Yeah, if they want to make room for a TOS character, they just have to have a character reassigned. I don't think that any deaths are just to make room for their TOS characters.There's nothing in TOS that says that Hemmer had to die, or that Pelia has to die. Plus they chose to kill him off in season 1, years before TOS, and replace him with another chief engineer who isn't Scotty, so it doesn't seem like continuity had any influence on his fate.