Ok I did some digging and apparently you can append the scene without it being linked- I can repeat my results but I am not sure what I am switching on and off to do it—>
Step 1:
If I append something in blender (Shift F1), and check the “Link” radio box to “off” in the window manager, the scene is then linked locally.
Step 2:
THEN if I append a scene through python anytime after step 1 and specify that linked is False, then the scene is successfully appended as a local scene-- even if I close the file and open another file and try it again.
My theory is that I am toggling a setting in the winman that prevents scenes from being linked by default. As far as I can tell it’s somewhere in here —>