Riker finds Tomalak on the Bridge and reveals his discovery of the charade, and at that moment the image of the bridge disappears, revealing a Romulan Holodeck. Tomalak explains that Riker was captured during the Away Team mission and that they created the images of the ship and crew by perusing his mind with neural scanners. Riker is then placed in a cell with a boy who appeared as his son in the charade. The boy, Ethan, explains that he was captured with his parents, who have been taken away.

When Tomalak returns to the cell and demands to be told the location of Outpost 23, Riker escapes with the help of Ethan. While they are in hiding, Ethan accidentally refers to Tomalak as an ambassador, when in reality he is a commander and was only an ambassador in the aborted Romulan charade. Riker catches the boy and calls his bluff, realizing that the boy is not an innocent hostage. At that moment, the scene around him fades to reveal the cavern on Alpha Onias III where the original Away Team mission was aborted.

Ethan discloses that when his people were invaded, his mother brought him to the planet for safety, leaving him with a scanner to protect him and give him everything he wanted. He lured the U.S.S. Enterprise to Alpha Onias III and kept Riker to have a companion. Riker then invites the boy to return with him to the U.S.S. Enterprise. The boy reveals his true form, as an alien named Barash, and the two transport hand-in-hand back to the starship.

Originally, Data was going to be the Chief Science Officer on the Enterprise (like Spock was on the original "Star Trek" (1966)) and wear a blue uniform. However, the color blue clashed with the android make-up and the idea was changed. Data was reassigned as the Chief Operations Officer and sported a gold uniform for all seven seasons (except for the two-part episode "Chain of Command" in which he's promoted to first officer and wears a red tunic, as well as in "Future Imperfect" Where Data is also the first officer.