To continue Jig's point, there is supposed to be summat like 170 years between Archers' encounter with the Borg, and 'First Contact'.

The more time that passes between an event and the 'present', the more likely that facts will be forgotten. (Or misinterpreted)

As time passes, things also change. As Jig said, records wouldn't have been as good as the ones in TNG times. You just have to think about things today - we can record information in writing, in sound, in video, on a computer, and so on - 170 years ago, such things were impossible!

Try to imagine what technology we might have in 170 years time (If we survive that long 8O) - we can only try to guess at it, coz we don't have any idea! If we did, what would be the point in research? We'd already know everything! 8O

Over time, things get lost or forgotten, the way information is recorded improves, and we record more of it.

The simple fact of the matter is that no-one was around to remember it, (Were the Vulcans informed of the Borg?) the information could easily have been lost, and if any info did survive, it would likely have been lacking indetail, compared to the standards/needs of TNG times.

There was one thing that people seem to have forgotten about the encounter though - the subspace message. Even if Q hadn't sent the Enterprise to meet the Borg, they would have found their way to the Federation eventually.

So even if the paradox was solved, (Obviously it can't be though) the Borg were still gonna attack, only at a later time.

Q sent the Enterprise-D to show them what was coming and to preper the federation for any borg attacks because of the subspace message sent many years earlier.

Q being helpful, i guess it's because he's human after all

You know that isn't weird to hear. Somehow the Q part you propose fits. Best idea is that the Borg Incident and all information related was kept secret or was deleted from the databank. Perhaps they were informed to do so, i dunno.

back to the borg just sending five cubes,maybe since the borg had almost no trouble with the federation the first time at wolf 359, the queen didnt feal it necessary to send more than one cube, she is very over confident after all or at least thats the impresion i got from the voyager series. Also i the only record is archers report it could very easilly have bee misplaced or deleted

Voyager DID take on a Tactical Cube, but it was already damaged by a nubula or something and Voayager only disabled it by smuggling a torpedo onboard somehow (I foget how they did it)

I've been lurking here for approaching a year I think, on and off every few months (like I used to at Starbase Delta, for anyone familiar with Stars!SN), but anyway.. I registered JUST for this discussion

I've referenced DITL for years, as the site's pretty objective, it knows when to take certain things (like a good chunk of Voyager) with a grain of salt, etc.

Anyway, it was mentioned some where along the line in DS9, and again in the books, that the Dominion War wasn't made easy by the massive loss incurred at the battle that ran from Typhon Sector back to Sol. The reason DITL speculates 4 days is because even though in the movie it appeared be a fast trip, at maximum sustainable cruise, from clear out on the Romulan border, it'd of taken 4 days. Probably longer then that -- he probably figured it maintained Warp 9.99 for the 96 hour trip instead of the normal 36 hour rated maximum.. Scotty and La'Forge have done more amazing things than hold the hull and engines together under a little stress, right?

I personally don't think that the 500 ship loss would've made a big difference in the war though.... there were several cases, both on the show and later in the books, that pointed out whole fleets leaving with hundreds of ships, and returning with a half dozen ships a few days later, half of which are towing the other half. That was probably status-quo early on, and not uncommon up until the Romulan's got in to the act.

Five cubes would've laid waste to the fleet, and only could've been stopped if the entire fleet was able to gather at once... which couldn't of happened, 'cause Federation space can take like a year or more to cross from one side to the other! At the end of the Dominion War, there were still ships showing up that'd been on patrol way out on the far side of the federation.. According to DITLs calculator (operating on canon data), to cross the Fed at 9.99 (achievable only by the Sovereign class if i'm not mistaken), it still takes 1 year and 4 days!

Anyway, I never saw the ENT episode ya'll are talking about.. that whole series depressed me, stopped watching fairly early on, but this one seems worth finding a torrent for.

Edit: Another note, standard cruise for a bunch of older ships is around warp 6 or so, and at that rate, it'd take 20 years to cross the federation! There's some things ditl has come up with to explain how faster travels possible, but.. can't seem to find it, I think he got too much heat for his suggestions and took it down. Basically areas of space where normal space influences subspace less, allowing the warp field to move ships faster. IE, the old Enterprise going to the galactic core and back.