The Enterprise moves in to help after detecting a stellar core fragment heading straight for a human colony on what was thought to be a deserted planet. Picard contacts the colony's leader, Aaron Conor, with an offer to evacuate his people. But Conor refuses, telling Picard that evacuation would destroy his genetically engineered society. Instead, he insists on working to find an alternate solution, and reluctantly permits the transport of Riker, Geordi and Troi, the first visitors the colony has ever had, to help. Conor assigns Hannah Bates, a scientist from the colony, to work with Geordi. Riker beams back aboard the Enterprise along with Geordi and Hannah, who leaves the colony for the first time to work to save her home.
