majicwalrus

undefined> Zipping around the battlefield has virtually no tactical advantage.

This is really the correct answer. If you aren't moving at warp, you might as well not be moving for all the good it will do you. If you are moving at warp you're moving in a straight line so quickly that unless the other ship is following you at warp, it doesn't really matter.

I think this can quite easily be pulled off. Lower Decks is an example of this to a degree, but for an even better Beta Canon example look at the Star Trek Resurgence narrative game. The story takes place from two perspectives Petty Officer and the ship's First Officer. Each of these characters has relationships which will impact the story and for the most part they work separately from one another, but still work together and it makes a lot more sense when the Captain sends the Petty Officers to go on the hull and do dangerous work than sending the chief of any department.

Consider that Deep Space 9's primary cast of characters includes an enlisted person and several non-Starfleet personnel or straight up civilians. Porting that to a TV show would not be that difficult and I think there has even been some success with that in Lower Decks which features lower deckers along senior staff just fine, even interweaving their stories; and Discovery which, particularly in the first season, creates characters by proximity to the story not by bridge positions. Tilly is important because she is Burnham's roommate, not because she's the chief of anything. Despite this Tilly's character is a fan favorite. Unfortunately, I think Discovery fell into the impulse of giving audiences more of what they want and that meant creating stories where a random cadet was a valued member of the team - and team was still mostly senior staff.

undefined> It represents an approach to Star Trek that was cut off far too early, one that solves or avoids the most obnoxious pitfalls of the later seasons, and one I desperately wish we could have gotten more of.

I'll comment on this most important concluding statement with agreement. Ultimately, Discovery tried to do something different and did it fairly well. It's downfall was in not being willing to take that kind of storytelling and really lean into it. Fans started talking, loudly, about changes that were made and as a result later seasons of Discovery become far more tempered. The Discovery of season 1 could have ended Season 2 by sending Burnham and Discovery to the future and introducing a whole new cast of main players in a whole new context. Instead of that, they responded to the valid criticisms of the weaker supporting characters who don't seem to have much to do and as a result the show took a much more emotional turn. They haven't abandoned these long arcs, but they've tried to tell that story in a more familiar way and in my opinion this was always Discovery's downfall.

It might be a standard Crossfield class ship, not heavily modified like the Glenn and Discovery and this is just what they normally look like when they aren't refitted for mushroom engines.

It definitely looks to be made of a Crossfield primary hull with Constitution nacelles, and maybe a Miranda style rollbar on top. It did give me the kitbash feeling and the idea that the Klingons salvaged maybe two ships to create one is kind of interesting.

What's up with that "Crossfield" class anyway? Clearly a refit after the end of Discovery or a misidentification I think.

I also didn't make the connection of the black backing indicating the Academy or the Starbase personnel flower-emblem, but this makes sense since she would be an officer and the only other Academy badges we've seen are worn by cadets. Assuming that when she says "she teaches" that means she is currently teaching, perhaps out of a Starbase. Although, I wonder why only Pelia wears the flower-emblem when there are other starbase personnel who seem to be wearing standard issue uniforms.

Discovery set a sort of precedent for this era of Trek by having only the XO and Captain wear gold. This of course gets mirrored in updated colors when they arrive in the 32nd century. It doesn't make a lot of sense unless, as you suggest, there's no clear pattern to the division color for pilots/helmsmen.

Oddly enough Geordi doesn't wear command red even though he is ostensibly a flag officer in command of multiple ships. He wore command red as a pilot and then never again, apparently, even as he obtained senior rank.