DS9 ran on fusion power, so in theory there wouldn’t have been any dilithium in use (though the same couldn’t necessarily be said for docked or orbiting ships).

But I tend to think the station itself should be gone by now, unless they decided to preserve it for historical reasons or something.

At least we’ll always have Turner.

You don’t think the mysterious disappearance of a war hero who was also entangled with non-linear, godlike beings would be interesting?

It’s only sitting next to a portal to the other side of the galaxy that also happens to be the home of a species that exists outside of linear time - nothing significant there!

They seem to be tailoring the SFS previews for the social media crowd, with no “standard” formatting.

I suppose you could argue it’s targeting a specific audience, but…it’s weird.

Oh of course, you’re absolutely right!

The Borg have only been mentioned once in the 32nd century, unless there’s something I’m forgetting:

At the conference discussing the species behind the DMA, someone raises the possibility that they could have a collective intelligence. President Rillak says, “like the Borg?”

In my opinion, her tone is a little fearful. Make of that what you will!

They are both in the “prime” Star Trek universe, but the “classic” Borg Collective is dead, leaving only Jurati’s splinter faction (as far as we know).

Oh yeah, the publicity stills are often laser-focused (phaser-focused) on being as boring as possible - if it weren’t for the logline and information on the writers and directors, I’d consider them almost completely worthless.

As a cadet sets out to solve an ancient Starfleet mystery, she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns the value of forging her own path. Meanwhile, Nahla agrees to help a fellow chancellor with an elaborate alien ritual.

I have a strong suspicion that this shot from one of the early trailers wasn’t a throwaway easter egg as many of us assumed:

The show was from a time when the U.S. thought they had beaten fascism

I think all the time about how early TNG largely reflected the falsehoods we were being sold at the time - that all of these things were Past Problems.

Early Picard seemed to be going that way,

Discovery went there in its first season, with the Federation prepared to sell its soul to win the war until they found another (problematic) way.

The post-Burn 32nd Century is coming at it from the other side, with SFA in particular reckoning with some of the choices that were made during the period when everything was falling apart.

The latter too closely resembles “American exceptionalism”

Yeah, I’ve always found the “Starfleet must always be in the right” mentality to be patronizing at best, imperialistic at worst.

Is there any evidence at all of the writers of the more recent series not having “freedom,” or of corporate interference in the shows?

I don’t think that planet was portrayed as a particularly idyllic place…

I’d say they took it even further than that - the reason they were in that all-too-relevant “past” to begin with was that they had travelled back in time to an inflection point that could lead to a global descent into fascism.

I think that arrogant, quasi-imperialistic has always been simmering in the background of the Federation, so I wasn’t too surprised to see them arguing over this - and, to be clear, the actual debate was always amongst the students. Vance was determined to convince the Klingons to accept asylum, but “compelling” them did not seem to be seriously on the table.

Esri Dax’s excellent critique of the Klingon Empire

That’s an interesting point. If I were to come up with a counter-argument, I suppose it would be that the Klingons’ readiness to do this ritualistic faux combat shows some growth - they’re willing to settle for performing their culture and feeling respected, rather than endure actual warfare. A smarter person than me could probably find parallels in many modern cultural practices.

It’s not as if the Burn expunged all records of Klingon-Federation relations and the Federation had to rebuild from illuminated manuscripts copied by monks.

No, but I don’t think there’s any era that we’ve seen in which the Federation would stage an act of aggression as a diplomatic overture. Even in this episode, no one seemed sure it was going to work (and it may not have, were it not for Ake’s personal connection to Obel).

the solution was that obvious.

I do agree - they probably telegraphed it a little too hard.

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

They did say they had been using “dilithium reactors” on multiple worlds.