Captain James T. Kirk is sparring with fellow crewman, Lieutenant Joseph D‘Abruzzo from security in the ship’s gymnasium, during which the ship suddenly shudders from hitting a wave of subspace turbulence as it approaches the area of space it has been sent to investigate, the Nystrom Anomaly, discovered by the first generation warp probe, Friendship One, eighty years earlier. Observing from a distance, the Enterprise gleans little more information than the probes had, that the anomaly appears to be somehow bending local space-time and subspace, but also almost impervious to sensors scans.