Most of the story is the captain trying to find any other way to resolve the situation than sending in his deatchment of Marines, since he doesn't want to lose any guys because of "Federation policy."
Isn't the federation policy specifically NOT to send in the detachment of marines and try to find the peaceful option? As per your intro? So he is in agreement with the federation in that case.
Other than that it could have been an actual episode, seriously 10/10. The DS9 episodes that try to deal with actual warfare drama are my favourites, paper moon, the siege of ar-558, etc.
Do people genuinely think the 3rd season of the Orville was quality trek? I thought the Star Wars + mouthpiece for MacFarlane's political opinions energy had completely taken over, myself. In total across the entire series so far I think there's like ... maybe 3 episodes that are good, and generally not because they're quality trek substitutions, but just something funny or interesting that you wouldn't see on trek. I'm speaking as someone who watched the Orville up to date and kind of enjoyed it for what it was.
Overille in its entirety has been better trek than anything released post DS9 I would argue. If we are talking about quality concentration it arguably has a lower percentage of stinkers than the next generation as well which has multiple borderline unwatchable seasons.
As for "Star wars energy" I legitimately have no clue what you're even talking about. If anything the last season moved closer toward DS9 with focus on political intrigue, negotiating and alliance building with trying to humanize the krill.
And by "mouthpiece energy" I assume you mean the 1 episode they did on the Krill election in which they explicitly don't take a side and mention that everyone sucks and the bad guy wins because of course he wins because if he didn't then the kaylon threat plotline they've been setting up the whole season would end right then and there.
Even at its absolute worst, the orville has less political mouthpiecing than the average season of star trek did. At least so far nobody has pulled out a copy of the communist manifesto and started quoting karl marx like they did in ds9.
It easily beats the entirety of nu trek, voyager and enterprise, and for the most part its a Best of/Remastered/Remake of New Generation.
I'm not saying the orville is perfect, of course it has its flaws, but for the most part it tries to take every lesson learned from past treks and remasters it rather competently. We have not gotten a good show of "Mostly competent exploration/science vessel crew explores new worlds on behalf of the union" since new generation, and the orvile fulfils that niche.