The ending bits that imply a darker vision of this future suggests a very different direction for the show. Still, there are Star Trek episodes that do consider the holodeck from this angle. Maybe we need a mirror universe holodeck episode.

I remember that Folia recommended a really large CPU count…something like 32 or 64 threads. Is that still the case, or might I see real benefits even on like 4 threads?

I expect that the Very Short Treks won’t be entirely non-canon. For instance, some episode might introduce an event, place, or technology that is actually canon even if the events of the episode itself are not canon.

Alternatively, they could be loosely canon in the same way as the Lego Star Wars shows/games, with the rough events and plots being canon even if exact details are not.

Exactly my thoughts. There’s vanilla in terms of modded/unmodded, and then there’s how close it looks or feels to the base game.

Vanilla just means unmodified, exactly what you think.

However, some people might still refer to mods that don’t significantly change gameplay as vanilla. For instance, the Vanilla Tweaks resource pack is filled with small changes to the appearance of things in the game. Some might also consider the Optifine or Sodium mods to be Vanilla since they don’t change gameplay.

Yes and no. The truth is that most of the community responsible for keeping Minecraft relevant are on Java. If they kill Java, they also kill Fabric, Spigot, Paper, all the modpacks and such.

Java is the marketing department, Bedrock is the sales department. Mojang needs to keep Java just functional enough for the community to do the marketing for them.

tl;dr at the bottom.

You can’t cross-play between Bedrock and Java. (Well…technically you can if you run a Java server and install the Geyser plugin onto it, but I get the impression you want a simple solution.)

Do we each need our own Minecraft account?

Yes. Two people cannot use the same Minecraft account in multiplayer at the same time.

Do we need to play on Realms or something like that?

Realms is basically a way to pay Mojang to run a server for you, rather than doing it yourself. Unlike a LAN game, or joining a friend’s world in Bedrock, Realms and servers remain available to join even if the host player isn’t playing.

sort of old school LAN style?

Both Java and Bedrock have ways to set this up. In Java, you can open a world up to LAN play. [https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials/Setting_up_a_LAN_world](Tutorial for LAN play)

Both Java and Bedrock allow for multiplayer games over the internet. In Java, you can either use a Realm or set up a server on your own [https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials/Setting_up_a_server](Tutorial for setting up a vanilla server). In Bedrock, you can join your Xbox friend’s worlds so long as they are playing at the same time, and you can also join Realms or servers just like Java. (Sorry, I didn’t see a tutorial on the Wiki for this)

One last thing, I’m a server owner who’s been working with this stuff for the better part of a decade. If you want to chat more, I’m happy to help you.

tl;dr: Buy a second copy of Java edition and use that on the PC. Then you can host a LAN world from either the PC or Steam Deck. [https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials/Setting_up_a_LAN_world](Tutorial for LAN play)