The fact that Academy exists means the events and the characters will be canon though.
Yes, unless its later determined that when Disco went through the wormhole at the end of S2, it actually went into an alternate future, and not the prime timeline future.
That's still a 'way out' for them to push the events and characters and make them part of the prime timeline and also, not... so it IS canon, and it will still happen (so its canon), but the Prime Timeline future is left as unknown.
This of course only happens if any upcoming series decides to go that way... or they could completely wipe the slate clean.
The thing with time travel is that you can experience a whole timeline and it can easily get erased or 'modified' if necessary at any given time.
I thought the conclusion of the Progenitor tech fell short of what it could have been. It just seemed like it was made a central theme and then it was just pushed away.
The trope 'no one should have this kind of power' is kind of outdated. Any technology has the potential for misuse. As previous shows acknowledged, the UFP demonstrated time and again it has the ability to handle new technologies responsibly (for the most part).
Risk is part of the equation... I mean, even the UFP technically invented so many breakthroughs that aren't being used for the sole reason because I suspect the writers wouldn't know which direction to go to once they reach that point - hence the continuous portrayal of 'things somehow remain the same' even if its 800 or 930 years later (which is also boring)... I mean, pushing the boundaries would have forced more creativity out of the writers, but it seems the Disco writers just don't appear to be up to the challenge of creating massively more advanced technological setting and then writing stories around that.
I did like Kovich big reveal in being Daniels (which does make sense - and its likely the 'white space' he uses is probably outside of space-time which also stops him from ageing when he's there - so he's probably got a way to live drastically longer because of that through the ages - couple that with more advanced UFP medical tech and Baku planet, I mean the guy could easily live indefinitely like that).
If we assume he's outside of space-time for 8hrs every day, that alone would increase his lifespan from 120 to 180, or from roughly around 150 (with TNG era medical tech) to 225 years (not counting going to Baku planet). Since the Burn happened 122 year prior to the end of Disco Season 5 (the exact year would be 3069 if we deduce 120 backwards from 3189 [the end of S3 being when we learned the Burn happened 120 years ago]) , and the Temporal Wars ended in 3060 (if I'm not mistaken), and Daniels was described to be in his early 30-ies on ENT... so, lets assume he's 40 years old by the time the Burn happens, add another 122 years to that to reach end of S5 of Disco, and he's roughly about 162 years old in the finale (with another 63 years to spare - roughly - that's assuming using the TNG era UFP medical tech which allowed Humans to live up to 150 - and of course taking into account his 8 hrs a day of not ageing if he's been outside space time while he sleeps).
For someone who still has 63 years to go... I think he looks more or less correct (he could always go to the Baku planet for 10 years to allow the planet to restore him to his prime peak self and just continue like that - I'm surprised MORE people don't do this or that UFP hadn't developed the means for technological cellular regeneration which would take 30 years off a person every time they use it - aka, just repeat the process every time a human hits 60 years old, and they're back to being 30 years old... you can do that indefinitely).
At any rate, I also liked how they tied the ending to Calypso, but now we are left with a few questions:
1. Is the reason Disco being retrofitted back to its original 23rd century configuration because its going to be sent into the PAST and then have to wait for 1000 years to get back to the 'present'? - this one defeats the purpose of the ship going into the future (but then again, when Georgiou killed Leland/Control, that became unnecessary in the first place) - but if it was going to be sent back, then converting it to 23rd century look makes sense - otherwise if someone were to stumble upon a 32nd century tech, it would cause... issues.
Plus the term V'Draysh would make sense since by the time we see Calypso, nearly 1000 years have passed and Craft seemed as if the term was more or less... new? Perhaps this is the time prior to the events of Disco S3 and beyond (could easily be 20 years before Disco arrives).
2. Is Disco just going to wait at the given location for the next 1000 years from the 32nd century, meaning that the conclusion of the mission won't occur until the 42nd century? - this seems possible as the term V'Draysh and all is more current, but Disco's retrofit to its 23rd century look makes less sense in that case. I mean, for that matter, 32nd century is still the time frame in which the Federation refers to itself as Federation, V'draysh was a term adopted by people outside UFP space after the Burn - so the idea the UFP becomes imperialistic seems a bit... meh. I mean, we already had the Burn rip it apart... do we really need it to become an empire and go through the process of getting the UFP 'back to its roots' yet again (which was kind of already done in S3).
Burnham got a happy ending, which was good, but we didn't really get any proper send-offs for the rest of the crew - this was Disco's another weak point (limited to no use of other characters and their development).
It wasn't bad, but I guess it just didn't really deliver on things it could have delivered.
