I watched the first episode of the new discovery season
The whole thing is predicated on a) the federation deciding to classify the fact that all humanoid in the galaxy life was kick-started by one very early, lonely civilization
and b) the ability to seed a planet with life somehow being impossibly advanced technology beyond even the extra-future-federation's capabilities
feels like the whole thing was written by a disinterested intern skimming the wiki for Proper Names to drop into a pre-fab script.
if you skipped it, give Lower Decks another go, it's got a bit of a slow boil but all the good star treks do