"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.

Believable. The cadet quarters of the 32nd century are redressed sets from Strange New Worlds, and thats like 1000 years earlier.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least that "alien marketplace" is just set pieces they drag out of storage every few months.

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?"

re: Obel Wochak's complexion, I saw a Youtube recap that said he was an albino Klingon. I don't know if the show really confirmed it, but I thought it was an interesting takeaway, because we've seen a couple in previous shows already.

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.

Holy shit. All so that eventually all the young folks turn on the older officers on their ships. Wesley finally getting his revenge for the way he was treated growing up. He was playing this 4D chess all along

I'm kinda left wondering why it needed to be the Enterprise at all, since all we see is the ship, and no one from it. Is it just to give closure in-universe for it? Why couldn't it just be "any" mirror universe ship?

I mean, was Burnham so incurious about mirror Spock that she never checked the records?

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".