I think your right but they are or where worried about bringing in to much Q because it would be a constant easy out for the finger snap problem when they would rather Science Mumbo Jumbo there way through.
If there was a more relaxed Trek, where it was more TNG civilian or alike where there was a more regular Q interaction could work - it wouldn't work in NuTrek but it could have worked.
It's a shame they decided to do just the one throwaway episode with Q in DS9, because DS9 is exactly the type of show that could easily allow exploring more of Q (the continuum, not just the DeLancie being) in ways that aren't just 'create a problem, remove the problem with Q magic later'. Novels also did a good job of using Q, though mostly it was only the one we know and not the others. (The novels even put in the effort to remember Amanda existed after her episode and had her take part in the Q wars)
Incidentally, on a minor tangent - all the Q are supposedly something like 12 quintillion years old, and Picard indicates they all just grow old and die at some point in the 24th century, right? Wouldn't that mean everyone
except q and Amanda, because they're both young even by human standards? So from yet another angle, the Q still aren't gone due to those two outliers. But bringing it back in line with NuTrek - choosing not to bring in and properly explore Q because they're bad at finding ways to utilize him that isn't 'magic genie fix' I can buy, because that's common for mediocre writers. But him dying in Picard? No way that was anything but an ego trip and Patrick Stewart struggling with his own mortality. He won't stop hammering the point home that people get old and die and that's just how it is, like he's trying to convince himself instead of the audience.
--
@L50LasPak - It's true that they can just flip around and make anything canon as much as they make it noncanon, except for fanfiction which is strictly not allowed due to the mess of legal issues that arise from officially acknowledging the existence of fanfiction. (Though that does still make certain strict lines of canonicity even in the loosest of terms - where what's in the "main" media of something is assumed to hold true in the future, something in an alternate media
can be but isn't assumed to be, and fanfiction is not, will not, and cannot ever be). In the end it suits them best to try to be vaguely consistent with what they suddenly choose to make canon as much as what they suddenly choose to make noncanon, though, as their viewers need to be expected to generally know where to look to keep updated. If books should be read because they could be canon at some point (or like in Doctor Who, audio plays) then viewers will want to know that. If not, then it befits the viewer to know it's a waste of their time to read them if they're just "catching up".
It seems like the various things I'm hearing about Roddenberry is that he's not particularly good at managing a franchise, much as he wasn't particularly great at writing science fiction. That he ended up credited with one of the biggest science fiction franchises in history is an amusing accident, apparently.
the galaxy being sharply divided by a resurgent Klingon Empire and the Federation, and the return of the Iconians as a massive threat are, indisputably, MMO RPG plots.
While I don't disagree with your point, I suspect that they might actually be somewhat accurate to Star Trek writer plans, given that the Klingons declaring war on the Federation again is along the same lines as Discovery's initial plot being about the Klingons declaring war on the Federation, and to me the Iconian threat felt like a hail mary to try to explain Romulan star going nova. JJ Abrams clearly didn't think it through, he just wanted a quick 'scifi' excuse to split off the timeline and have his own version of TOS to play with and sex up. Examining it even a little causes the whole thing to fall apart - including why the practical walking ghost Spock was the one tasked with dealing with Romulus' star when the Federation and Romulans both have far better and far less near-death scientists to deal with such an emergency. Ones who wouldn't be so far away that a sun literally goes super nova waiting on them to get there. "It was all a plot by ultra powerful sinister time traveling aliens" is weak - and convenient for the MMO plot - but I can't blame them for it.
They
also use Q better than Picard ever did. I can only hope they choose to ignore the whole 'Q all died off' thing going forward, as he heavily features in their annual events.
That said, I agree that now that shows are going again and STO isn't the only source of Star Trek, they really should have some kind of streamlined version made into video form that people could use to keep track of it without having to actually play the game. Also, I remember and quite enjoyed Judgment Rites. I think it's a shame that people generally separate the visual mediums like TV and movies from everything else, as you say. I feel like that's a prejudice that existed from the time Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was written, where people who watch TV just sit and drool and are physically incapable of ingesting anything higher effort. Most franchises can be improved by including at least some of their written work as canon.
STO's never going to be canon for me because its too steep and honestly too silly, no matter what the company says.
To be fair this is also how I feel about Picard. It's never going to be canon to me no matter what the company says. If I ignore the whole Mikey Spock thing, I can accept Discovery as just a really lame entry into canon, but Picard contradicts and tramples over so much of existing canon and provides no benefit in return - and I recall reading at some point that in s1 they weren't
allowed to use star ship interiors that had the look and feel of TNG ships due to licensing reasons - that I simply cannot accept it as canon. It's a self-deleting paradox.
