If it's genuinely over and done with just because Starfleet doesn't want to use a human pilot, that would be the single worst explanation for anything in Trek's 50+ year history. Luckily, I don't think they're that stupid. And we're talking about the same people who thought a bomb strapped to a drone would be enough to end the Klingon war convincingly.
I thought the production staff indicated the Defiant had been modified by the Empire over the course of 100 years -- hence why it looked different.
It's modified from John Eaves' DSC Design. Daniel was talking about how it looked before the Empire modified it.
It would make sense as that would be the episode farthest along in post; so it makes sense to use it (and it fully completed VFX shorts) for short promos. It has the added advantage as being the one episode that most likely sets up the whole story we'll see over the next 13 episodes after it.
The only stuff I think is post Episode 1 is any footage with Spock. I don't think he's going to show up until mid way through the season. (outside of Flashbacks)
I'm pretty sure we won't meet Saru's sister or the black goo monster in the first episode. Also pretty sure that whatever that rock thing is that's pulled out of Tilly, that's coming later.
D-7 could be a designation for a class of ship or a ship filling a specific niche in the fleet. Not all destroyers, cruisers etc. are identical, often being of different newer or older designs.
it would not be the last superweapon starfleet shelved. for that matter, if they were ok with destroying Koronos to end the war why didn't they make a copy of the planet killer? Either the Andorians copied the design (I can't remember if they had time to copy it entirely) or they could just pop over and offer to buy it. Surely someone looked into how the Xindi Planet Killer worked in case they ever needed to defend against it again it's ok though. In a couple more decades they'll make the next absolutely game changing weapon platform that could have ended every future federation conflict in a matter of minutes, the Genesis Torpedo, and promptly forget it.
after ENT, I got the feeling that Klingons just copy other tech they can get their hands on and get prisoners to reverse engineer or outright steal it. They're like better armed Paclids.
Will you make us Qapla'?! As far as the 'shroom vroom, I think, knowing SF will continue to research it, I think Stamets will find a way to sabotage the project so they can't. Or even, do something to himself so that they can't recreate the catalyst effect with other humans. Seems like a natural progression of his arc and dealing with Hugh's death.
Assuming most of the work about spore drive had never been copied over to starfleet, and it was still only aboard Disco (hard to believe since they had to be on earth for awhile, for that ceremony and some rnr, but this IS Star Trek) it might be part of the reason the ship is parked in the middle of nowhere for a millenium
Cornwell said they were shutting down the project until they could fine a non-biological project, so I doubt they were copying the drives over to other ships during that time if they were not actually going to use the thing.
It still should have been archived somewhere. They clearly have archives for storing intel. Maybe long term they might tie in Genesis as a final offshoot of the spore drive project. Reseeding that dead world with the spores did look very Genesis-like.