Great article. The creative work put into the show's look is spectacular. I liked the Orion cabaret in concept art and on Will You Take My Hand. It was dark so a little hard to see but a nice build on Pike's fantasy in the Cage. Interesting comment on seeing more about Airiam as Season Two goes on.
I like the idea of learning more about Airiam, but notice the qualifier: "little bit". So, I'm expecting minor stuff revealed, like Owosekun coming from a Luddite collective, or Detmer passing her first pilot's exam at age 12. I'm sad we never got to see the filmed scene of the treaty between the Federation and Klingons being signed. Maybe a brief montage while Burnham was addressing the chamber would have helped sell the idea of a hard won peace accord. For the ship nuts, how different is the penultimate Enterprise design to the one they finally used? How does it compare to the TOS or TMP versions?
In comparison with TOS and TMP, the secondary hull size and shape is so radically altered that it was probably swapped wholesale, in-universe. Then again, the very same is true of the change from TOS to TMP. So we might do well to believe that Starfleet builds ships with these insanely thin necks and pylons for a reason: they are all ships of Theseus, with every component severed from its pylon and swapped for a more modern one in a brief refit. Heck, this would mean starbases would be stocked with the various components, and Pike could swap back and forth at will. Timo Saloniemi
I like the idea of Constitutions being designed for rapid power-train replacement. Sort of like the variants of Mirandas seemingly based on mission need.