- Picard realizes how far some will go to protect secrets that go back generations when truths about the attack on Mars are revealed; Narissa orders her guards to capture Elnor, setting off a chain reaction on the Borg cube.
- When devastating truths behind the Mars attack are revealed, Picard realizes just how far many will go to preserve secrets stretching back generations, all while the La Sirena crew grapples with secrets and revelations of their own. Narissa directs her guards to capture Elnor, setting off an unexpected chain of events on the Borg cube.
- Oh recounts Romulan history. During their exploration, they came upon an uncharted system with eight stars. They found a storehouse of preserved memories. They saw the grim fate of the civilization that perished on the planet long ago. The Romulans called it the Admonition. The fore mothers found the Admonition. They formed the Zhat Vash of which Ramdha, Oh & Narissa were a part. The Admonition warned off annihilation from the skies.
For hundreds of years, the Zhat Vash worked to prevent a second coming of the Destroyers. As part of their joining ritual, every Zhat Vash must endure the Admonition, and many of them commit suicide after that. Only a few can endure and remain sane. Only Narissa and Oh could endure. Ramdha goes insane but is saved by Narissa. Oh asks Narissa to start her work to stop the synthetics from Mars. When the Borg assimilated the Tal Shair ship with Ramdha on it, she broke it the entire ship with the sheer force of her despair.
Narissa has already dispatched a fleet to the synthetics home world.
Picard and Soji beam aboard La Sirena, and Rios has a panic attack when he sees Soji. Picard asks Rios to take the ship to the nearest star base Deep Space 12. Picard tells Soji that they cannot face the Romulans without help from Starfleet. Raffi finds out that Jurati had a tracking isotope in her blood, and she believes Jurati killed Maddox. Raffi doesn't trust Soji either.
When Jurati wakes up she offers to turn herself over to Starfleet. Jurati says that she saw hell in the mind meld with Oh and now he thinks of committing suicide every day. The hell in Oh's mind meld was thousands of centuries old, but now humans are at the same threshold. Unless the synthetics are destroyed, the current Galaxy and all of the current life forms are headed for the same hell. The hell will come with the appearance of the Destroyer, Soji. After meeting Soji she chooses not to harm her.
Picard presents his report to Kirsten Clancy, who agrees to Picard's findings and sends a Starfleet squadron to meet him at Deep Space 12. Clancy agrees that the synthetics need to be protected from the Romulans. Raffi tells Rios that on the Cube she saw Romulans drawing a picture with eight circles, over and over. Rios speculates that this could be a system with 8 stars, while Raffi thought this referred to the council of eight, who planned the attack on Mars. Raffi now realizes that the drawing refers to place where the council met.
Rios tells Raffi about his Starfleet captain on the ship Ibn Majid, who murdered two people on Starfleet's orders before committing suicide. The Starfleet had promised destruction of the Ibn Majid and all its crew, if their orders were not carried out. One of them was named Jana. Rios beamed the bodies out of the ship and deleted the logs. 6 months later he was discharged from Starfleet. Jana was a splitting image of Soji. Oh gave the order to kill Jana.
The chances of a Octonary star system (with 8 stars) occurring naturally are close to zero, so it would have to be built. One would have to capture eight stars and move them light years and set them into motion. It would only be done if you had something important to say, and you wanted to make sure that people paid attention.
Raffi also pieces together that the Romulans discovered a warning from a past civilization (who lived 200,000 to 300,000 years ago) about the horrors of evolved synthetic life. The civilization dragged 8 stars into a system and placed a planet in the middle of it. On the planet they placed the warning, the Admonition. When the synthetics cross an evolution threshold, somebody really bad shows up. Romulans took the Admonition seriously and created the Zhat Vash to terminate all synthetic life. 30-40 years ago Dr Noonien Soong created Data. The Zhat Vash sent the half-Romulan Oh to infiltrate Starfleet and instigate the Mars attack as part of their anti-synthetic plan. Romulans engineered the attack the Mars to place a ban on all synthetics.
9 years ago, the people Rios's captain murdered were synthetics from Soji's home world, and one of them, Jana, looked just like her. This is the world where Bruce Maddox created an entire society of synthetics, hidden from Federation eyes. The Zhat Vash have been searching for this world ever since.
Hearing this activates memories for Soji and she plots a course for her home, still followed by Narek. Soji has knowledge of the Borg's Transwarp conduit networks. A short cut through space.
On the Artifact, Seven of Nine arrives to help Elnor fight the Romulans. She connects with the Cube and reactivates the Queencell. She also activates the Borg drones that are in stasis on the Artifact, but the Romulans kill all of the drones by releasing them into space. The Romulans then abandon the Artifact and prepare to invade the synthetic home world. Narissa is captured by the XBs before she can escape the Artifact.
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