In the year 1963, the fear caused by the potential destruction of the planet by nuclear weapons
caused the American government to start a project called "Ascension". This consisted of a massive,
self-sustaining spaceship carrying six hundred volunteers all the way to Centauri Proxima, where
they must colonize a new planet. This trip would last 100 years. It is now 2014, and the project
is still kept secret from the general population. It's very common for journalists to harass Harris,
the son of the founder of the Ascension, to ask him about the rumors behind the project,
but Harris always replies the ship was never launched. His father Abraham is still alive,
but a stroke has sent him to live permanently in a nursing home, and Harris has taken over the
project. The Ascension is doing well and is now filled with two more generations,
but it's also been divided by class. The affluent families have the best job and live luxuriously on
the upper deck, while the poor have servant jobs and can only stay on the lower deck. For the 51st
anniversary, the ship is throwing a huge party to celebrate they're crossing the point of no return.
Lorelei stops by the lower deck to visit Stokes, who hands her a mysterious package. Afterward,
Lorelei joins the party, where she finds her sister Emily hanging out with executive officer
Gault. Emily is married, but she's having an affair with Gault. Just to be annoying, Lorelei
kisses Gault before leaving for the swimming pool. Christa notices Lorelei isn't at the
party and goes looking for her, only to find her dead. Sometime later, Gault, Emily's husband Duke,
and Captain William are called to look at the body. Doctor Juliet says it looks like Lorelei
got hit on the head, but Gault notices rope marks on her wrists and suspects foul play. William
doesn't want panic on the ship, so he asks Gault to investigate in secret. Meanwhile Christa has
gone through a state of shock because of what she saw and she's been admitted to the medical bay and
given a sedative. Suddenly Christa begins shaking in the bed, saying that "they're watching" and
that "the Globus sees all", prompting Juliet to put her to sleep. Somewhere in the ship,
a mysterious figure paints the words "no future" on the wall. Later, Gault checks the security
cameras and finds out the beach is a blind spot. There's also no proof of anyone entering
or leaving the area on the corridor cameras, which doesn't explain how Lorelei got there
in the first place. Emily comes by to tell Gault that Lorelei had been seeing a guy named James in
secret because he's from the lower deck. The night of the murder Lorelei had been with him and Emily
tried to ask her to stop seeing him, but she had to stay silent when Lorelei threaten to tell Duke
about the affair. When the results of the autopsy are ready, Juliet takes them to the captain,
explaining Lorelei had gotten frisky with someone before her death. There's also a puncture wound
in the roof of her mouth made by a small but powerful bullet, confirming this wasn't an
accident. William now is worried because there shouldn't be guns aboard the ship, and he shares
this information with Gault, who agrees to send a report to Earth. Next, Gault goes to the library
to check out some books about solving mysteries. Librarian Ophelia tells him the last thing Lorelei
checked out was a tape about Year 31 when the fire that killed her parents happened, but she returned
the box without the tape. Sometime later, Juliet is called to check on Christa again because she
was found lying down and not willing to talk to anyone. However as soon as Christa sees Juliet,
she tells how much she likes her necklace. The conversation touches on the subject of their trip,
but Christa mentions there's no life out there and that they should go back to Earth to avoid death.
Meanwhile Gault's men have finally found James. He admits he saw Lorelei the day of the party,
but that was much earlier, and they had an argument because Lorelei didn't want to go
to the party with him. James didn't see her again and definitely didn't get busy with her
either. Afterward, Gault goes to ask Christa if she knew anything. Christa thinks Lorelei went to
the beach because she was afraid of someone, but not James, who was nice to her. Christa also knows
that Lorelei claimed to know "the truth". When Gault asks her about what she said to Juliet,
Christa says she feels like she just knows things. Afterward, Gault visits James and lets
him go because his alibi has been confirmed. Then he uses the security cameras to discover
he's going to the beach. Gault joins him there for more questions, but James claims to know nothing
about the library tape. When Gault expresses his doubts about Lorelei having died on the beach,
they discover a secret passage that explains how she arrived without the camera seeing her.
Meanwhile Christa goes to the star deck to yell at the sky "stop watching us, I'm not afraid of
you". On Earth, Harris receives the news about the murder. His assistant Carrillo think they should
tell the director, but Harris refuses because he doesn't want his father's project to be tarnished.
Gault and Duke go down the secret passage and find the letters NF painted on the wall plus a
notebook disguised as a poem book. Following the bloodstains on the floor, they also find the place
where Lorelei was murdered. They take the notebook to William, who confirms these notes are maps for
the nav-computer and water filtration systems, which broke down weeks ago; this confirms it was
sabotage. William gives them permission to search the ship. When the guards start searching the
lower deck, Stokes opposes the raid and calls his men to start a fight. The encounter's interrupted
when an alert announces the ship is approaching a massive radiation storm and everyone must stay
to their pods until it passes. The blast shields that are supposed to protect the ship are jammed,
so Gault goes looking for an electrician from the lower decks to fix it. James takes advantage of
the chaos to ask Nora to go with him to the beach because Lorelei told him she hid something there,
and he doesn't trust the officers anymore. Together they pulled some pipes underwater and
find the tape Lorelei left there inside a jar. Juliet gives Christa some medicine to prevent
a panic attack and leaves her necklace to make her feel protected. After some struggle with a
short circuit, the electrician manages to fix the shields, and he takes this moment of privacy to
tell Gault that he saw Stokes give Lorelei a gun on the day of the party. Everyone runs to their
radiation pods to wait for the ship to go through the storm, but Christa sees a person in a hazmat
suit enter her room and take away the necklace. Moments later, the storm is left behind and
life returns to normal. William hears about the electrician's story and allows the guards to raid
Stokes' working place. They find the gun inside a bucket, and Stokes swears he's being set up, but
he still gets arrested. During the interrogation, Stokes admits he did give Lorelei the gun,
but that's it. He's sure she wasn't afraid of anyone, in fact, he thinks someone else was afraid
of her. The guards are sure Stokes is guilty and decide he'll be exiled. Now that the murderer
has been caught, they decide to hold a funeral for Lorelei, during which her coffin is thrown
into space. Christa approaches Gault to give him an army medal that she found in her cabin,
explaining Loreli left it there and that it had been a gift from her boyfriend. Meanwhile the door
to Stokes' cell mysteriously opens on its own, so he takes the chance to escape and retrieve
the gun. Back on Earth, Harris is confronted by director Warren, who has learned about the gun and
is furious that Harris tried to hide it from her. She reminds him that she can shut down the project
at any time, but their conversation is suddenly interrupted by another emergency. On the ship,
Gault confronts William about the medal, because he knows this belongs to whoever is the current
ship captain. William admits he had an affair with Lorelei, but he didn't kill her. At that moment,
Stokes shows up holding Nora hostage. He insists he was set up, and that someone had been in his
working room during the storm because he saw a footprint that wasn't there before. Suddenly
the airlock opens on its own, so Gault takes advantage of the distraction to tackle Stokes
while William takes Nora into another room. Gault and Stokes are fighting over the gun,
but as the airlock opens wider, Gault opts to hold onto the wall while Stokes is sucked
into space. After lots of falling, Stokes is shocked to land on an inflated mattress, where
a bunch of people put him to sleep and take him away. Warren is watching from afar with Harris,
who promises he has everything under control. It turns out Ascension is a simulation, and the ship
is kept inside a building to study how viable is to do this mission for real. Nobody in the ship
knows the truth, they all think they're in space thanks to the star screens on the windows and the
random space incidents Harris causes with machines to keep up the illusion. Stokes is put through a
bunch of tests, then he's locked up like a crazy man. Sometime later, Warren sends Samantha,
a security consultant that will keep an eye on things because she doesn't think Stokes did it
and there's a murderer on the loose. Meanwhile one of the many generator rooms, a mysterious person
sets up a bomb and writes "no future" on the wall. Moments later the bomb explodes near the Terra
Lab. Some workers get hurt, but thankfully there are no casualties. Harris and Samantha see the
explosion from outside and have to step back when the ship vents the flame. Gault, William, and Duke
find the "no future" graffiti and decide to tell everyone the explosion was an accident. Samantha
tries to talk to Stokes, but he attacks her and refuses to answer any questions after she's
rescued by the guards. Later Samantha meets with Warren to tell her Harris is saying the explosion
is an accident, but she can tell he's lying. She also thinks there's more going on here than a
sociological experiment. Warren confirms she sent Samantha because she wants her to discover the
truth behind the experiment and investigating the murder is just a convenient excuse. Gault keeps
on investigating because he also thinks Stokes is innocent. He goes to see Dwight, the man in charge
of the generators, to ask him about the explosion. Dwight panics because he thinks he'll be arrested,
thus he hits Gault and runs away. Moments later, William and Duke visit Gault at the infirmary to
inform him they can't find Dwight anywhere. They also discovered there's another generator missing,
so there may be another bomb coming. At the same time, Christa tells Ophelia that she's
scared because something bad is coming. Sometime later, Gault informs William that he did research
and discovered that the fire in Year 31 had also been a generator bomb and not an accident. Dwight
hadn't been born then, so he thinks there may be a whole team of saboteurs that have been around
for a while and Loreley discovered them, that's why she was killed. William insists Stokes killed
Lorelei and orders Gault to concentrate on finding Dwight. Then James approaches Gault to hand him
the tape Lorelei hid in the water and tell him that Dwight is on deck 23, where the old explosion
happened. Meanwhile the mysterious person is seen setting up another bomb. Gault goes to check deck
23 and causes Harris to panic because that area is so damaged that he may hear noises coming from
outside. Until Gault is gone, the whole team must keep absolute silence. Gault finds a toy rocket on
the floor that brings back painful memories of his childhood because his parents died on deck
23's explosion just like Lorelei's. As Gault goes further inside, Harris comes closer to the ship
and accidentally makes some noise. Gault hits the wall to check if the noise was just an echo and he
begins remembering looking in here when he was a kid. His mother found him and protected him from
the explosion when it happened. A little deeper into the room, Gault finds the bomb and Dwight,
who pushes him away from it as he activates it. It turns out Stokes was Dwight's father, and
now Dwight wants revenge for his death. Outside, Harris asks everyone to evacuate, not caring to
save Gault because the project is more important. Gault jumps on Dwight to fight him and after some
struggle, he retrieves the remote and turns off the bomb. Dwight's oxygen tank breaks in the
fight, so when Gault runs outside and decompresses the room, Dwight dies. Later, Samantha finds a
conspiracy website that shows several scientists that were involved in the project went missing or
died in the 60s, and she decides to get in contact with the webmaster. That night Christa dreams of
Juliet's necklace while Harris arrives home and gifts the necklace to his wife, confirming he's
got a contact inside the ship. Some days later, the crew gets ready to get their annual shots.
When Christa's turn comes, she doesn't want to get it and begins panicking, yelling those things are
poison. Ophelia takes the shot first to show her it's fine, but a second later, she begins having a
seizure. Samantha wonders what's going on, but Harris promises Ophelia just had an allergic
reaction to the shot meant for Christa because each shot is custom-made. Later at the infirmary,
Christa tells Juliet and Gault that it's her fault Ophelia is sick. She had been scared of
the shots because she had seen a guy putting something in the bottles and Ophelia offered
to keep her company. She saw all this in a dream and swears the man that tampered with the shots is
the same one she saw with Lorelei in the tunnels, which also came true. Christa is sure this man is
still on the ship. Meanwhile, Harris is watching the footage of Christa's panic and is amazed
by her vitals because they haven't had someone with those genetic markers since '83 when a guy
received the wrong shot. That man's immune system began attacking itself because he didn't receive
his shot, and now Harris is worried Christa will go through the same thing. They put the content
of the shots in Christa's milk, but she can tell they're trying to trick her and she spills the
milk on the floor while looking directly at the camera. Meanwhile Samantha meets with Eva,
the person in charge of the conspiracy website. She shows proof of the seventy scientists that
disappears and adds that the project used Kennedy’s advanced education initiative to
kidnap children and use their parents for the project. Eva spoke with one of her parents,
who has been looking for her daughter for fifty years and believed the key to everything was
Abraham. Juliet checks all the shot compounds but doesn't find any signs of tampering. Christa's
having some time alone on the beach when she is suddenly approached by a man that wants to give
her the shot by force. This is the guy that works for Harris from the inside, and when Christa tries
to run away, Harris shuts down all the doors. The mysterious man finds Christa in the lab
and when he reaches for her, he gets his arm hurt on a lab tool. Christ struggles against his hold
and her anger causes her to telepathically make the lightbulb explode, giving her the chance to
escape. Harris isn't shocked to see the girl has powers because this is what Abraham predicted.
Later, Christa bumps into Gault and tells him the bloodstains on her clothes are from her attacker.
Juliet uses this blood sample to compare it with her database, but it'll take a while. She's also
worried about Christa's white blood-cell count, but the girl refuses to take the shot. Gault goes
to see Christa and convinces her to take the shot, so later she's visited by Juliet's husband Robert.
Seeing the man makes Christa not want the shot anymore, and when Robert asks what things Christa
saw, she begins mentioning events she shouldn't know, like 9/11, the war in the Middle East,
and Kennedy's assassination. She also realizes that Robert is the man she saw with Lorelei in
the tunnels. Robert immediately gives her the injection to put her to sleep then turns to
the camera, wondering what to do now the secret is out. Harris isn't worried though because the
next day Christa doesn't remember anything. Robert informs Gault that the blood on Christa's dress
belongs to Juliet's lab assistant. The guards go to arrest him but when they enter the room,
they discover the guy ended things for himself. There's a gash on his arm that confirms Christa's
story. Harris tells Samantha this one clearly isn't murder but she isn't convinced, then she
begins mentioning lots of clues she's been finding while looking at the ship's footage. She thinks
Stokes had been right when he said the gun had been planted and that Harris has a right-hand man
on the ship that killed this guy to make him look guilty. But Harris continues to deny it
all. Gault informs William that they searched the assistant's room and asked around, but the found
no clues related to the saboteurs. The current theory is that he felt guilty for giving Ophelia
the wrong shot, but it's too convenient. A few days later, the crew throws a party to announce
that because of the recent deaths, three lucky couples will be allowed to have babies to keep
up the ship's population. Meanwhile Christa wakes up in the middle of the night because she hears
the sound of a woman giggling. She follows the noise down a corridor and finds Lorelei's ghost,
who crashes the party right before the big screen begins showing a recording of her affair with
William. The ghost tells Christa to look away, but the girl just begins screaming in fear.
Harris checks the footage and is happy to see Christa reacted before the video started playing,
meaning her powers are getting stronger. This is the morphic resonance that Abraham predicted
would appear in three generations, and Christa is the catalyst - the project's real goal has always
been to make a person develop such powers. The next day, Juliet takes Christa to the lab to run
some tests, and Christa explains she sometimes has this feeling of holding back the ocean. Meanwhile
Samantha approaches Carrillo to get him to explain the ship's marriage system. It turns out the
crew can't choose who to marry, the computer chooses according to genetics to guarantee a
healthy population. It is also the computer that chooses who will have babies. To avoid unwanted
pregnancies, they give the crew an implant, but some of them remove it by force. Those unwanted
babies are called "unclaimed" and sent to the lower deck, this was the case with Stokes' son
Dwight. While Carrillo talks, Samantha steals his cardkey. Their conversation is interrupted by the
arrival of Warren, who has read Samantha's report and isn't happy. In the meantime, a nurse brings
Stokes his pills, and Stokes finally feels strong enough to knock him out. While Warren and Harris
argue, Samantha takes the chance to sneak around and visit Stokes, who knocks her out too. Moments
later, Samantha wakes up to find herself tied in the locker room. Stokes is grabbing some clothes
and a blade to make Samantha take him to see the captain, because he still thinks he's on the ship.
Samantha guides Stokes to the hangar and tells him the truth, causing him to have a mental breakdown.
Then Samantha drags Stokes away as men from Warren's organization arrive to arrest Harris and
Warren takes over the leadership of the project. Gault checks on Christa, who is still being
put through a bunch of tests. He also takes the chance to ask Robert about the naughty recording,
and by checking the systems, Robert confirms it was William's code that uploaded the video,
which doesn't make sense. Meanwhile Christa keeps hearing a voice calling her name. Emily's one of
the women chosen to have a baby and gets her implant removed. Duke talks about their future
together and wants to be sure Emily loves him, because he's seen how she and Gault look at each
other. Emily's silence confirms the affair, and a furious Duke goes to confront Gault. Christa sees
Lorelei's again and follows her out of the lab into the beach, where she finds Duke and Gault in
a fight. Wanting to stop them, she unconsciously releases her powers and electrocutes Duke. Not
knowing how to stop, she loses control and sends a current throughout the ship,
shutting it down. The electricity also hits Warren and her men, killing a few of them.
Warren thinks this was planned by Harris, but he quickly explains nothing in this building is that
powerful. This has been Christa's power, the next step in human evolution. Intrigued by the concept,
Warren asks her men to let Harris go. Meanwhile outside, Stokes finds a memorial with all the
people that died on the ship and loses his mind when he sees his son's name. Samantha explains she
freed him because she wants him to help her bring down the project. Suddenly a guard finds them and
tries to arrest them, but Samantha and Stokes work together to knock him out before escaping in a
car. They discover Samantha is bleeding, so they stop at a store for supplies. Stokes asks for the
strongest medicine and hurts an employee to get it without a prescription. Then they hide in a motel
to take care of Samantha's wound. Christa finds Gault unconscious too and makes him wake up before
disappearing. Then Gault sees Duke come closer before he falls unconscious again, only to wake up
later in the medical bay. Because of the lack of power, there's chaos everywhere, since they think
they're lost in space. It turns out that Abraham hardwired the star lights into the ship’s nuclear
reactor so the illusion isn't broken even during a power outrage. Warren asks Harris to make it a
priority to fix the power to have eyes on the ship again, and Harris decides to tap into the nuclear
reactor too. In the meantime, William coordinates a ship-wide damage survey. James looks at a tv
screen and notices some weird images appearing on them; he tries to tell Robert about it but he just
blames it on system trouble to throw him off the clue. After James leaves, Robert cuts the wires to
stop getting broadcasts from the outside world. This is also noticed by Harris, who announces
there's a problem: the signal jammers aren't hardwired to the ship. They were added years
later when the world became digital, this means the illusion may be broken soon. Harris will have
to access the jammers directly and Warren tells him to take Carrillo, who is actually working for
her. Samantha meets with Eva to ask for her help to leave the country and tell the world
about Ascension. They go back to the motel and Eva meets Stokes, showing her sympathy for the hard
life he had on the lower deck. While Stokes goes to pick up their things, Samantha points out she
never told Eva about the lower deck, meaning she worked for Harris all along. The website was done
on purpose to make any clues look like a crazy conspiracy theory. To keep her from talking, Eva
shoots Samantha and then goes after Stokes, but he escaped through the bathroom window. The ship's
medical bay is getting full of people suffering from hypercapnia, caused by the air-quality system
malfunctioning. Since all the repairmen are busy working with the generators, William and Gault
go to the lower deck to try to fix the carbon dioxide scrubbers, but unfortunately they can't
be repaired. Harris has realized the same thing about the scrubbers and Warren is worried Christa
will die, so she sends one of her henchmen to take her out of the ship. William and Gault refuse to
give up and decide to grab the lithium dioxide to spread it around the ship through the vents, this
helps everyone get better. However Gault suddenly begins seeing Lorelei because he's also developing
resonance and he follows her out. Robert looks for Christa and finds her at the beach,
where she explains Lorelie told her everything is fake and that she'll be taken off the ship.
She can sense they're coming now, so she runs away and waits by a door. Robert goes after her
and confirms he killed Lorelei when she learned the truth, but he also wants Christa to come with
him because he doesn't want her to become a lab rat. At that moment Warren's henchman shows up
and easily knocks out Robert when he tries to get in the way. Then the henchman grabs Christa but
before he can take her away, Loreli brings Gault here and he attacks the henchman. As the two men
fight, a scared Christa releases all her power and causes both guys to disappear. All images
are lost on the security cameras and when Warren walks through the bridge to check what's going on,
Harris pushes her off to kill her. Meanwhile Gault appears to have teleported to an unknown planet.