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Monroe wrote:In the commentary for the show the writers suggested that Star Fleet didn't know these cybernetic creatures were Borg, since they never called themselves such, and Star Fleet also classified the whole situation.
Then again the writers didn't like the idea so were just playing devil's advocate.

Not knowing their name =/= not knowing of their existence. I knew there were tribes of cowherds in Kenya before I knew they were called the Maasai.

Another possibility is that Starfleet recognised the Borg as the aliens that attacked the NX-01 when the E-D got back from J-25, and the new weapons they refered to in BoBW drew from both sets of data. It's a stretch, I know, but such recognition and discussion would have been done back at HQ, not on the E-D months later during the BoBW incursion.

Captain Seafort wrote:Another possibility is that Starfleet recognised the Borg as the aliens that attacked the NX-01 when the E-D got back from J-25, and the new weapons they refered to in BoBW drew from both sets of data. It's a stretch, I know, but such recognition and discussion would have been done back at HQ, not on the E-D months later during the BoBW incursion.

The writers mentioned that maybe Dr. Crusher studied Dr. Phlox's work.

Its the hunk of debre on Earth which really streches credability. They should know how advanced it is and reverse engineer it.

It's possible that it was simply too advanced for them to do so. If you gave the British Empire in the 18th century a jet fighter, do you think they'd have any chance of reverse engineering it?

Some of it.

Like?

Amunitions. Might not be able to recrate it as advanced but they would get the idea how it works and make ones like it.

Also the basics of aerodynamics. It would push them in the right direction.

How are they going to be able to even figure out what a missile is?

Similarly, if this thing just appeared on their doorsteps one day, they probably wouldn't even think it flew at all.

Teaos wrote:Amunitions. Might not be able to recrate it as advanced but they would get the idea how it works and make ones like it.

Also the basics of aerodynamics. It would push them in the right direction.

Depends. A proximity fuse, or something similar, would probably seem like so much magic. Aerodynamics - especially the airfoil - would be a complete mystery until the discovery of Bernoulli's Principle.

Who said missle? I was thinking the bullets they use in dog fights. Although I think they would be able to work something out from the missles.

Also the Borg on Earth are obviously from another planet and the thing they are in is a ship.

The bullets might be recognized as bullets. The point is that to effectively "reverse engineer" something that is currently beyond your ken, you must at least observe it operating normally in its intended role.

And if one person had seen the Borg during ENT, no matter how much Starfleet/Sec 31/Temporal watchdogs/the Borg themselves/etc. tried to clean up the records, there would be SOME gossip, rumor, or "urban legend" which persisted. The idea of an aggressive, humanoid sybernetic race wouldn't be a complete jaw-dropper as it was in "Q Who?"

If you saw Big Foot or the Lochnes Monster would you not be totally suprised.

What about a sea serpents? I doubt many people nowadays know much about them but they were a common myth back in the day.

Or maybe Q thought "Hmm, I can wipe everyone's memories and then send another starship to encounter the Borg latter, just to prove a point."

Teaos wrote:If you saw Big Foot or the Lochnes Monster would you not be totally suprised.

What about a sea serpents? I doubt many people nowadays know much about them but they were a common myth back in the day.

It's not the same issue. Yes, if I saw Nessie I'd be surprised (especially because I'm not in Scotland.) But I would be surprised that it actually existed - I wouldn't be completely unfamiliar with the idea of the Loch Ness monster at all, which is how Picard & Co. reacted at J25.