"Maggs" could be a reference to Jane Maggs, an executive producer on the show.

Announcing Becky Lynch only to use her an an extra twice, doesn't feel like cost cutting as much as a potential breach of contract.

I felt like there was an intentional nod to the Bell Riots when Sam said that Sisko wanted to start riots, and Genesis responds with "Did Sisko start riots I don't know about?"

Just to your point about the debate being pointless, it wasn't even meant to be in the curriculum until the students fought for it.

We could mince words about whether or not the writers forced the debate plot, but what really matters is whether they sold that it was within the characters' motivation to hold one. And for me it did.

Aha. This is the reasoning that made the whole thing click for me. Thank you!

Well, plus the Burn that made it difficult to traverse space. The "Klingon Zone" that was hinted at in Discovery probably meant that the apparatus of empire was no longer in place, but that only individual houses remained, scattered wherever they were across the region of the empire.

Glad you're back! You were down right when I just finished watching Starfleet Academy and I feared for the worst 😅

I’m still trying to figure out why hexagonal.

Well, it doesn't matter. It works.

Burnham is the one that said "family," but I'm wondering if she even knows what Soong-type androids are, since they would have appeared after her time. She probably made an assumption that Fred was biological, given how quickly she had to sweep the room and leave.

I'm more curious why they didn't just hook up Fred's head and turn him back on. They were able to do that with Data. Maybe they figured Fred wouldn't be cooperative, or that Stamets just didn't have the technology or know-how to able to do that and went straight for "download the data".

"History may not repeat, but it does rhyme."

• Ancient Klingon proverb

"Oh look, it's the AR wall" is the modern version of "oh look, it's the same octagonal set dressed up with random props from a couple of other episodes to represent an alien planet"

I sort of kept thinking this was kind of like a reverse Tuvix.