Trama

While establishing diplomatic relations with an alien race called the Cairn, Deanna's mother experiences a mental breakdown and falls into a coma, and it seems like Deanna is the only one who is able to help her, even if her mother doesn't want it.—Moviedude1

Deanna's Betazoid mother Lwaxana Troi is aboard to help communicate with a diplomatic delegation of the Cairn race, which has no language, just telepathy, but might join the Federation. Lwaxana tries to match her bachelor daughter with the charming widowed delegation leader Maques, who already knows some English. However the telepathic stress causes her to head for a mental break-down, so Deanna steps in. When Lwaxana falls into a coma without physiological cause, Maques senses it's a 'dark place' in her mind. Deanna tries to connect telepathically, but Mrs. Troi's mind puts up mental defenses, yet the crucial images clearly concern a trauma from their family past, clouded in symbolism.—KGF Vissers

The Enterprise is establishing diplomatic relations with an alien race called the Cairn (a telepathic species with no spoken language), Deanna's mother Lwaxana (Majel Barrett) was teaching the Cairn to communicate verbally, as that would be required if they become part of the Federation.

A Cairn delegation was brought on board The Enterprise for the diplomatic ceremony. Hedril (Kirsten Dunst) is a small girl from the Cairns who is part of the delegation interfacing with the crew on the Enterprise. Maques (Norman Large) is the leader of the Cairn delegation. Lwaxana wanted Maques and Deanna to hook up. Lwaxana hesitated a bit when she interacted with Hedril for the first time. Not surprisingly, Deanna is furious at Lwaxana for interfering in her private life. Lwaxana gets very emotional and her eyes water with her love for Deanna. It is clear that Lwaxana is emotionally distressed.

Maques speaks to Deanna and tells her that amongst the Cairn, nothing is hidden. But humans seem to value privacy. He says that Lwaxana is the first non-Cairn to communicate telepathically with them. Maques says that while communicating with Lwaxana, he found that there is a part of her that is hidden and dark.

Lwaxana has a mental breakdown when she sees Riker with Deanna. Lwaxana yells at Riker to stay away from Deanna and says that if not for Riker, Deanna would have been married by now. Deanna asks Lwaxana to rest, as she takes over Lwaxana's role in teaching verbal communication to the Cairn. On a tour of the ship, Hedril falls into the pool and suddenly Lwaxana collapses. She has gone into a coma.

During her coma only Lwaxana's telepathic lobe is active. There is nothing wrong with her physically, but her brain has shut itself down. Picard and Beverly think this might be a side effect of her communicating telepathically with the Cairn and trying also to teach them verbal communication. Deanna talks to Maques again and he repeats that Lwaxana's dark thoughts are hurting her. Deanna now understands that there is something wrong in her meta-conscious mind. The Meta-conscious mind in Betazed is a kind of filter that protects them from any kind of psychic trauma. It means that she has recently suffered a trauma that has impacted her meta-conscious mind.

Deanna can hear her mother's pleas to help her. But she doesn't know how to help Lwaxana. Marques thinks that Lwaxana's meta-conscious mind has collapsed in on herself. He offers to provide a telepathic bridge for Deanna to enter Lwaxana's mind and find out what happened to her. Deanna is the only one who is able to help her, even if her mother doesn't want it.

Deanna enters her mom's mind who tries to resist her at first with images and associations that she knows scare Deanna. Deanna hides in her room to find her dad Commander Ian Andrew Troi (Amick Byram). But soon she realizes that this is also a diversionary tactic from Lwaxana.

Deanna presses further and finds Hedril, at which point Lwaxana gets aggressive at Deanna and forces her to retreat out of her mind. It seems she is protecting something or someone, but it's not clear what. Reviewing her mother's personal logs, she finds a 7 year gap (around a year after she was married and a few months after Deanna was born). The entries in that period were deleted by Lwaxana 30 years ago. Deanna goes back in again and figures out that Deanna had an elder sister. She drowned at a family picnic when Lwaxana was distracted while taking care of Deanna and Kestra (who looked exactly like Hedril) fell into a small lake and drowned. Deanna helps Lwaxana deal with her grief that she had locked away for 30 years.