The Enterprise is in the middle of doing routine studies when Picard is visited by his former archeology professor, and mentor, Dr. Galen. Galen brings with him an ancient and impressive artifact as a means to spark the curious archaeologist in Picard and to convince him to go on an extended mission traveling around the quadrant of the galaxy for up to year in order to finish a decades-long research Galen has invested himself in.
Picard, much to his displeasure, has to turn the offer down, disappointing Galen who leaves the ship in a huff. Shortly later the ship receives a distress signal from Galen's shuttle, on arrival they fend off the attackers and recover Galen but his injuries are too grave to mend, in his dying breath he forgives Picard.
Picard, sparked by the death of his mentor, takes the ship on a detached mission to complete Galen's work. In the surviving files from the shuttle's computer they find a sequence of numbers that seem to have no decipherable pattern or code and after following the shuttles flight log to the previously visited planets the chase seems to be at a dead-end.
Picard is inspired to cross-reference the number sequences with the DNA codes of known species and the remnants of life on the other planets but the ship eventually reaches a stand-off with a pair of Cardassian ships at the next planet holding a piece of the puzzle. The Cardassian commander makes threats against the Enterprise should they try and to make any progress on their mission. Soon, the two are joined by a Klingon commander making similar threats. Picard invites them all to the Enterprise to mediate their stand-off.
It's believed the DNA fragments link together to create a program that holds clues to something of great importance. What this is, is up to debate. The Cardassians, the Klingon and Picard each hold a piece of the puzzle that is useless without the information from the others. Picard proposes they all team up to hunt down the meaning of this mystery, everyone agrees.
When everyone's data is put into the Enterprise computer it's revealed there's still a piece missing, but Picard decides to program to computer to use the partial puzzle they have and extrapolate the missing piece using starcharts and how they've changed over eons, since the puzzle pieces are embedded in the DNA of most of the living creatures in that area of galaxy and has been there since life began on the respective planets.
While the computer processes the information it's learned that the Cardassian commander is trying to gain access to the ship's defensive systems, Picard learns of this and is able to set-up a ruse for the Cardassians. He first reveals a false answer to the puzzle and then has the Enterprise fake damage in a following attack. The Klingon ship isn't as prepared for the attack and suffers damage, the Klingon commander goes with Picard to the true location of the missing piece.
On the barren planet a dry and fossilized seabed is found where it's suspected some traces of DNA may remain, once on the surface the away team is soon met-up with the Cardassian commander and a group of Romulans. An stand-off ensues between the groups, as everyone squabbles Picard and Beverly are able to extract some trace DNA from the fossilized seabed and enter it into the tricorder. The DNA fragment completes the program which reconfigures the tricorder and causes it to project a holographic image of an alien female.
The alien female says she's the member of an alien race the existed billions of years ago, before any form of life existed in much of the rest of their area of the galaxy. These aliens seeded worlds in the quadrant with their DNA strands with the embedded code hoping that one day the eventual offspring of those fragments would be able to work together to find their progenitors. In effect, most of the races in the galaxy share a common, but very distant, ancestor.
The representatives, expecting the solution to either be a weapon or great energy source, leave the planet disappointed but Picard leaves somewhat satisfied in finishing Galen's life work.
As the ship takes a break following many days at high-warp, Picard contemplates the message, how that what the aliens wanted hadn't came to fruition since the races at the final meeting point were still very much at odds with one another with the possible exception of the tenuous relationship between the Federation and the Klingons. Before heading for duty Picard is contacted by the Romulan commander who seems to agree that there's fewer differences between Romulans and Humans as originally thought and seems to imply this could be the basis for a better relationship down the road between the two civilizations.
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It's interesting how some episodes work because this is one of those episodes that almost feels like a two-parter when it's only a single episode. I don't say that because the episode is long or boring but because the episode is fairly grand in its scope and, really, probably could have been grander and stronger if it *were* two episodes as opposed to the two-episode "Birthright" storyline.
It's a grand episode in that it really does something pretty big and fundamental in the Star Trek universe in pretty much laying out the basis for all life in the galaxy, or at least this part of it, which also -probably on purpose- explains why so many of the alien races we see have similar looks on at least a basic level.
While all of the races we see (Humans, Klingons, Cardassians, Romulans) all obviously have very different physical characteristics they share a common ancestor, though one that is billions of years old. It's a pretty damn profound foundation to lay in the Star Trek universe and we could probably extrapolate that to that virtually all of the alien races we've encountered in Trek have this same common ancestor, accounting for the similar looks. (Which obviously is due to humans having to play the parts within the limitations of a television effects and makeup budget.)
It does seem terribly convenient that this puzzle was contained within a fairly short warp-travel distance in this area of the galaxy in stead of spread out over the entire galaxy but one could probably also say that there's numerous of these hidden programs around various areas of the galaxy creating "groups" and maybe there's a grander puzzle that each of these groups join to initiate and even more meaningful program from the Progenitors.
It's good to see a character's mentor show up and for them to not be evil, crazy or having bad intentions. Here Picard and his mentor have a strong relationship it would seem with each of them filling a father/son gap that they didn't get from the respective family member. Picard even worries of disappointing his mentor by not going on the extended mission.
It is interesting though that Galen was planning on this mission taking the better part of a year but Picard was able to complete it within a few days and at the same time the Cardassians, Romulans and Klingons were trying to finish it.
Seems like Picard could have put the ship on detached duty from the start to complete this mission for his mentor rather then him having to potentially spend the next year flying around in a shuttle and taking charters to carry out his work. It's suggested that Picard could have gotten into trouble for having the ship curtail its duties to Starfleet but nothing comes of it.
Which sort of goes back to some of the notions with the show how at times it seemed like the ship was more doing diplomatic stuff or Starfleet/Federation nonsense rather than the whole "exploring space and the unknown" thing which this project of Galen's is right up that alley.
Anyway, it's an enjoyable enough episode with some fun guest characters, mostly in the form of the Klingon representative who comes-on ship and challenges Data to the Feats of Strength.
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