Chris

Having read a bit about it, my money is on it actually being framed as a LD episode even though it will sit within the SNW series run. They’ve let slip that it begins and ends with Boimler and Mariner in animated form which to me sniffs of a holodeck episode and jokes about holdeck tech becoming hyper-real once they go ‘live action’ aboard Pike’s Enterprise. It’s also being played as a comedy which would be easier to do as LD rather than SNW. Obviously they could never actually do a LD episode that crossed over into one of the live action franchises as a cartoon series wouldn’t have the budget or access to the studio facilities, so they would have to locate it within one of the live action seasons and then adequately explain why everyone’s suddenly acting funny.

This approach has of course been taken before - the very last episode of Star Trek: Enterprise actually portrays holographic versions of the NX-01 crew, accessed by William Riker during the events of the Next Generation episode ‘The Pegasus’.