Also, there was just something about it that felt like a re-hash of an actual TNG episode, but I can’t pin down which one.
“Homeward,” the episode where Worf’s adoptive brother evacuates a pre-warp species to a new planet because theirs is dying using the Enterprise’s transporters and holodeck to make them think they’re just traveling over land to a new place. It’s almost exactly the plan for moving the Ba’ku.
Oh man, that’s really close. And no callback to that episode either. Picard or Worf remarking that “they must have gotten the idea from our own logs” would have been way better foreshadowing for the (b)admiral’s involvement. It would have also changed the tone to be more Trek thematic, as it would say something deeper about unintended consequences through so much cultural contact.