Discussions of software bugs in real life aside, that blinking thing was incredibly stupid. But, I thought the scene still worked. Cronenberg and Yeoh played it so well and it worked within the context of each one trying to 1 up the other. To me this is a good example of top tier acting elevating bad writing, so I'm willing to give it pass.
I think the blinking thing was incredibly stupid on purpose. So I don't think it is bad writing but deliberate character information.
I think he introduced 32nd century holos with most bells and whistles of interrogators/debriefers, but with an intentional flaw of 23rd century holos (something Georgiou would be familiar with) so he could gauge her reactions in his way. In other words, he needed a way 'in'. Otherwise, such flaws wouldn't exist in regular 24th century holos... or even 32nd century.
Yes, a part of his interrogation. I would not expect that particular flaw in the 32nd century holograms.
Even if Kovich intentionally made his holos with that flaw for Georgiou to find, I still think it was stupid writing. "blinking at their harmonic rate" doesn't really make any sense and implies you need to blink at a very specific rate, likely down to the millisecond, which I doubt a human could do. That's assuming you knew what their "harmonic rate" was in the first place which I don't see how you could with just your eyes.
An apocalypse where every single active warp core in the galaxy explodes at once would do that. Imagine if the same happened with every car today, where nobody knew why or if it could randomly happen again. People would be terrified to drive. Plus, the 30th century was apparently mostly Time War. It's possible entire technologies were erased, like transwarp beaming which they should all be able to do from their badges. The time war tech ban got rid of the "temporal drives", which I assume were just a warp drive adjusted to make time travel more safe than seen in TOS and STIV.
It's like people in Middle Ages Europe building cathedrals out of cut stone because concrete, used extensively centuries earlier by the Romans, was lost to them. Or how hydraulics eluded them completely despite the ruins of aqueducts all over Europe. But, a Crusaders saddle and stirrups would seem very advanced to the Romans. A really big social collapse has been proven to push many developments back while allowing other development to continue.
Which is a scenario that is more or less to occur for pre-industrial planetary civilizations that have low redundancy, no advanced methods of storing knowledge over time, and puts everything in one basket... but not for an interstellar organization comprised of dozens to eventually hundreds of alien species working together and collaborating with massive amount of backup and redundancy spread over 8000 Ly's of space. Short of an EMP or a solar flare frying our equipment, or massive earthquakes (btw, we CAN design technology which is resistant to both EMP and Solar flares and design buildings to be earthquake, tornado, and generally weather, fire, termite, etc. proof if we stopped applying cost-efficiency and focused on technical efficiency, sustainability and problem solving), loss of data for us is becoming less and less likely. We can ALREADY build DNA storage that can last a thousand years. Back in 2013 nanotechnologists created a disk that can last a million years. Technology and science evolve exponentially (something that Trek writers - and most people - don't seem to get). Do you realize what that means for an organization like the Federation? By the 23rd century alone, data storage, durability, etc. (just to name a few) would have evolved to such a degree where they would survive for hundreds of millions of years or likely BILLIONS... similarly, other technologies would have evolved in a same capacity. In Trek, it was shown that every Federation starship, station/outpost has a Federation database which contains a ridiculously comprehensive history/information of each member species... otherwise, no Federation ship (or station) would be able to do any viable research or make realistic holographic representations of people from centuries ago. In essence, 'forgetting knowledge' in such a situation (yes, even WITH the Burn happening) is simply speaking next to impossible. Short of the entire Federation being wiped out, and every single copy of Federation databases erased (which we know didn't happen), loss of knowledge simply wouldn't happen over time. The redundancy and safeties in place are simply speaking monstrous to comprehend for us when talking about MORE advanced technological space faring cultures.
None of which matters in drama. Fail safes fail all the time, back ups are lost, or there are one copy of technology completed. Star Trek, and other dramas, suffer from a Tigger like situation. Ever tech is "I'm the only one."
Drama be damned. Fail safes fail for the drama (again), backups are lost yes on a single starship (both of which is excusable under explainable circumstances and on a mobile platform like a starship more or less), but this means nothing when extrapolating onto a galactic organization that has practically endless backups and copies all over the galaxy... not to mention SF HQ. I'm sick of writers dumbing things down because they are incapable of fitting the story within the scope of the universe and technologies they themselves created (or worse yet, not knowing what we could have done in real life decades ago, or heck years ago, and extrapolating from that - I mean, its almost a criminal offense in the 21st century and a great disservice to science fiction like Trek). In schools, students would be failed for making errors on historical essays... and you're telling me Trek writers shouldn't do the research on Trek history, technologies, etc. and write a story that works with the established setting? I don't mind minor errors as no one is perfect, but the amount of 'holes' Trek writers created with Discovery Season 3 are quite ridiculous - more to the point... to me, it showcases a lack of effort. To top it off... no explanations were given. Just think of how much better the story could have worked if they bothered to scale everything up and flesh it out better. Who knows, maybe they will pay more attention in S4 and 5... but I'm not holding my breadth.
It would work great if they had. But that is not Trek in my experience. And they actively fear change. I would not hold my breath either. Drama will not be damned; it is how writing is done in Hollywood. Endless backups do not make good drama. I appreciate your passion but the expectation is unrealistic in terms of Trek writers. This isn't a school and they are not being graded in that sense. So, no, I don't expect the writers to do their historical essays on Trek history. If they do, awesome. If they don't, no surprise. Could it be better? Absolutely and I admire the passion. I would encourage writing to the production team and offering your services for research assistant to the writing room.
Trek has "not thinking through the tech" built into its DNA. Consider just one thing - surveillance. If you extrapolate out modern-day tech, there should be a panopticon of cameras and recording devices essentially everywhere - and AI monitoring things in real time. But if you did this, every single plot point which involves strange happenings onboard the ship, infiltrating an enemy encampment, breaking out of a prison, etc. would be totally unworkable, because as soon as something was amiss the proper authorities would be notified and the crisis would be under control before it could even become dramatic.
I could understand such an attitude in private homes on a Federation world. But on a starship? It's a quasi-military vessel, which has to worry about external incursion and failure of critical systems. You really think they wouldn't have constant monitoring just because it might give some people the willies?
What's funny is that even in Star Trek 3 there I indication of security footage, as well as comments in VOY around the computer monitoring brain waves. So, I agree that such surveillance is certainly possible. Especially on Starfleet vessels. But, you are right, it would ruin the dramatic potential. And that's really what it will come down too.
Starships aren't military vessels... but security is important... and I'd imagine it would be akin to personnel being expected to behave themselves responsibly (so monitoring of the crew isn't really needed), but crucial areas would be under constant surveillance. If a problem of some kind occurs, then the said security systems would need to be circumvented by technologically knowledgeable individual and/or external force. There ARE ways to write around the problem and still retain the technology in question... or at the very least lead the crew to what happened (in the case of an external force and brain monitoring technology, it would be possible to determine whether the person acted on their own, or were compelled by an outside force). You also don't need to deal overtly with the technical aspect. When Lon Suder murdered his fellow colleague on night duty in engineering, the Doctor discovered from the autopsy fairly quickly that it was indeed a murder. The rest of the episode was about how to deal with Suder's violent tendencies and the effect they had on Tuvok when he mind-melded with him. Suder however was a special case seeing how he was a Maqui with violent tendencies. But how many episodes did we have on any given series on a Federation ship with the crew itself causing issues out of the blue? Not many... and even then, there was an external force at play.