Spoiler
President Rillak holds an assembly with species from all over the galaxy to discuss the anomaly and how they intend to deal with whoever is behind it. Worth noting, representatives from Earth are present, but Earth hasn't rejoined the Federation thus far. Also noticeably absent are any Klingons. At any rate, the delegates discuss how to proceed with the species behind the anomaly, not having any clue who they are, culture, or intentions, many suggest they should proceed with peaceful first contact, while some suggest precautions in the event they turn out to be hostile. Tarka interrupts, pointing out they still need to deal with the problem at hand, the anomaly. Nothing anyone has tried has worked, but he has a plan to use the spore drive to jump to the device at the center, and set off a subspace weapon (banned by the Khitomer Accords) to collapse it. It's pointed out this could severely damage subspace, and prevent warp travel in the area, as well as harm whoever is on the other side of the anomaly's wormhole. Tarka thinks the collateral damage would be worth it to end the threat.
During a recess, Tarka tells Book that he actually wants the power source of the anomaly so he can use it to travel to a "new home" in a parallel universe, where there is no war, the Burn never happened, and he hopes a "friend" is waiting for him. Not sure why he needs something that generates more power than any of their technology is capable of generating. We've seen for example a transporter, either by accident or with some programming modifications, was capable of getting people to the Mirror Universe, seemingly without any additional power. Heck, Worf, after passing through a quantum fissure, jumped to different universes whenever he got near Geordi's visor in an episode of TNG. Book just wants the anomaly destroyed so no other worlds will suffer the same fate as his homeworld. Returning to the assembly, the vote is called and the majority want to proceed with peaceful first contact. Notably, Earth is one that votes in favor of Tarka's plan to destroy the anomaly... What happened to the evolved, optimistic humanity? This take on Earth is so cynical. And why do they get a vote when they aren't Federation members? Burnham, oddly, also gets a vote. Why would a Starfleet captain get a vote among various representatives of planets?
Zora performs a behavioral performance assessment on the crew after Stamets expresses some of his thoughts and concerns about her, and comes to the conclusion the crew consistently works in favor of others and the Federation. She still has some fears about encountering the species being the anomaly, but decides to trust the crews judgement, and gives them the coordinates. Kovich makes an analysis of Zora, and decides to recognize her as a new lifeform. Apparently this means Starfleet's regulations against fully sentient AIs integrated into the ship no longer applies... for some reason... They offer Zora a Starfleet commission as a specialist, which she accepts. This also makes her part of the chain of command, so Stamets removes the failsafe Zora created earlier.
On Book's ship, Tarka transports aboard, having just stolen the next generation Spore Drive from Voyager-J. Despite earlier in the season they said they were refitting Voyager-J for it, which was the whole reason the ship was docked at the brand new Archer drydock... The new spore drive is tiny portable device about the size of a brick that just melts into a navigation console of any ship. No need for the spinning hull sections or spore chamber, or even any indication it needs spores... It still needs an organic navigator though, which only Book or Stamets can do. They seriously haven't figured out spore drive navigation without an organic navigator? In the 23rd century, they'd established the reason they couldn't navigate jumps longer than a few hundred kilometers at first was because they lacked the processing power to make the calculations for all the variables. Why exactly an organic navigator works, they've ever adequately explained beyond magic space tardigrade DNA, or whatever Book's species is. But with advancements in technology by 32nd century, shouldn't their computers be capable of making the necessary calculations? If it still needs an organic component, for whatever reason, 32nd century technology should have that solved as well, since it's been established their ships already are integrated with organic technology. Just inject some space tardigrade DNA into a ship, like Stamets did to himself. Actually kind of surprised these writers haven't done that already with how lazy and inconsistent their writing is...
At any rate, Book and Tarka take off to enact Tarka's plan to destroy the anomaly, despite being voted down. And with that, the show is going on a hiatus until February.