Let’s entertain this idea. Both Chabon and Abrams had terrible ideas for Trek, and those ideas are retconned out of existence for the sake of the exercise.
No Picard meltdown in an interview. No destruction of Mars or Romulan supernova. No swearing admirals or scientists. Raffi’s not drug addicted. Elnor does not decapitate anyone. Rios doesn’t smoke. Seven is accepted and a part of Starfleet. Icheb, Bruce Maddox, Thad Riker and Hugh all live. There are no extra dimensional synths, and a proper fleet comes to the rescue of Picard.
Just Picard solving a mystery around Soji, with the antagonists being Zhat Vash, and the story ending on Coppelius.
Fans would be asking why does Picard have Romulan housekeepers if the Neutral Zone is still around. Why the Federation is okay with it, even though they were allies during the Dominion War and relations were thawing at the end of NEM? And would still wonder why he left them behind, even though Starfleet would probably still be sensitive about letting former Tal Shiar onboard Federation starships.
There’d be fans wondering why an admiral allowed Picard to command an Inquiry-class ship after being retired for two decades just because he asked to. And if this was a common occurrence in Starfleet.
There’d be fans wonder what Elnor would have done if that Romulan on Vashti hadn’t chosen to live. Fans would similarly be wondering if Seven would have used the highest setting on her phaser rifle on her ex-girlfriend and vaporized her, and if her ex-girlfriend would really bring significant harm to Icheb.
Fans would be wondering when would they get to see cadet Thad Riker in action, and why Riker and Troi would settle down and raise Kestra in such a remote place. And they'd still be wondering what happened with Ba'ku.
Fans would be wondering in the Federation was really comfortable with a Borg Cube in Romulan space, and with Hugh overseeing the rehabilitation of the Xbs, when they initially wanted to use Hugh to wipe out the Borg. And without Federation oversight.
Fans would be wondering why Oh didn’t have Jurati kill Maddox. And speculating about the Maddox-Jurati-Rios love triangle, with shipping wars beginning.
They’d still be wondering what happened to Commodore Oh and what became of Zhat Vash, since they still infiltrated three major powers, plus the Gorn Hegemony. And wonder what happened to Narek. And would still be fine with Narissa biting the bust at the hands of Seven.
Meanwhile, the writers would still come up with the synth body for Picard to account for his Irumodic Syndrome. And would still have that interaction with Data.
Basically, some fans would be surprised that life wasn’t still dark years removed from the Dominion War. Even though it would be many years removed from that event for everyone to recover. There would be detractors wondering why the show is so light in tone. Even though that's Star Trek. Much like Picard going on an adventure outside of Starfleet is also Star Trek.
And the finale would be more or less the same as what we got. And the fans would still want the TNG reunion.
We'd still end up in the same place we are now.
