Your theory sounds interesting and provokes thought about possible plot twists. Understanding the impact of a long stay in another era on the crew and ship opens up interesting perspectives for the development of the plot. It is important to follow the developments in the series and see if your hypothesis comes true.
Hypothetically, the Calypso Discovery could also be from another parallel universe. Maybe it passed through several from the blue anomaly.
I mean, probably because the Federation being the good guys is the absolute least interesting way to explore a massive time jump.
The Federation was already in conflict with the Emerald Chain (which, despite being dominated by Andorians and Orions, also included others — including plenty of humans). Craft’s world could have been an Emerald Chain member.
(It does kind of beg the question as to why, iirc, Craft never got especially worried about finding himself on an enemy ship. She might not be shooting at him, but it says “Federation” all over the place.)
It still doesn't explain the massive fundamental differences between how the V'Draysh are portrayed, and the actual 32nd century Federation.
We never see the V’Draysh (aside from the Federation itself). In “Calypso”, they’re described as being obsessed with the past — which probably equates to “Hey, every series in this franchise has at least one character interested in 20th century ephemera!” Not much else is said beyond their being the enemy. If Craft’s world was an active combatant on the Emerald Chain’s side, that would fit. (Sure, it *could* be something totally different. But so far it seems to fit.)
No offense, but that interpretation very much downplays what we saw in Calypso. I mean, you're free to think that, but I'm not really buying it.
How? What did we see in “Calypso”? A pod with English lettering and stuffed with old memories, and a soldier angry at the other side. That’s it. We’re certainly not shown any sign of actual V’Draysh perfidy. (Now, again, could very well be something else entirely. Maybe this is the Mirror Universe Discovery doing its version of escaping to the future, as I think someone suggested earlier. That would almost work — except you can’t really get from “Empire” to “V’Draysh”…)
Actually, you can. The Empire fell during the Mirror TOS Era. Terrans are slaves in the Mirror DS9 Era, until they fight to get free. Basing this off faded memory. I haven't seen "The Emperor's New Cloak" in over 20 years. That's the last we see of the Terrans chronologically. After there, they could've founded their own version of the Federation that they knew about from "the other side". Then, over time, like I said before, it gets corrupted into whatever the V'Draysh is like. I thought of all this when I made my initial post. Which is why I felt confident posting my theory, while at the same time knowing I could be totally wrong.
I liked the episodes at the time but, in retrospect, I really don't like what DS9 did with the Terrans. Normally I don't like prequels (the first two seasons of DSC being an extreme exception because I didn't feel like I was watching a prequel, ironically), but in the Mirror Universe, it's the total opposite. Prequels allowed us to see the Terran Empire in all its glory. The Disco Mirror Universe is everything I ever thought the Mirror Universe should be. Like @F. King Daniel said before, it's like the Mirror Universe from the DC Comics in the '80s brought to life. I still have the graphic novel. So, in the Mirror Universe, I like prequels. There you have it!
I'll reply with a previous post of mine. I am taking what I saw in Calypso at face value, not what DSC season 5 is going to retcon it into.
The Federation were still operating warp drive ships (as were everybody else), and they were already in conflict with the Emerald Chain. Book makes it clear early on that there’s plenty of conflict in this chaotic era, and (if in a smaller scale) we see warp ships fight all the time. Starfleet is limited and isolated because they have so comparatively few ships left from the Burn, not because they won’t engage at all. Everybody may be worried about warp ships exploding again, but they’re still using them, more than a century later. And overvaluing things from the past (in their enemy’s view — again, all we see is some old movies) isn’t the same as worshiping the ground it walks on… and a starship showing up from the past, in an era where that’s specifically illegal, of course isn’t going to be immediately welcomed. (Though in the long run, they’re obviously pretty happy with it.) I’m also just going by what I saw onscreen (though both “Calypso” and the rest of DISCO — because that’s what we have to go on. Please understand that I’m not trying to prove you wrong here — I have no stake in however they choose to resolve this, if they do at all. But just from what’s onscreen, there’s no reason to doubt V’Draysh and the Federation being one and the same—never mind Michael Chabon’s then-Word-of-God that the first term is a corruption of the second, or the dialogue in Season 3 where Minor Villain Whatshisname calls them the V’Draysh at least once. (And of course, it could always turn out that was a different era after all, and the V’Draysh were big ol’ meanies then. I don’t expect that, but it could happen.)
It's all good; I'm not trying to engage in oneupmanship. As I mentioned before, anyone is welcome to interpret Calypso any way they want. My personal peeve is that season 3 of DSC clearly tried using Calypso as their jumping off point for the 32nd century, but it quickly devolved into just the 32nd century Federation still pretty much the same as the 23rd century Federation, only with some minor updates in technology and Earth and Vulcan no longer members (yet most of Starfleet still consists of humans.) What I've seen so far has made Calypso pretty incompatible with the direction they ultimately took. And if they just left Calypso alone and viewed it simply as is own thing that influenced DSC but ultimately was not in continuity with it, that would be fine. The need to shoehorn it into the continuity by retconning the hell out of it just doesn't work for me. I preferred the mystery about the situation and I now do not need that mystery solved with an answer that clearly was not the original intent.
That’s fair. I’d like them to work it out somehow, but this just us enjoying different things, totally fine.