Precursor (Star Trek: Elysium)

"Precursor" is technically the first episode to air under the server name of Star Trek: Elysium. Although not actually the first episode of the first season, it served as an introduction and lead-in for many of the expectant fans of the series. The episode, and series, featured notably the first appearance of Robert Peirce as a budding young major.

Plot
A yet unknown ship, filled with marines, is launched from Starbase 1447 to soon embark on its mission. The ship is ordered to travel to Edinburgh, upon which they beam aboard a Dr. Arlok Telly, a Starfleet Scientist with some unusual quirks.

At the briefing, the crew is informed of their new mission, to embark to an asteroid field at which a rogue Romulan general and his minions are suspected to be preparing some type of chemical weapon. Upon arrival to the asteroid field, Major Robert Peirce, in addition to Dr. Arlok Telly and a few others proceed to beam into the hangar of the base. They find it deserted, and eerie.

Proceeding up walkways, and treacherous corridors, they fight off Romulans as they proceed up towards the center of the base. Soon, they find that something is amiss. After a long battle for the command center, they are confronted with a holographic stream of the General Herself, who taunts them and then tells them that she has destroyed their ship. They continue to proceed up, as the chemical weapon begins to be prepared.

After arriving on the top level, they find and arrest the general, and then proceed to attempt to disable the chemical weapon, which they find out to have been aimed at Romulus, and not Earth as they had previously suspected. After failing to disable it, Dr. Telly fiddles with a few controls and then the entire group beams off onto their ship, just in time to see the base destroyed. Dr. Telly had closed the weapon's doors, and so the weapon fired in upon itself, destroying the entire asteroid cluster.

The crew of the ship then engage several Romulan Warships, only to be overwhelmed by a Subspace Wave that forces their warp reactor to fail. As the ship falls helpless, the General begins to try to escape. Peirce is hesitant, and slow to give any orders, and the General escapes during his hesitancy. The Romulan's then warp out with the general, leaving Peirce in the dust.

The ship returns to base, where they are debriefed by a Vice Admiral. The Admiral informs them that the subspace wave that knocked out their warp did the same to ships all throughout the Alpha and Beta quadrants, and that it also has seemed to cause some type of subspace anomaly in the Sol Sector. After commending them for their destruction of the weapon, but also chastising them for their failure at capturing the General, he reassigns the entire crew to different ships on light duty.