Let's not call them "rogue" admirals, there have been enough of these "projects" that it stands to reason that most but not all admirals in Starfleet have projects under their purview that it does almost come across as semi-standard practice in the admiralty that you'll have at least one or more "classified" things in the oven...it's just that some of these projects skirt the line of ethics, and usually are trying to provide proof of concept that they believe will overcome any ethical or moral issues with the nature of the said project.

It's kinda crazy how Lower Decks is kinda almost "fixing up" Picard's plot retroactively. At least in the synthetic life department. I wonder if we'll see more Romulans in Lower Decks to feed into this.

Another lockbox item for Star Trek Online incoming.

Programming emotion into an armed ship is just dumb. There's no way people would think that a good idea. Also, spread-shot "torpedoes" again emphasizes how crappy missile guidance is in Star Trek, worse than what exists today.

I really liked that they pointed out that automated craft is not what starfleet is about. That said, an automated craft would be awesome as a secondary ship to go along with a crewed ship so no ship is every really alone.

The Texas-class sounds like it works best as a rapid response craft like it did when it saved the Cerritos from the Breen. As well as aiding in patching and repairing ships they saved. Towing them to a shipyard if their warp core couldn’t be repaired. Recovery task. It has a number defensive usage.

LOVED that they used the M5 console in the Admiral's office for the Texas class. As soon as I saw it I knew where this was headed.

This thing is basically a warp core strap with a bunch of guns sounds like something that should be named after Texas to me.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned the similar remote-controlled Romulan ship from ENT's last season; it would've been interesting if the Texas class had maybe used that as a jumping point

Its kind of amazing just how much lore for this class Lower Decks has managed to squeeze into two episodes, basically just 45 minutes on screen. Props to them especially for including the MSD somehow

5:30

I can see the Texas Class as a fully support vessel for larger ships.

I could see the Texas class being more of a combat patrol craft in the outer fringes and boarders of hostile powers, and a transport variation for supply runs in secured space. Automation is good for dangerous and monotonous tasks. The lack of face to face interaction with new species in second contact missions takes away so much of the diplomatic element needed to build and maintain relations.

I honestly love the ship despite it being controlled by a homicidal AI. A ship like this would seem like a good scout and/or patrol ship.

You'd think Starfleet would have learned from the disaster of completely autonomous ships from when Richard Daystrom (TOS The Ultimate Computer) tried to automate the Enterprise and it ended up killing hundreds of Starfleet personnel.

As I've said, I'd love to see an automated exploration craft that just... wants to explore rather than kill everyone. Especially if it's built as a warship and then demands to be unarmed. That would be both hilarious and heartwarming.

On the 'Prefab' ability of the ship: I was wondering if all the outposts and such were just stored as information, then fed into the Transporter, and 'assembled' at the necessary coordinates on the surface?

Kirk:

The same captain who said, "Risk is our business," also had a red alert at the back of his neck over a fully automated starship -- namely the USS Enterprise operated by the M5.

5:49