I think you’ve excellently captured the difference here. I didn’t get heavily into Elite Dangerous, but on one of my longest journeys, I scanned a few things that no-one had ever scanned before. I didn’t discover any awesome looking space phenomena that would be worth sharing (at least, none that hadn’t been discovered before), but the prospect that I could was exciting.

Even just the idea that my name would be on other people’s screens if they came and scanned the same things I did, because we were all sharing the same world.

I don’t generally like AI generated images, but this is great

I didn’t end up with Lae’zel in the end, but I hedged my bets for long enough that I got the Long Rest scene where she wakes you up in the night. The encounter ended hilariously fast, but what followed melted my heart and made it very hard to not choose her.

I also love how quickly Lae’zel changes her entire world view, which happened around the same time for me. Mad respect for such principles and focus

I ended up with Astarion. I was en route to romancing Shadowheart, but I got surprisingly few approval moments or interactions with her throughout act 2. At the same time, my character seemed to be taking the shape of “goodie-two-shoes but sassy bitch to those who deserve it”, which gave loads of Astarion approval.

I ended up learning into it and I’m super glad I did. There’s an Act 2 Dark Urge scene that I felt completely changed the romance dynamic between my character and Astarion - it felt like it put us on a much more even footing, and I was surprised by how sincere and empathetic the scene felt (given that Astarion’s main Cope is a mask of flirting and sass).

I had originally wanted to romance Karlach, but there was a bug that prevented her approval from rising and by the time I discovered and fixed it, I had missed loads of Act 1 approval moments

I don’t think you’re necessarily missing anything. Lower Decks is probably my favourite Star Trek series by a decent margin, but I think that people’s varying tastes is part of the Trek experience.

Like the first Star Trek I ever watched was TNG, with a partner who hated DS9 because of how far it was from the much more utopian tone of TNG. My best friend, however, loved DS9 most of all for that exact same reason. I can’t tolerate The Original Series because of how campy and cringe it is, but I have friends who love it for that.

If you hate Lower Decks, then your perspective is one I can’t really relate to, but that just feels like regular old Trekkie solidarity to me - with a show so varied, inevitably there’s going to be diverse viewpoints. That in mind, I’m not going to try and change mind, I’m just going to highlight why I love Lower Decks.

My favourite bit about Lower Decks is that it feels like a love letter to Trek, in all its forms. There’s a lot of references I don’t get, but I don’t need to get them to feel the warm fuzzies of knowing this show was made by people who are, first and foremost, fans of Star Trek. I like utopian sci fi because the state of the real world means that I can find real hope in the fantasy because in my heart, I believe in humanity.

Alongside all of that idealistic space exploration though, Lower Decks doesn’t shy away from the more pernicious aspects of Star Trek, and Starfleet/the Federation. The humour isn’t always my taste, but I think they use it well to poke fun at Star Trek, the show, but also the world within. The sometimes critical lens that is taken is part of why it feels so much like a love letter to Trek - if you truly love something, you’ve got to take the bad with the good and not pretend that everything is perfect.

In the past, with similar issues, I’ve had good success with requesting the book on Zlib, especially newer books.

Ea-Nasir has got to be one of my favourite internet phenomena

Explainer link for people who are blessed enough to be hearing of this for the first time: https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/who-is-ea-nasir-and-why-are-people-complaining-about-his-copper-the-viral-complaint-tablet-meme-explained