On his first day aboard the USS Enterprise, Ensign Spock and his new superior officer Number One get trapped in a turbolift. While waiting for the turbolift to be repaired, Spock asks Number One numerous questions, and the pair bond over their similarities.

On the USS Cabot, science officer Edward Larkin tries to solve a planet's food shortage by adding human DNA to tribbles against his Captain's orders, creating a species that is born pregnant and reproduces at an exponential rate. The Cabot is overrun, and Larkin dies when he chooses to remain behind while the rest of the crew escapes.

When Starbase 28 is attacked, Cadet Thira Sidhu is given care of a mutinous prisoner: Captain Christopher Pike of the Enterprise. Pike attempts to pressure Sidhu into releasing him, but she refuses. Pike reveals that this is a simulated test, and by passing it Sidhu is accepted as a part of the Enterprise crew.

A tardigrade looking for a place to lay her eggs crosses paths with the USS Enterprise and is attacked by a repair drone named Dot. When the Enterprise self-destructs, Dot helps save Ephraim's eggs. When the eggs hatch, the pair travel with the baby tardigrades together.

Young Michael Burnham's father eases her fear of the dark by telling her a story about a young African girl. In the story, the girl's people fear the dark because of a predatory Night Beast, but she braves the night and discovers an alien that gifts her new light. The girl uses this to create the stars, and grows up to be a warrior queen.

Two schoolgirls on Earth develop a fierce rivalry, but are drawn together by a tragedy when they see news of Mars and its orbital facilities (where both girls have family working) attacked by rogue synthetics. During the news footage an image of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard appears, with the network reporting that Picard called the attack "devastating."