The sphere data being fully able to talk now/make decisions on its own/evolving sentience opens up an honestly FANTASTIC amount of options for the next season, especially within crew/character dynamics. Like. Consider for a second.
-Vance is in a meeting with Burnham abt some bullshit. He compliments Discovery and her upgrades/Captain/the way she runs like a dream despite being 1000 years out of date. He gets a “Thank you!” That Does Not Come From Burnham (the only other person in the room.) cut to him getting the spook of a lifetime as he basically has an entire conversation with the fucking SHIP, before he turns to her jsut like “is this Control you were talking about?!?! What the fuck is this?!?! How did you get it to achieve sentience oh god do we have another AI issue on top of all the dumpster fire issues I have to deal with now??? And Burnham is just chillin bc, hey, this is just Sunday for her. Assures him “nah, she’s fine. She saved Owo a few months back from getting blown up. Plus she hosts movie nights every weekend and makes sure Tilly gets protein and vitamin shots whenever she orders too much coffee, so she’s probably just the ship mom.” Vance says he needs a drink. The Sphere data promptly has a replicator make him synthenol. Burnham laughs her ass off as Vance looks halfway between a breakdown and a laughing fit.
-Sphere data (Zora? Zora) decides to keep a running passive knowledge of when everyone has slept last, and has a habit of ‘accidentally’ getting the personal transporters to send people to their quarters instead of their posts if they’ve already worked too long. It becomes known that when she teleports you the first time, it’s a warning. The second, a plea. But when she teleports you *directly* into bed? You stay there if you know what’s good for you.
-Zora thanks each and every one of the crew who do repairs on her. Even if it’s small ones. At first it’s terrifying to hear a soft ‘thank you’ drifting through the jefferies tubes while you’re alone. But then it becomes a comfort, a reassurance. It makes it so that as soon as a battle is over, the engineers and damn near anyone who can help throw their hands on deck to wherever the ship needs repairs, desperate to bring her up to safety and back online, to hear her voice even if it’s weak or glitchy. She’s their home, and the closest thing to a *mother* that many of them have anymore. They *have* to help her like she helps them.
-Many of the rooms that belonged to those that didn’t jump -and weren’t filled by other Starfleet crew- are now converted into other rooms. Open rec rooms for anyone to enjoy, digital libraries, mini-greenhouses where there are flowers and even *real* edible plants. Michael simply tells everyone it was a surprise that was planned. She says nothing of the nights she planned the upgrades, chatting to Zora. Says nothing about how excited Zora was to be able to grow more plants besides experiments. To see how her crew eyes lit up when they were able to tend to public gardens in their free time and watch life grow from it. How excited she was to see them happy.
-She MEDDLES. Oh, does Zora meddle in their love lives. There’s no technical proof, but she does. Joann and Keylas rooms suddenly losing the wall between them and becoming a double suite that no one can fix? What a strange happenstance. Reno and Pollard stuck in a lift together? Gosh, how annoying.
-she also meddles with other relationships. Making sure people who have had arguments don’t cross paths in the hallways unless necessary. Delaying people *just so* so that they don’t arrive in the Caf at the same time, or do, and they manage to make up. Knowing when Gray and Adira really want someone, but don’t want to say it, and having them be drawn out of bed to get a snack just as Paul and Hugh *happen* to be leaving their late dinner. Having Michael and Paul stuck in the same lift after she knows both of them are ready to talk things out, and, failing one of them being able to literally say it, pleads with them over the speakers until they do. And then they cry and yell and end up sobbing into one another’s arms on the floor? Well, she’ll just have to cause Reno a little bit more of an issue back in engineering that’ll delay her fixing the lift just a bit longer. Just enough for the two siblings in the lift to pull themselves together and hug it out. Just enough for them to whisper a quiet thank you to her, and her back to them before the doors open.
