Don’t a ton of the episodes deal with life outside the federation, boldly go where no (hu)man has gone before and all that? Hell, DS9 took place on a space station outside the federation…

I think it’s a stretch to say that they do. The primary characters are nearly always Starfleet/Federation characters, and the events of the episodes are generally seen through their eyes, even if they are technically outside the Federation. The main exception would be the DS9 Ferengi episodes, but there’s really only a handful of those.

Risa was part of the Federation. Unless that was retconned with nu-trek or something…

The only reason Risa came up in the article is because the pitch of the new show is that it’s set on a resort planet, and people unfortunately lack imagination and assumed that meant Risa, even though the pitch also said it was set outside the Federation.

This interview confirms that the setting is not, and has never been, Risa.

We’ll see how it all pans out. I feel somehow skeptical that the Federation perspective won’t worm its way in there somewhere.