I was immediately excited to see a Chalnoth show up. I thought LDS could have some fun with a species that is, at least according to “Allegiance”, completely lawless trying to do science.
The bit about the Chalnoth not trusting Starfleet scans because they’re too nuanced and through I thought was good, but the rest of the b-plot after that didn’t really work for me. Maybe if Coqqor had actually engaged in the Mark Twain conflict resolution strategy. That would have been fun.
Fortunately the a-plot was really strong on this one.