It’s pretty common for detractors of franchises like #StarTrek to dismiss newer stories as “fan fiction” but “Once La’an a Time” does work on a meta level as an in-universe piece of fan-fiction. Rukiya doesn’t appear in this episode but the world we see here has clearly been changed from the world presented in “The Elysian Kingdom.” I was initially disappointed that Rukiya and Debra didn’t appear in this episode but it is interesting to how this new version of the Elysian Kingdom bears their fingerprints in the form of new characters and changes to existing characters.
