Keep in mind, by setting up EXO-6 Nanjin managed to secure what seems to be the entire Star Trek license (from CBS and Paramount) that broadly and deeply runs across every TV show and movie, from 55 years ago all the way to the current running shows today. He even seems to have been granted some freedom to choose which character figures EXO-6 will make. That's quite a staggering commitment. How many shows and movies have there been? I can't even count them in my head.
(If anyone can list the full number of Star Trek franchises we're looking at I'd love to see what that catalogue looks like.)
I remember a couple of years back Nanjin went on about the complex and fragile nature of how this specific license granting will work and how that agreement affects the order of figures he can release to maintain the license over the next few years. This isn't like Hot Toys getting the license for a current blockbuster Marvel film and releasing a few figures from it. This thing is bigger. Of course, at the time, none of Nanjin's ramblings made any sense beyond the emotional imperative he attributed to the whole drama. I don't know what he pulled here, but there's some complex and tricky contractual logic to it that likely goes well above our heads. Our only burden is to trust the system and roll with it.
Oddly, in recent years Star Trek has never been a successful license and I think most companies would have gambled their risk and merely secured a very myopic license for the original series or TNG, like QMX did, and ended there. It would be quite easy to bang out the core crew of 3 to 6 characters from each series and be done with it. Done deal and no more Star Trek figures beyond that for another decade or more. We're looking at something very different and unique here and while it's often frustrating to feel as if we're desperately waiting on high priority characters this is what we have in front of us. It is what it is, but that "it" promises to give us a wide breadth of Star Trek that no one else would have dared to try.
Look at the diverse range of figures EXO-6 has already delivered or put up for preorder - anyone would have guessed there'd ever be a Q, Seven, Quark, Kruge, Saavik, Georgiou, Pike or even Sisko and Archer gracing their shelves in this lifetime? Admittedly, some of these characters are an easy pass for me as I've decided to put my money towards the high priority characters, but it's impressive that they were made, collectors bought them and there has been some sense of satisfaction growing around the concept of a dream Star Trek universe happening in 1:6 scale.
It's a hard thing to really wrap around heads around, but maybe it's time to chill, get a bit Zen about it all and meditate on the thought of how big this license project is and what it may yield over the next few years. Ride this weird wave rather than fight it.