Why Were The Borg Unknown Prior To TNG?

[BillJ]

The whole thing makes me wonder what qualifies in Star Trek for creating an alternate reality? I mean, people seem to go back in time, change history and still remain in the same timeline but you have other times, like Nero, who go back in time and change history and create a new universe. How come this doesn't happen with Picard and many other examples throughout the series but happens when Nero goes back in time?

New writers.

But it isn't entirely inconsistent with prior Trek.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Spock and Thelin's final exchange in in "Yesteryear" implies that that alternate reality would continue on once Spock restored his version of history (and it did, in Myriad Universes: The Chimes at Midnight)

The ENT/AU thing comes up a LOT and I've argued it to death before, so all I'll say on the subject now is that fans get a little too hung up on post-FC/ENT continuity issues as if MASSIVE ones didn't exist prior. I'll take someone not linking or covering up the Borg incident of 2151 over, say, Kirk's old Enterprise journeying from Earth to the galactic rim (twice) and centre of the galaxy in a flash (twice if you include TAS) when Voyager's one cross-galaxy journey was a lifetime one. And Voyager and TOS cross-over in "Flashback" as if it's all one big harmonious timeline...

 

[Melakon]

I still think each individual series and each individual film might be taking place in their own alternate universes, where only specifically referenced events coincide.

 

[Lance]

If we work on the assumption that the events of FC are a predestination paradox, and that the Borg/TNG crews involvement in events there always was the case..... then the only explanation I can come up with is that Section 31 kept them a bit of a secret, to the point of, for example, the 1701-D computers having no record of them in Q Who. The Hansens figured something out and went out there off their own bat to try and find if these mythical cyborg creatures were true, but it wasn't until Q let the genie out of the bottle that the Borg became "known" to the wider population (Section 31 would, of course, simply pretend they're learning about them at the same time everyone else is).

Doesn't account for all the discrepencies, but it does tie up the bigger knots.

(I do myself lean more towards the alternate timeline theory, just because I'm a fan of temporal hijinks lol. )

In regards to the ENT controversies, I am of the view as stated above that maybe the NX ships still existed in the original timeline, maybe even Archer commanded one, but that timeline isn't the version we actually see in Enterprise. I do like Unspeakable's explanation above that maybe the original timeline warp five ship wasn't actually called Enterprise in the TOS/TNG version of the timeline, that might be one of the knock on effects from the incursion seen in First Contact. As far as things like the ship wall in TMP and all the "fifth starship to bear the name" stuff in TNG were concerned, the original Warp 5 ship was not an Enterprise, it was christened under a different name.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^They say the Enterprise-D was the fifth Federation ship to bear the name in TNG.
The NX-01 was retired immediately before the Federation charter was signed.

Of course, Sisko just calls Kirk's ship "The first Enterprise" in "Trials and Tribble-ations"....

 

[Nerys Myk]

I still think each individual series and each individual film might be taking place in their own alternate universes, where only specifically referenced events coincide.

In TOS every other episode could be in it's own alternate universe.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^They say the Enterprise-D was the fifth Federation ship to bear the name in TNG.
The NX-01 was retired immediately before the Federation charter was signed.

Of course, Sisko just calls Kirk's ship "The first Enterprise" in "Trials and Tribble-ations"....

And has no real reason to include non-Federation ships in that lineage.

 

[Lance]

I remember when Enterprise was first announced, and they were leaking details of it out. I liked the idea of a prequel, and I liked that it was taking place on an Enterprise again. But you know, I kinda wish they'd made it a sequel to TOS but a prequel to TNG. Set it on one of the middle Enterprises, either 1701-B or 1701-C. There would still have been the chance for loads of new storytelling possibilities that were perceived to be impossible in the TNG and VOY era, which was one of the stated aims for doing a prequel by Berman in the first place, but it would also still leave them enough leeway to (for example) weave as many TNG/DS9/VOY elements into it as they felt like, without it feeling like it overwhealms the crediblity of the timeline, like ENT sometimes did. Setting something so far back in Trek history is really what often opened ENT up to those kinds of nitpicky continuity criticisms.