I don't like Watsonian contortions, so I'm more inclined to use Doylist perspective and be done with it.

We know that transporters have some technical and cultural holes in them, for instance, because they were a production budget expedient.  It was expensive to do shuttle sequences, they couldn't do that every episode.  So now we've had to live with their various illogics, forever.

Until The Orville came along, in a different era where CGI shuttles are no problem at all.  So they dispensed with teleporters, as bad science, too much on the side of Woo.  There are also no mind powers in The Orville for the same reason.  They have a deliberately secularist subtext and don't abide things that get in the way of it.  Much.  Someone might be inclined to point out an exception but nothing is leaping to my mind.

The Doylist perspective on the "fish people" in Discovery, is it's some brainchild of the J.J. Abrams set.  Writers who don't like Star Trek at all and want to turn it into a Star Wars cash machine.  They managed to sell their dire do-over to some Suits.  I doubt anyone around here is gonna prove me wrong.  One of the reasons I had to bow out of the very large r/startrek community, is I can't abide people who thought Discovery S1 was appropriate or acceptable . Such people don't know and don't care what Star Trek is, or was.

Since then, I've seen a rather long documentary series on one of the streaming services, that lends credence to my point of view.  There was a sort of TNG era with particular show writers.  They got clobbered after CBS bought stuff.  Things had a particular style of writing to them, and subsequent corporate execs didn't care about any of that.  Trek wasn't even basically a cultural fit to CBS execs, is my limited understanding.  Trek was a brand they wanted to make money off of.

Mind you, if you think this is a way of waving a red cape in front of your nose, I am very much a TOS fan.  It's what I grew up with, and I think it's the legitimate thing Trek comes from.  That said, I think the TNG era is perfectly good Trek.  Picard is a real captain, just different from Kirk.  Data is in no way inferior to Spock at all.  I love them both, as basically similar archetypes.  I grew up practicing one eyebrow raises in the mirror until I could do it.

Well, I'M feeling a little let down...

My long-standing handwave for the knobbies was that they were the first time we saw the Original Klingons -maybe- the Mexican bikers on acid we saw in several flavors on the show -inconsistent makeup- were thoroughly assimilated races in a very big empire, probably the majority in the region bordering the Federation.

The Enterprise encountered multiple parallel Earths, probably projects of the Preservers of This Side Of Paradise, who were maybe Sargon's people, who were maybe also the Organians and/or the Metrons, or related - humanoids often indistinguishable from Europeans everywhere, and many more pure humanoids just colored funny - probably the same is true throughout Klingon space, QED.

Important Life Principle there - if offending don't get you laid nor paid, maybe try not to offend.  Other people Being Wrong is rarely your problem, outside politics, and why go MAKE it your problem?

I never said anyone complained, no one has, just, I have a duty as host here, which makes it my problem IF there's a problem.  -And I'm trying to head something off before anyone has a problem.

For instance, do I owe people minding my words carefully, about a volcano?  I say no, I don't.  People getting offended about a volcano, doesn't seem like my bad.

And I think this speaks to that issue of being likeable and liked - this here's Nerd Bad Attitude that makes no friends.  Being true is only a defense in Libel cases, not social things.  Hypothetically, if I were to repeatedly assert some truth I've sussed out to someone who doesn't get it, trying to persuade, but to someone broadly hinting they don't want to argue/discuss it all along, THAT's boorish behavior and I'd be in the wrong, as a social rule, not even Site Policy, just the people rules as they were already in place when I showed up in 1964, and not going to change.

This is all offered in a helpful spirit, and I hope you see that, and it's doing my job as host, too...

Not sure what "asserting yourself" refers to in this context.  It sounds like the perspective of the parties offended, not the person who makes the remark.  The person making the remark, is probably only seeking to socialize.  That's a basic human need.

Case in point, the Marine.  He wanted to play these games to have a good time.  Very casual, and in his case, definitely some clowning.  I could totally see that.  Heck, if you've fought wars for real, maybe in a board game you'd drive tanks around in crazy doughnuts just for the lols?  Might be a good way to cope with any potential PTSD, although we didn't talk about that.  He seemed pretty well adjusted, the time we met him, and I wouldn't hesitate to be an at event with him again.  But sometimes humor and clowning is how some people cope.  Or maybe it's just the way he is, his basic "resting state", and seems different only because many of us are not like that.

Put him with guys who have been seriously trying to tactically beat the snot out of each other for over a year, well something less than hilarity might ensue!  Go away you mere mortal peon pleb.  You ain't gud, yew'd better git gud before you talk to us again.

I had my own version of the serious / more casual mismatch back in the day.  I expect people to smile, backstab, and ruthlessly throttle each other.  I grew up playing the board game Diplomacy.  Well that isn't a fit to more contemporary "Eurogamer" sensibilities.

I haven't actually found a "good" gaming group that matches my current life needs.  I bemoaned this to someone at a hardcore geek gaming shop in Asheville called The Wyvern's Tale.  The guy said yeah, it's hard.  I got an earful of his life journey on that subject.  He had quite a bond with his group.  Can't remember if he said it was somewhat past tense now or not.