The Enterprise arrives at a planet inhabited by a species in, roughly, the Renaissance Age of development, the planet's recently sent out distress signals from a research team observing the planet's inhabitants, one of the researchers being Worf's adoptive human brother. The planet is undergoing a space McGuffin that'll make uninhabitable within the next day or two, there's nothing the crew can do, and even if they could, the Prime Directive would prevent them from doing it.
They respond to Worf's brother's hails in order to retrieve him as he's hidden in one of the planet's cave shielded by the radiation levels on the planet, Worf is sent down to retrieve him.
Once in the cavern Worf, disguised as a planetary native, Worf finds that his brother -Nikolai - has saved himself as well as an entire village's worth of the planet's inhabitants. Nikolai is brought back to the Enterprise where he admonished by Picard for saving so many of the people when there's nothing that can be done for them; leading to an argument about the Prime Directive -something Nikolai isn't strictly sworn to uphold since he's not a Starfleet officer. Nikolai proposes ways they can use 24th-century technology to help the planet's residents to survive once the planet becomes uninhabitable, but the options are not only impractical band-aids but are rejected due to the PD. The final stages of the planet's loss of atmosphere occur and it is believed the survivors perished.
Unbeknown to Picard and co. Nikolai covertly transported the inhabitants into one of the ship's holodecks programed to simulate the cavern, he still believes the people can be saved in some manner; the revelation angers Picard but now concedes that they're in too deep and have no alternative but to go with Nikolai's plans which now includes having the aliens make a journey on the holodeck that'll be programed to ease the transition from their original homeworld to a new one the Enterprise finds for them. From the alien's point of view they simply migrated from some position on their homeworld to another, Nikolai and Worf -playing the role of a "seer"- explain that their destination will be very different from the place they were used to, even the stars will be different.
Needless to say, not everything goes to plan. The biggest hurdle being that when the ship was around the original homeworld exposure to the system's star and radiation has damaged some of the ship's systems making the holodeck program unstable and then there's the usual brotherly dick-measuring and rivalry between Worf and Nikolai. Worf accusing Nikolai of always being impulsive and acting first and letting others cope with the consequences.
While on the holodeck one of the aliens finds he has lost some of the historical records he was making -as the society's archivist- and goes back to recover it only to stumble upon one of the holodeck failures revealing part of the arch, as he nears it the entire arch reveals itself and the doors open to show the Enterprise corridor. He steps out into the corridor and eventually makes he way into Ten-Forward with shock and awe at his surroundings where he's calmed, somewhat, by Troi and Riker.
Crusher says their brain chemistry is too unknown to remove memories so Picard deals with the fact that they now have to deal with this young man and that he is now open to make his own choice on how to move forward. Remain with them and join the 24th century, or return to his people where he'll either share knowledge of his experiences -making him either seem crazy or damage their society- or have to keep quiet knowing everything around him is a lie. Ultimately, rapt with the stress of the experiences and decision, he commits a ritual suicide.
In the holodeck, Worf and Nikolai continue to battle, especially after Worf learns his brother has impregnated one of the alien females. Ultimately the ruse works and they're able to bring people to a simulation of the destination planet and beamdown point, the people are transported to the planet's surface none the wiser. Worf and Nickolai reconcile their differences, saying that it was Nickolai's stubbornness and determination that helped to save these people. The two brothers bid fair-well as Nickolai opts to stay on the planet to raise his child.
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Another chapter in Season 7's "Characters' Family Members You Don't Care About!" anthology, but ends up actually being one of the better ones in this group of episodes, as well as good episode for Dorn/Worf. It is nice to find out more about his adoptive human family and the relationship with his adoptive-brother (though his brother doesn't strictly seem Russian (like Worf's adoptive parents) which makes me wonder if he wasn't adopted as well.)
It's also another story that sort of brings forth and challenges the entire notion of the Prime Directive which "on paper" sounds good and makes sense but in practice doesn't make any sense whatsoever, particularly when people are faced with situations like this. It's a wonder when we see how advanced and "evolved" human society is in the 24c when at the same time they seem to too easily accept the death of an entire civilization. Sure, it was a death due to a "natural occurrence" but still seems harsh to just stand by, shrug, and say, "Welp, nothing we can do!"
The holodeck malfunctions seem "convenient" here while at the same time serving no real purpose, the only real purpose they generate is revealing the arch to one of the aliens, but all of the other holodeck malfunctions seems sort-of pointless.. I'd think that they could have had the alien discover the arch in some other manner, I dunno have him shout out "arch" or "exit" out loud to no one in particular, the computer assumes he was talking to it, and shows the exit. It's odd that he's the record-keeper for their society but it seems both of his "record books" don't end up with the civilization. (He takes one off with him when he finds the arch, and Worf decides to keep the other one as a memento.)
Man... Worf's brother.... Yeeeeeshh... Okay, I'll accept him wanting to bend over and do anything to save these people, it seems like a rational human thing to want to do if he's spent enough time with these people. But he knocked one of them up! Seems to me that's going to contaminate their gene-pool something fierce. I'm guessing Starfleet has a "whaddayougonnado" attitude when it comes to this and well leave him be on this planet and drastically alter its evolution.
In "The Wrath of Khan" we see the hoops and hurdles Starfleet was going through in order to find a suitable place to test the Genesis device, trying to find a planet with no life on it whatsoever. Not even bacteria. It's not clear on whether this would make the Genesis Effect unstable or if it's out of a sense of morality to not impact life on an alien planet. The latter seems likely and in tune with Starfleet's attempts and non-interference as much as possible. Seems like dumping a group of people on a new planet is going to have some meaningful impact. It's natural to assume the planet wasn't inhabited with any intelligent life but it's certainly inhabited with plant life and very likely animal life. So who's to say that putting people there wouldn't have a massive impact on the animal life there? If we give them the notion the planet is past, or never had, a level of life that had dinosaur-like creatures and they're in the place of having simple, unintelligent, animals and maybe primates... won't these new people have an impact on their evolution? Potentially preventing a species from "having its chance?" Seems like these types of questions are pretty what the PD is all about.
In the end though, it's not too bad an episode, especially in the category of S7 New Family Member episodes, I sort-of wish some more time was spent with the archivist who found his way into the Enterprise's corridors.
Next week?
It happens. THE episode!
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