I think they already treat it that way internally. But the smart play, on a general level, is to sell it as a single coherent whole.
I've treated it as a multiverse since Enterprise. For me, if we were to get a Pike/Spock series, it would be much more interesting to not know the entirety of their careers from the first episode. To me, the road not taken is far more interesting than following the already tread path. YMMV.
It's too late. This is the short version of why: they want everything to fit and are willing to explain away anything that doesn't. Slightly Longer Version (bear in mind I say all of this as a hardcore Discovery Fan): Give them enough time and they'll go out of their way to explain why there are two different versions of the Original Enterprise. If they decide the way things turn out in the Far Future in DSC from the third season on isn't the direction they want to move in for the larger franchise, watch it suddenly become a Possible Future after the fact. If there's a Pike Series and if it leads into a Kirk Series, things will become even more hairy if they don't split things up. That's TOS and how it relates to DSC and anything that spins out of it. And that's not even going into the direction the films might go (or might not go) starting with the next one. But I do think PIC will be a follow-up to TNG, DS9, and VOY through-and-through.
Eagle Moss reconfirms they’ll be making ships from this series. https://twitter.com/bencsrobinson/status/1218513990252449792?s=21
The Star Trek Universe has been an official multiverse since 1967 (ep 27 The Alternative Factor). But if Disco isn't the same universe as TOS, then given the liberties played with continuity neither is TAS, the TOS movies, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, PIC or with each other. In fact any episode of TOS before the Federation actually becomes a thing with A Taste of Armageddon (23 episodes into season 1) can also be considered an alternate reality because all the colonies are 'Earth bases' and the Enterprise was operating under the United Earth Space Probe Agency mentioned in Tomorrow is Yesterday officially until A Taste of Armageddon. .
The first onscreen mention of the Federation was in "Arena," which aired about five episodes before "A Taste of Armageddon" and was also filmed earlier.
Yeah TOS had a lot of inconsitenceis mainly due to not having come up with stuff yet like the episode where a few is on a planet freezing and the transporters were broke and yet no mention of shuttlecraft to get the crew at all.
They should be able to write Picard over Discovery, and sell the ships from "Children of Mars" as is.
I predict exclusive special edition convention repaints in our future. ‘Cause that’s never happened before...
Yes, but it returned as "The United Earth Space Probe Agency" in the later episode Tomorrow is Yesterday (writing overlap?). "Federation" became permanent starting in A Taste of Armageddon, and they never looked back.
Whilst the real reason was that the idea of the Federation was not yet solidified, it is really not an inconsistency. UESPA has been mentioned other times too, for example it runs the Earth Starfleet in ENT. So Kirk's Enterprise can be an UESPA ship that is operating under the command of Federation run Starfleet. It's like NATO forces.
ENT already sort of established that the UESPA was an organization running concurrently with the Earth Starfleet (and makes one wonder why there even needed to be an Earth Starfleet. I’m looking at you, Bermaga.) My head canon has at least two UESPA starships Enterprise operating in the 80+ years between the decommissioning of the NX-01 and the commissioning of the NCC-1701.