Karl_ wrote:What makes Star Trek unique is its optimistic view of humanity's future - as fundamentally democratic, peaceful, etc. - and I think you can argue that is lacking in Discovery for sure.
You could argue it was lacking in DS9, too.
And an empire can easily be lost in a century, given a large enough threat. Seeing as everything we've seen of the Federation shows it to be largely Earth-based, it would be easy to cut the head off, as it were.
Hell, Captain Braxton could have gotten pissed off at being arrested and Annoraxed the gooseberry fool out of the Federation.