Earth's continued existence.

However, this encounter changed the timeline in a big way. Zefram Cochrane got a good look at the "group of cybernetic creatures from the future who had intended to 'enslave the Human race'" and later described them in a speech. Additionally, two of the Borg drones ended up frozen in the Arctic circle, where they would lie dormant until excavated in the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Regeneration".

The TNG episode "Q Who" that we see is in the timeline before it is changed in First Contact. The Enterprise episode "Regeneration" is in the new timeline.

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DisturbedNeo
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  • It's Enterprise-E in First Contact, not D. Doubt I can make such a small edit myself. Good answer though. – Darren Sep 04 '17 at 14:24
  • So it is, my bad. Corrected. – DisturbedNeo Sep 04 '17 at 14:28
  • Also, really nitpicky now, but it should be Vulcans', not Vulcan's. Sorry :) – Darren Sep 04 '17 at 14:30
  • Unless they caught a specific Vulcan's attention ;) it's cool, you're absolutely right. – DisturbedNeo Sep 04 '17 at 14:42
  • There was definitely more than one Vulcan at the end of FC :) You got my up-vote anyway. – Darren Sep 04 '17 at 14:43
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    You say the timeline was changed but you don't provide any evidence. I don't see any reason to believe we weren't watching the "changed" timeline from the beginning. In the same way that Data's head was in the cave even though they hadn't gone back in time yet. – Brian Ortiz Sep 05 '17 at 01:20
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    The evidence is in the episode "Q Who". If they were in the new timeline, they'd have information on the Borg already. Since they had no information concerning the Borg in that episode, we can only conclude that those events took place in a timeline where the Borg hadn't gone back in time and encountered Zefram Cochrane. That's the only in-universe explanation. The alternative is to simply hand-wave it with "poor writing", but that's not satisfying for anybody. – DisturbedNeo Sep 05 '17 at 09:18
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    The episode "Time's Arrow" was a closed time loop with no logical paradoxes. That's why it's all one timeline. First Contact, on the other hand, changed established history, which in turn caused the timeline itself to change. It's different applications of time travel and causality, so you can't really equate the two. – DisturbedNeo Sep 05 '17 at 09:19