[ensign edwards]

Communication Overcomes All Boundaries
Ensign Jeanne Poitier - Starfleet News Feed
20 June, 2157

The war with Romulus is, in many ways, unlike anything humanity has ever experienced before. For the first time, we fight a full scale war with an alien species. Neither the wars once fought between our nations upon Earth nor our devastating but brief conflict with the Xindi can truly compare. It is something wholly new and wholly frightening. We are faced with an enemy whose tactics are ruthless and unpredictable, and whose motivations are unclear at best. We have learned so little of them that we still cannot even definitively say whether or not they are humanoid.

The families of those who fight on the front lines must deal with the fear of what may become of their loved ones in this strange new war, and as if that wasn't enough, they must also cope with a level of separation unseen in hundreds of years. In centuries past, the lines of communication between soldiers and their families would have been unreliable at best, but this has rarely been seen in recent history. Beginning in the early 21st century, electronic communication began to allow greater connection with those on the front lines. Blogs, e-mail, video conferencing, and other technological solutions grew by leaps and bounds with each passing decade, and it soon evolved to the point where only fighters in the most dire of circumstances had to lose contact with their families. Such methods even lasted through much of the dark days of the Third World War, only failing in the final years when the fighting escalated to the point where nearly all infrastructure was destroyed.

People are used to the idea of being in regular contact with their loved ones, but now the vastness of space provides a barrier between the Starfleet officers battling the Romulans and their loved ones on Earth and its colonies. Out on the fringes of Coalition territory, subspace communications can be unreliable, and the Romulans often make targets of relay buoys, making a bad situation worse. Even under ideal circumstances, personal communiques are often delayed to make room for information more crucial to the war. It can take weeks for messages from distant ships to reach Earth, and just as much time for responses to make it back out to the depths of space.

"It's horrible," Lieutenant Christopher Young, an engineering officer aboard the Intrepid, told the SNF. "My wife gave birth to our daughter a month ago, but I only found out five days ago."

Still, the human race has a great talent for overcoming obstacles. Both on Earth and aboard Starfleet's vessels, people are coming up with novel ways to keep up communication. Ships of the Earth Cargo Authority have begun relaying messages back and forth as a free service.

"Aboard cargo ships, family's everything. We wouldn't want anyone to have to be cut off from the people they love," Paul Mayweather, captain of the ECS Horizon, told our reporters, adding, "I know what it's like to have someone you care about risking themselves on the front lines." His brother, Travis Mayweather, is the helm officer aboard the NX-01 Enterprise.

Many Starfleet ships heading in for repair or resupply now take back messages for home, and those heading back out relay messages to the front. In some cases, mercantile alien ships from systems like Rigel and Kreetassa have even been recruited to ferry messages.

"Every little bit helps," Lieutenant Young said. "Just a short letter or a single picture from home can make life so much better at times like this."

No matter how hard it may be, it seems the human need to communicate will overcome all boundaries.

This Dispatches from the Romulan War report was submitted by ensign edwards.

[Terilynn]

I left you a review at Ad Astra already - but this piece was GREAT. Nice to see it continuing!