[dragonwriter]

I really don't know what your real argument is, since you seem to have abandoned the “They are under the impression that it has to be TNG cast or not-at-all” for a bunch of different and directly contradictory arguments, from which the only coherent thing is you don't like new Trek and everything, and that's fine, like what you like and dislike what you dislike, but I don’t think there is anything that supports productive discussion here.

[gabereiser]

My real argument is that the current trek lineup is vastly different than what trek has traditionally been. Story driven with nods to science that push our understanding of the universe. Examples with counter examples:

- TNG "The Measure of a Man" : explores the rights of androids and non-human lifeforms that are sentient and given a choice. Whether that choice should be honored or not. Where the line of rights of man are drawn.

- Discovery "An Obol for Charon" : A giant all-knowing sphere shows up with "sphere data" that the enterprise must protect like it's a database of user data with PII.

- DS9 "In the Pale Moonlight" : Sisko and the Federation are taking heavy losses in the Dominion War, this episode is about how far a leader will go to accomplish victory, who, or what, they are willing to sacrifice.

- Discovery "Unification III" : Tear jerk for the late Leonard Nimoy.

I'm saying that it's lost its way. While the universe is still amazing and detailed and all, the story/plots are just meh. I mean, we had a whole story arch of Tardigrades. Not exactly riveting science but ok, I'll bite, what about tardigrades? That they are on the moon? No? Time traveling tardigrades, yeah I'm out.