1. I felt that Kirk was trying to sabotage the phasers and didn’t have enough time or know how. Failing all other options then bluffing feels like textbook Kirk. We know how potent a full vial of cordrazine can be several years down the road. In the story, Kirk doesn’t know, he gave it his best guess, not a first or last for Star Trek. The drug twist was unexpected but I think makes sense. It’s not simply a Decker situation with a higher-ranking officer, but someone with a “reality distortion field” of myth and flattery Kirk has to prove without a doubt is unsound to a crew he doesn’t have a strong relationship with.
2. We really don’t know where M’Benga’s story is going. We know he’s on the Enterprise in some capacity in 2268 but there are any number of things that can happen after SNW or before TOS to explain this. SNW is also going to have to put McCoy on the Enterprise theoretically before his first appearance in 2266. So Dr. Piper might have to be addressed as well.
3. I think M’Benga is in a better spot than Number One was at the start of season two. It’s implied Reeger was removed from command deliberately, so a “Caine Mutiny” result in a trial wouldn’t be unexpected.
4. I haven’t been able to find in canon where “truth” is an officially stated tenant of Starfleet. We can presume it’s woven into the culture, but for Picard it seems personal, and that whole monologue was specifically used to provoke a feeling of integrity and guilt within Wesley so he would do the right thing. A soft recurring theme in SNW has been that written history doesn’t contain the full dimension or truth of a moment. Logs can have details ommitted, but those logs become the history that is lionized for individuals like Picard, Janeway, Boimler, etc.

This is more akin to Disney saying, “We hate mice! Disney is now a chain of casinos and we’re rebranding to 🅱️!”

Could almost be similar to the situation that forced Musk to buy Twitter in the first place, because he of course tweeted that Twitter would never be Twitter again and they were ‘getting rid of the bird’”.

There are more details in the article and older articles linked as well.

It’s okay to take a break. Come back if you feel the itch.

I took a big Star Trek break after PIC S1 and came back to the franchise appreciating more than ever before.

RetroArch should have a video player built in. Anything running in RetroArch should be able to run its shaders.

PAL the format has a higher resolution but DS9’s production process was for NTSC. They would not have redone the series in PAL so that version is likely scaled the lower resolution up to the PAL resolution along with the speed artifacts described.

I think the AI upscales we have now are a novelty but not a substitute for the DVD masters. Additionally, Marvin Rush used specific camera techniques to isolate characters from the background in the early seasons which in hindsight can the image looks undersaturated and muddy.

LCD technology is pretty poor at scaling up non-native resolutions, even in 2026. DVD is probably the best quality but your mileage may vary based on the screen you use. Streaming imposed an additional penalty due to additional artifacting from the low resolution and the usual penalty of increased blur and smudging during camera motion.

Counterintuitively, using an old CRT screen or a filter component like ShaderGlass or RetroArch will process the image in such a way that tightens up the blurriness the image and will let your eyes relax.

As much as I wish DS9 HD was a thing, it will almost certainly remain an artifact of contemporary production. There are ways to mitigate that reality, but no way to change it.

I’ve been trying to find a source but from what I remember the transition was in maybe Munich and it was going fine.

Microsoft opened a new sales or operation center there and got cozy with the government there as quickly as possible to turn them back into a customer.

EDIT: Here is the LiMux endeavor.

Microsoft had announced in 2013 its willingness to move its German headquarters to Munich in 2016, which according to Reiter though, is unrelated to the criticism they’ve presented against the LiMux project.

Nobody likes being pointed at. The fist point, then, is a way to underscore an important point without the scolding, accusatory associations of a raised index finger—because it uses a thumb instead. Clinton Thumb works best when paired with an intellectually complex point, making it a TED talk favorite. “It is articulating that you’re focusing on something, and that you’re grasping it cognitively,” body language expert Joe Navarro told Business Insider.