For heaven’s sake. Stop trying to fanwank in current predicted realities.
(1) The showrunners/writers are flying by the seat of their pants
(2) They stupidly under-estimated the popularity of Lorca
(3) They need to re-establish Burnham as the POV character if the show, as originally envisaged, is to be salvaged.
Lorca’s dead. Deal with it. PU Lorca might return for a guest appearance but don’t count on it being some sort of solution for the show’s writing problems. He’d be a one to two episode “save us from cancellation” solution at best.
Burnham needs good stories – fast.
The rest of the Discovery Bridge crew also need a continuation of the development that began only recently, to make them an ensemble.
Forget the fanwank about Georgiou, versions of Lorca etc. Not relevant to the main story and won’t happen due to the fame of the two actors (as judged not by us nobodies, but by casting people in Hollywood).
The show must either (1) use time travel to reset things – which would piss off both fans and general public - or (2) utilise Emperor Georgiou’s knowledge from the Defiant to help Starfleet win the war (which also ends up in her dying and MU info becoming classified so Kirk et al know nothing).
So assuming they have a story-line that utilises “emperor” Georgiou, possibly the appearance of a couple of Connies (Enterprise and Farragut, but only external shots would be my prediction to avoid casting issues) etc to finish the war, sets up the neutral zone, then we are down to how S2 plays out. I’ve seen links to a “religion vs science” issue – UGH, PLEASE DON’T GO THERE. We all know what happened in nuBSG when they did that – everyone thought “advanced science” would explain the anomalies and when it didn’t we all went mad. Religion vs science is like Christmas Dinner with extended family and discussing politics – nobody wins and everyone has horrid day. Just don’t do it.
FWIW I think an interesting “take” on trek is that provided in Diane Duane’s non-Canon 1988 novel “The Final Frontier” (not to be confused with the movie of the same name). It discusses in an intelligent way how much of the early Federation distrusts “human” Starfleet, being unsure what “the humans might do” and thus only 12 (14?) Connies being commissioned, with Robert April stressing their role as exploratory whilst a decidedly more antagonistic George Kirk describing them as “warships” to kick the shit out of Klingons/Romulans/etc if they threaten the Federation. Needless to say there is a compromise – one which sets the scene for our own James T Kirk, in which the Connie is part-science-part-military vessel. A Federation “heavy loss” in which many of the non-Connies are lost would fit nicely with TOS.....after all, a non-Connie shouldn’t engage a Klingon cruiser but a Connie wipes the floor with them – but Connies are not common and can’t be everywhere......unless there’s an “emperor phil” plan.....