Stoopid Star Trek IV question

[samurainoir]

In one of the Peter David Star Trek novels, the Doomsday Machine was actually a weapon to be used against The Borg.

[UnderdogDJLSW]

Hold on a second. How can the probe be from the same people as the Doomsday Machine? I got the impression that wherever the Doomsday Machine came from, all the life there was destroyed. That was why it was so scary, once it was activated it just annihilated everybody. I don't get it.

Well, I think Spock mentions somewhere that the probe was ancient and wondering why the whales stopped answering or something like that. I just figured that the race that died off from the Doomsday Machine had also made other large tube-like robotic things, too, hundreds of years ago. Just fun stuff in my mind. No Trek cannon here