That could have been classified.Hilarious. The first thing Janeway mentions is "no plasma weapons". I guess she missed the class on the 23rd Century attack on the Earth Outposts along the Romulan Neutral Zone by a Romulan ship using a plasma weapon.
Why?
Exactly.You could say then that Discovery cleared up misconceptions on 23rd century technology.
A character even mentions never seeing or even being aware such a badge existed. It would identify them as part of Starfleet, but would probably dismiss it as being outside their pay grade so to speak. Anyone who actually got curious and tried to investigate probably figured out pretty quick to back off.
They were at least of aware of how Starfleet operated. Civilians today at least have some knowledge of military ranks and what they look like. In a future where information is likely even more available than it is now, I'd assume that many would at least have a decent of idea of what rank pins were used.
Burnham's dialogue about Section 31 was clearly cut together. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up learning about it due to the nature of their mission, instead of just being aware of it. Although at this time, Section 31 could be a sort of urban legend like the Men in Black.
No one in the 24th century is going to know about it if the records have been scrubbed. Anything said by an older person like McCoy would just be dismissed as an "old admiral's tale" similar to how Zeframe Cochrane's stories of time travellers and cyborgs was dismissed as him being eccentric by Archer.
