It’s also important to note that our LD crew are all bridge crew. We’ve seen that they have shifts at the helm and engineering/science/ops stations regularly, so putting them in charge really isn’t that big of a stretch if the senior staff need to be off-ship for the more important role of the mission. They’re basically babysitting the Cerritos and fending off hails from Starfleet.
To play it all out: why the heck is Nick Locarno flying around in a little ship capable of disabling the systems on larger warships, transporting(?) the ships and crews to some planet while leaving wreckage behind?
He’s not. He’s making deals with the lower deckers of those ships to make it look like his ship can do all that. They say in the episode that the lower deckers of the kidnapped crews are disabling the shields and weapons. Then he makes off with the crews and some of their technology for reasons yet unknown, abandoning the command staff on planet Knife Rain to fend for themselves.
I do sincerely worry about insects being added as filler materials as time goes on. I have a shellfish allergy, and the same allergens that exist in the shells of shellfish also exist in most insects.
Consider they’re a 30+ mile, hour+ drive away, this is giving me even less of a reason to go, and I happen to like Ikea. But free coffee isn’t going to remotely make up for my gas mileage, so I guess I’ll continue to shift my furniture needs elsewhere. =/