On a mission to explore a mysterious world, one of their spaceships gets stranded close to Earth. Aurora, a stern, young scientist, decides to descend to the ancient homestead and finds out what it means to love, to suffer, and to be human. As predicted by an oracle, she finds an answer for her home planet's devastating social ills on Earth, in its last animal preserve. Meanwhile, the spaceship continues to travel to the distant Zeta system under Regina, its commander. Against the resistance of her own crew, she descends on the planet and makes humankind's greatest discovery.