On the planet Kaminar, a young Saru and his sister farm seaweed. The Kelpien race performs ritual self-sacrifice to maintain a sort of balance. However, Saru does not wish to participate in this ritual. He runs afoul of his father.

Saru also discovers an advanced piece of technology. He utilizes it to contact people from other worlds. He decides it is his fate to live among the stars, rather than among his people, doomed to die for reasons with which he disagrees.



He and his sister go far from their community, and after he bids farewell to her, Saru meets a representative of the world towards which he had reached; Lieutenant Philippa Georgiou of the USS Shenzhou. She tells him she had to get special permission by Starfleet to come here at all, and if he leaves now he can never return. Saru decides his place is no longer on Kaminar, and they leave in a shuttlecraft.