I really, genuinely cannot understand why the idea of a visual update is such a hard pill for some fans to swallow. It boggles my mind the lengths people will go to try and explain it or disconnect it from the prime timeline, when the explanation is simple....
It's an updated visual aesthetic. That's it. The plots, characters, everything, will carry on just as it did in TOS, it just looks different because, in the end, it's just a TV show that producers wanted to look modern.
Because the plots, characters, everything are conveyed through a visual medium. The visuals are every bit as critically important as dialogue, lore, etc. They are every bit as much of a part of the story and what makes Star Trek Star Trek.
This what I genuinely cannot understand, how people don't understand this fact. A different visual aesthetic... in a work presented in a visual medium...
fundamentally changes the work.
I'm waiting for the end of the series when Kirk takes over and the 1701 looks the same as in the beginning. The screams of outranged fans that the Enterprise didn't get a "refit" will be hilarious.
While I *WANT* that to happen, i'm under no delusions that it will, at least unless something absolutely drastic happens within the shows leadership. The only way that would ever happen is SNW ends up going longer than 5 seasons, which is doubtful, Kurtzman is replaced in another year or so (possible? Likely even apparently?), new director of Trek replaces Goldsman, and a new showrunner akin to Manny Coto or Terry Matalas picks up for the last season or two of SNW. It's not impossible, although potentially unlikely.
From a purely business perspective, it's honestly not a bad idea to have SNW morph into TOS at the very end of the series, presenting a "have your cake and eat it too" scenario. TOS continues to sell the most merchandise and generally be the most profitable thing in the Trek cabinet... it's EXACTLY why damn near everything in the past 15 years or so has been going back to that era. Flip SNW to be more TOS at the very end? You got to have your "updated visuals" for the run of the show, you send some goodwill out to the TOS fans... the ones spending the money... (and it also shouldn't matter to the other fans, because the visuals aren't important, right?), and then you can sell a metric shit-ton of nuTOS merchandise.
But... yeah. It's not going to happen.
An outcome I think
could be realistic is something I would have been resistant to in the past, but welcome now, would be for SNW to end by 100% breaking the timeline... Pike changes his fate. He manages to both save the cadets AND himself.