I was thinking maybe a seahorse kind of thing.

I dunno, having Yar’s baby momma show up and drop off a kid would have been a challenge to write in the late 80s / early 90s.

Something I would have liked to have seen is Vidiians being assimilated by choice on the basis that being part of the Collective had to be better than suffering from the Phage. Instead of them just being enemies, they should have really leaned into how horrible it would be to live with that plague hanging over their heads. It’s also implied in an episode or two that there are uninfected populations somewhere, probably under quarantine, which would have been interesting to explore.

I’m still impressed McNeill was able to say, “Yes, ma’am, his army of evil,” with a straight face.

Firmware updates fix some bugs and introduce others.

Seriously, does anyone know about the update settings? It’s not hard to make Win10 not try to update while you’re using it.

Just a reminder that she didn’t actually explain why she was tearing up a picture of the Pope, she just pulled out a picture of him and tore it up without context. Nobody understood wtf was happening.

That’s not new. Turbolifts on the Discovery were depicted that way pre-refit, back in the TOS-ish era. It’s a (mind-boggling) stylistic choice or something.

and they certainly treated specific items as “valuable” (historical items, weapons, and especially liquor.)

Historical items definitely have non-monetary value. They can’t truly be replaced since, no matter how accurate the replica, only the one chair will be the Enterprise-A’s captain’s chair, for example. Replicators have software restrictions on what you can make with them, so you can’t just replicate weapons under normal circumstances, which creates scarcity and gives them value. Starfleet replicators also seem to be restricted from creating alcohol, which means most of the characters we see can only get it on shore leave, which also creates scarcity and therefor value. Alcohol is probably significantly less scarce when sourced through civilian replicators. The ones on DS9 are programmed with Starfleet’s restrictions, though.

DS9 is a Bajoran station, not a Federation one. The Bajoran economy is not post-scarcity and still runs on money. Either Starfleet officers get a stipend to purchase things when posted on such assignments, or Quark simply bills Starfleet. Either way, Starfleet/the UFP likely has a reserve of latinum and other resources for trade with other nations.

That was entirely dependent on Stewart’s contract negotiations, though, rather than anyone wanting to kill off Picard.

They didn’t want to fire her, but she did want to quit. She wasn’t happy with the direction they were taking her character. I wouldn’t be surprised if she also had issues with the same guy McFadden did. Jadzia was killed off because Berman wouldn’t let Farrell switch to being a recurring rather than a regular, which may be what you’re thinking of.