Picard and Guinan are imprisoned by Agent Wells. He believes them to be extraterrestrials in possession of Clarke's Third Law-level technology. He has them locked up in a basement, off the books, and can make them disappear. Even worse, he has some corroborating evidence: the sarcastic rant Rios gave to ICE while he was their captive, as well as Rios's communicator from Teresa's clinic. Guinan is separated off and interrogated by a separate FBI agent: Q, who has finally responded to the summoning. He admits he's dying... and not with a bang, but a whimper. Nonetheless, he manages to give Guinan a vital clue: "Humans. Stuck in the past, all of them." This clue turns out to be the key for Picard, who digs into the Agent Wells's Dark and Troubled Past: as a child, he stumbled upon some aliens who grabbed him by the head before being beamed out. Picard realizes the aliens weren't actually trying to mind-meld with him: the flashback, depicted on screen, corroborates his estimation that the aliens were Vulcans who were trying to remove the memory from the boy's head. Having gotten to the truth of Wells's past, Picard admits his own, and begs the agent for help. Wells lies to his superiors that the aliens were just a false alarm, costing him his job. Guinan consoles him by implying that she is, indeed, an extraterrestrial; and, whatever the case, the three are free to address their own concerns.
Raffi and Seven are still trying to track down Queen Jurati. They find the corpse of a man she walked off with the night before, and identify his wrecked smartphone; the battery, which uses lithium-ion, has been torn out, and Seven realizes Queen Jurati is cannibalizing it for use as a stabilizing agent to pave the way for Borg nanoprobes. This is confirmed when they find Queen Jurati tearing apart batteries of parked cars for their lead plates. Only Jurati herself, struggling through the Queen's control, allows the two to escape with their lives. Seven accuses Raffi of being a Manipulative Bastard, and Raffi agrees: a flashback depicts her convincing Elnor to stay in Starfleet against his own desires... leading directly to his own death, a guilt Raffi now has to carry with her. With Queen Jurati's motives now confirmed, they contact Rios, who has been running a diagnostic on La Sirena to find any remaining Borg code, and meanwhile flirting with, and eventually kissing, Teresa. He finds only one remaining code fragment, but it's got the transporter under total lockdown. (Seven, Raffi and Picard scramble to make contact with Tallinn and use her transporter.)
Kore, back at the Soong residence, continues digging into her father's files, with the help of a gift from Q. She gets Dr. Soong to admit the truth: she was grown in a vat and has no mother. Furious, she walks outside... having taken the gift from Q, a vial of serum labeled "FREEDOM" that has cured her genetic condition. Dr. Soong, wallowing in misery, is contacted by Queen Jurati, who plays to his ego: we know what happens if Renée Picard flies the Shango, but if she doesn't, Earth will continue its path of ecological collapse... and the world will turn to the Evilutionary Biologist and Social Darwinist Dr. Soong to save them. Soong uses his connections with Spearhead Operations to hire a small group of mercenaries, and Queen Jurati begins to assimilate them.
Tropes:
- Armor-Piercing Question: Kore asks Soong if he loves her or the work that went into her.Kore: I want you to look inside, Dad. If I walk out that door right now, what are you afraid of losing? Me? Or your legacy?
- Cassandra Truth:
- Picard openly states he is a fully Earth-born human but Wells doesn't buy it. Since his body was replaced with an android body constructed on another planet, he technically is an extraterrestrial.
- An example from a previous episode is subverted when Wells gets ahold of Rios's Sarcastic Confession about being from the future when he was in ICE custody, which Wells takes seriously.
- Continuity Nod: Agent Wells reveals that he had a childhood encounter with some Vulcans exploring Earth before First Contact was made in 2061 (given his age, probably sometime in the 1970's). The fact Vulcans had made several unknown visits to Earth prior to First Contact was the subject of the Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Carbon Creek," set in the 1950's.
- Deal with the Devil: The Borg Queen makes a deal with Soong. She gives him the means to take out both Picards and gets his legacy as savior of the Earth, she gets the resources she needs to take back the ship.
- Despair Event Horizon: Soong reaches it after Kore confronts him about her true nature and leaves. Fortunately, the Borg Queen is there to... help.
- Exact Words: When "interviewed" by the FBI agent, asking if they are extraterrestrials, Guinan laughs while Picard assures him that he's human. It doesn't work, however, and the FBI agent guesses correctly that Guinan is not.
- Fighting from the Inside: Jurati is able to make the Queen stop choking Raffi to death.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Agent Wells loses his job after telling his superiors he was wrong so Picard and Guinan can go free.
- Humans Are Special: Guinan marvels at how humans are "stuck in the past"... because they are trying to learn from the things that scarred them.
- Human Resources: The "raw ingredients" that the Queen needs include private soldiers Soong calls in that she assimilates.
- I Lied: When Picard questions all the paperwork that was filed after their arrest, Agent Wells admits he lied — he never filed any paperwork. If he actually had proof, he would've been sidelined and Picard and Guinan moved to a military base, denying him any credit for the discovery.
- Meaningful Name: An FBI agent who's encountered aliens and time-travelers has the same last name as science-fiction writer H. G. Wells, who wrote about aliens and time travel.
- Neck Lift: The Queen does this to Raffi and nearly strangles her to death, but is called off by Jurati before she can follow through.
- Pet the Dog:
- Q gives Kore a permanent cure so she can escape her father, even though Soong didn't deliver on his end. She uses it to finally go outside and leave her father.
- Adam Soong at least has the decency to tell Kore the truth about who and what she is. When she leaves, he doesn't try to follow her or hurt her.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Guinan is able to telepathically communicate Q's parting words to Picard to give him a hint at how to deal with Wells, causing a nosebleed as she struggles to maintain the connection.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kore gives a brief but effective one to her father before finally leaving him.Kore: The grass feels nice.(Adam has a WTF look on his face. Kore holds up the empty vial with the paper tag that says "freedom")Kore: Freedom. From you.Adam Soong: (angry) You don't get to walk away from me. You don't exist without me!Kore: You know, you follow me, I call the cops. Maybe it's you who doesn't exist without me.(she turns and walks away)
- The Reveal:
- Q is slowly dying.
- Jurati is doing what Picard couldn't: she's fighting back against the Borg Queen from within and manages to save Raffi and Seven from being killed.
- The Borg Queen reveals the deviation in the timeline. In the Prime Timeline, Renée Picard and the Europa Mission find proof of alien life and a way to reverse climate change, leading to the eventual formation of the Federation. In the Confederation timeline, Adam Soong's work instead was used to head off Earth's devastation.
- Series Continuity Error: The Vulcans in the flashback, which presumably takes place in The '80s or The '90s, have transporter technology, which, according to Star Trek: Enterprise, Vulcans still didn't yet have in 2151. (It also uses a more modern animation: remember back in TOS when the transporters took five whole seconds to materalize someone?)
- Spotting the Thread: Guinan is able to expertly figure out this is an "off the books" operation given they're in a small office room without a working camera. Her El-Aurian listening ability (and her bartender expertise) also allows her to realize this is all personal for Wells.
- Wham Line:Guinan: (to Q) You're dying.
- Wham Shot: Kore steps outside her house...and doesn't drop dead. She then reveals the vial that cured her defects.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Turns out that Q was getting tired of immortality.
