Whay has the federation not devaliped transwarp drive?

They have saved a good number of former drowns and reanimated them. You would think with the dubree left behind the and the information available from debored people they would have the tech buy now... along with outher things like regunrations and adaption.

not really.
you'll find that the Romans were ingenious. Maybe they would not have been able to decipher it, but they would not bash it to look for "armour".
Ironically, if you look at history a little more closely, the anglo-saxon and celtic "civilizations" are simply copies of Rome. Even the science we now have is merely an extension on Roman-Greek science. There has been no invention in the true sense when dealing with scientific knowledge (relativity is the only exception). Even Newton simply expanded on older Greek concepts related to gravity.

In essence, one would expect the "smash it up for armor" approach from today's people more than from Rome or ancient civilizations.
Who knows, if Roswell ever were real, one could pretty well imagine the Us military using "alien" tech more for weaponry than for anything else - spiritual or developmental.
Seems the more things change the more they stay the same.

I seem tom misunderstand your reference to Serpicus' post.  I don't see anything that ventures as far as to define the concept of invention.

Bah.

Keep in mind that I got 4 1/2 hours of sleep last night and spent 9 hours at college today. 

Of course, there are no "entirely new" things. We agree. Without wanting to push ourselves into an unnecessary discussion that takes us off -topic I would just like to clarify what I was saying.

1. to claim that invention is based on gradual building on old ideas is a testament to lack of originality. It's nice that people develop themselves by building on old ideas. But event here we see a selective expansion on coarse chemistry and basic european physics. Everything is built on what is left of Greek ideas. But if one were to ask why we do not focus on things like for example - harnessing botanical resources to develop medicines like an expansion on Ayurveda for example (only an example) - we see a complete dearth of ability and will to pursue areas which are outside ancient Greco-Roman science and technology. The fact that we do not broach on such fields, given an absence of pre-inculcated information, shows how one sided and imitative our science and invention truly is.

So, when we say that Rome would not know what to do with something like a positronic brain, we shouldn't be so flattering to ourselves to assume that we wouldn't look for a spy satellite guidance system in something as remarkable as a positronic brain.

2. So yes, the more things change the more they stay the same.
To clarify, the only difference that I cited, was that ancient civilizations, even Rome, were less constrained by their own sanctimonious beliefs of being all-knowing, and allowed possibilities for improvement and understanding, by virtue of their not having to analyze an object based on "main-stream" ideas for fear of being ostracized by their scientific community or a pre-imbibed desire to continue an unnecessary tussle between science and so called religion.

btw. As regards the US military, instead of getting insulted, it would do more good to actually analyze the implications of a society where technological progress is determined and driven by military research.

Hmm, well...

[Note: The following is according to the various tech manuals I have. It's not canon, but it makes sense]

The first "transwarp" drive wasn't the same thing as the transwarp drive we see on Borg ships.
The transwarp used on the USS Excelsior was more a rethink of warp drive. As seen in The Motion Picture, an imbalance in the warp drive caused the warp field to alter into a tunnel shape (wormhole), which, though unstable and dangerous, was in fact faster than conventional warp design. The Federation then tried to develop a stable version of this, calling is "transwarp". It failed.

Also note that Transwarp in that context does not mean the same "Warp 10+". In TOS/TMP era, it's a linear scale. So while a specific amount of energy could get a conventional warp drive to Warp 3 (3^3 x Speed of Light), using a transwarp drive, that amount of energy would move the ship at Transwarp 3 (3^5 x Speed of Light). It's merely a more energy-efficient configuration of standard warp theory.

Next, onto the Borg stuff.

I think some of you are underestimating how difficult it is to reverse-engineer and re-invent technologies. Sure, it's possible to do that here on Earth, as the tech levels aren't THAT different (which is why the USA and USSR were able to start their space programs so easily using the technology they took from the Nazis in 1945; the first rockets were actual V2s). But the Borg are thousands of years more advanced, taking the variety and advancements of thousands of civilisations.

As some of you have already said, it is comparable to if you went back in time to the Medieval Ages, and gave them a PlayStation 3. Would they be able to look at it, then make one of their own? No.

Well, in the first encounter between the Enterprise and the Borg, the Enterprise did 20% damage to the cube with one phaser blast, so the Borg have been anything but consistent with regards to strength.

...which usually makes it pointless to argue canon, unless the developers created the series with such an idea in mind