Periphery, Part 2

Posted on Wed Oct 1st, 2025 @ 9:29pm by Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil & Lieutenant Ryan Keel

2,390 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Peril at the Unification Accords
Location: The Portside Glow, Deck 10
Timeline: MD008, 2030 Hours

"So," he said, leaning back, "what's the strangest place diplomacy's ever taken you, Keel?"

Mouth quirking at the noncommittal comment, Keel wondered who he could have met. Not Ensign Reed, he thought to himself amusedly. She's not one to leave a person noncommittal. She would have undoubtedly driven JB to exasperation at her high-handedness and superior attitude. Must be one of the more junior members. All the power to him.

'Strangest place?' he echoed, thinking, then breaking into a grin. 'Well, there was this place when I was doing my cadet cruise, out of the Academy. The other side of the Antares fold. Somehow, I've never really understood how, the ship slipped between dimensions, ending up in this weird little pocket universe.' Keel leaned forward, excitement lighting up his eyes. 'Imagine it, an existence without any sort of starlight at all. Just existing on the energy that slips through these cracks in time and space. Anyway, some manner of organism must have slipped through millenia ago, and evolved in that void.'

His hands flourished as he talked, 'you've seen deep sea fish, right? Like how most planets have them. Weird and twisted to our eyes, but perfectly adapted to their surroundings. We found sentient creatures just like that. When the beams from the ship's lights hit them, they lit up like terrifying rainbows.' Voice dropping and shaking his head, 'it took days for the department to work out a way of communicating with them. Turned out they communicated via infrared pulses. They left us alone once they understood we had slipped through, and were intending on slipping out.'

JB let the image hang there a for long moment--rainbow-lit beings suspended in the dark? Blinking at starship beams? He tipped his glass toward Keel, but he didn't drink.

"That is the kind of story that makes me so glad people like you are the ones doing the talking," he said. "I cannot imagine most crews would have taken the time to develop some method to communicate with them." The bar's light hit the condensation on his glass and fractured into little, golden prisms. He sipped the last of his blueberry wine, feeling it roll down like some semi-sour wave. "Do you think the Federation's periphery is ready for that kind of patience--the talking instead of the shooting?"

'Why wouldn't they be?' Keel countered with a small smile and a shrug. 'Any core member of the Federation was on the periphery at some point.' He ran a finger along the rim of his beer glass, 'it's slow going, and it'll require some heavy lifting - even some civilisations we've been dealing with for a a century or more still keep us at arms lengths when it comes to some matters.'

The bar's noise pressed in--laughter seemed to rise at the far table, a cork popping open somewhere else near the bar.

"That's true, I suppose," he said to Keel. "My parents taught me that Haiti was once the periphery of the periphery, a scrap of land everyone wanted to own but no one wanted to tend. People fought wars over it, bled it dry. Then one day, after generations of violence and fire, it was just... theirs."

'Haiti is your homeworld?' Keel asked, racking his brains for any reference to such a planet, and finding none.

JB's mouth curved into a sad frown. "Not a planet," he said. "A country. On Earth. A small island, broken and beautiful, full of people who refused to be owned."

Keel's ignorance, and his own pride in his homeland seemed to pull him inward.

"When I was a boy, my grandmother used to tell me stories about how the Haitians fought off three empires. The Great Napoleon himself sent troops, and they drove them into the sea. The first nation born from slaves who said, 'no more'. That is the kind of thing that gets into your sang, or blood."

A waiter drifted by with a tray of champagne flutes, the bubbles catching and glinting on the amber light of the sconces.

'Three empires? Napoleon - he was the French Emperor right?' Keel leaned forward, half-drunk beer forgotten for a moment as the perspiration pooled around the glass' bottom. The history of war fascinated him. Napoleon had been part of the required reading at the Academy, of course, but Keel had preferred Hannibal and Cannae amongst others. 'Who were the others?'

"Yeah," he said. "Napoleon, the French. Before him, the Spanish had tried to hold the island. After, the British sent their redcoats. All of them thought they could keep us chained, that sugar was worth more than our lives." He shook his head, reaching up to touch the lines on his forehead. "But my people, they burned the fields rather than give them up. Fought with machetes, with bare hands if they had to. Disease and stubbornness did the rest."

'Your people sound profoundly resilient and tenacious. To fight off what I assume were to be more organised enemies, that's some work.' Keel smiled as he reached for his beer, a little uncomfortable when he touched the moisture-slicked glass. 'I'm sorry I'm so ignorant of their history - I'm looking forward to learning more. Though I assume it's far richer than fighting.'

Jean-Baptiste couldn't help but feel a little proud of his heritage. Elementary school had taught him how his own people had been isolated by the rest of the world for many centuries and that despite the hardships his ancestors had likely endured--internally and externally--he could look back with an almost worship of his forebears.

"It's more than just fighting," JB confirmed, his voice settling in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's resourcefulness. It's maintaining tradition. Tradition--in the face of ruin. There's a lot of history there. But for another time." He picked up his glass and swirled the remaining sip of blueberry wine before emptying the last splash into his mouth. He held it there for a moment, once more savouring the tartness.

He looked across at Keel, his charming but patient demeanour spilling across the space between them. It was clear the man was more than just a diplomat--he appeared to be shaped and formed by something more hard.

"And your people?" JB ventured.

'My people,' Keel smiled briefly, then looked at the table for a moment and sighed. 'uh, well,' he drawled reluctantly. 'My parents are ... hippies.' The man uttered the word with some distaste. 'No real rules, no structure. They were indifferent to my schooling.' He smiled again, 'I'm sorry,' he apologised. 'I should start from the beginning. I don't know who my people are, per say. My parents arrived in the Rigelian colonies years before I was born. Looking for a more laid-back life, get in touch with nature.'

'I guess they were trying to escape ... something, or find a new beginning. They never really said. But they had no real interest in talking about their past, or our family history. All I really know is we had to have come from Earth at some point back in the generations.' He smiled ruefully, unclenching his fist, 'that's all I really know.'

Jean-Baptiste nodded slowly, recognizing this was a heavy moment for Ryan. He remained silent for a moment, letting Keel's words settle into the air.

"A blank map says something about people who refuse to write it down," he said finally, his voice not unkind. "Sometimes not knowing is its own type of history."

He rolled his shoulders as if dislodging a thought. "Hippies," he repeated the word Ryan had used, like he was tasting the syllables for the first time. "My parents are functionaries. They've worked as undersecretaries on the Federation Council for decades. My father is recently retired but my mother is still there--assisting council members, kissing-up to delegates, serving coffee." He shook his head at the thought. "I detested the pomposity of everything they stood for."

'It seems a lot of people grow up in opposition to their parent's lives,' Keel replied with a small smile. His liking of Jean-Baptiste was growing. 'But, that could be because most of the people I know live and breath Starfleet. I sometimes reckon that if more of us got on with our families more, there'd be less recruits for the fleet.' He leaned forward, 'but, your parents job does sound interesting in its own way.'

JB chuckled. "Interesting if you like watching people circle each other like sharks," he said. "But I think you're right--Starfleet would be in a bad place if we came from the so-called perfect family."

For a moment, the noise of the bar filled the silence--the clinking of glasses, the rumble of voices. He looked back at Keel. "What do you think of the Unification Accords?"

'It's a longshot,' Keel replied bluntly after considering the question. 'I think most of us have envisioned the solution being presented within decades, because of our lifespans. Vulcanoids all have a relatively longer lifespan - centuries of our years - and Ambassador Spock spent decades giving support to the Unificationists on the Romulan side of the border.' He shook his head, 'I'm not sure how much time anyone has spent building support on the Vulcan side.'

'Vulcans might say they're driven by logic, but they're a deeply proud species too. You don't lecture half the species you encounter on the benefits of your own culture, and try to guide the development of nascent warp-capable civilisations without some level of pride. And the Romulans were cast out for rejecting that culture. A fusion would endanger centuries of accepted cultural norms.

The Romulans exist in opposition to Vulcan ideology. They've fought wars due to it, tried to prevent Earth and Vulcan from growing too close because of it. And we know they're prideful. Even with the loss of their homeworld, they're down but not out. They built their Empire from adversity, and they can found a whole new one without anyone else's help.' He shrugged, 'at least, that's what I would be saying if I were an Antiunificationist Romulan, whether republican, praetorian or imperial loyalist. That's a significant cross-section of the population that can be mobilised against the Unificationists. I'm not sure they have a lot of popular support yet.'

Jean-Baptiste let out a low whistle. "You sound like you've already written their speeches for them," he said. There wasn't any bite in his tone, only the weary amusement of a former Intelligence analyst. "You're probably right. Pride makes a hard shell."

He leaned forward, his elbows dropping onto the table. "But I'll tell you this--pride doesn't hold forever. Nations collapse because they're too proud to feed their own people. Pride's not exactly logic, and it sure as hell is not strategy. It burns bright--but only until there's nothing left to feed it." He rubbed at his jaw, absent-minded. "Maybe Spock was gambling on that. That one day both sides get tired and start being something else."

'That day will likely come,' Keel replied, pleased that JB understood. 'It will likely come much faster than Spock ever anticipated,' he raised his hands, 'maybe a little slower than humans would like, but faster now nonetheless. The collapse of the Empire should change their calculus, but it will still take time. We just need to keep them talking - while the wider Federation considers the implications of a hybrid Romulan-Vulcan society and culture.'

"One of the bigger questions it feels as if nobody is asking, is where would they even put it?" he inquired. "This new Vulcan-Romulan society, if it ever comes. Vulcan itself? He shook his head, his lips pressed thin. "A sizable segment of Vulcans don't want them there, if reports are to be believed. Those outlying groups have been treating the entire debacle as if it were a refugee camp in their front garden."

The room's chatter pressed ever closer. A group of young officers strutted into the bar and made their way to a nearby table, laughing at some joke.

JB leaned forward. "So where do you put it, Keel? On Vulcan? On some empty rock, another exile wrapped in a flag?"

Keel let out a short, sharp laugh, and shook his head, 'that's way above my pay grade.' He considered the problem for a moment. 'There are the Vulcan Colonies of course, they could absorb a population of Romulans.' Swilling his beer around in the glass, Keel carried on casually, 'there's also the distinct possibility Vulcan absorbs any willing ex-Imperial world and integrates them into their governmental structure.'

Jean-Baptiste smiled at Keel's answer, a small and weary half-grin that was more visible in the eyes than around his mouth.

"Above my pay grade too," he admitted, unpretentiously. He tapped the bottom of his empty glass with two fingers, acknowledging its end, then pushed it gently to the side. "But it's the kind of question I find myself thinking about--even if the answer's not ours to give."

He rose, the chair legs scuffing faintly against the carpeted floor, and reached out his hand.

"Ryan Keel," he said, steady and nearly formal--but with warmth cutting through. "Thank you. This kind of talk is exactly what I needed."

Taking the proffered hand, gripping it firmly, Keel nodded, 'Thanks Jean-Baptiste. It's not often I have a conversation that turns my gears either. Hopefully we'll have more of them. And soon.'

JB smiled at the broad-shoulders diplomacy officer. This time, the smile reached his eyes.

"Yes. Count on it, Ryan." He stepped away, breaking the handshake and disappeared through the doors to the Portside, a new friend having been made and another day aboard the Astrea complete.





Lieutenant Ryan Keel
Chief Diplomatic Officer
USS Astrea


Lieutenant J.G. Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Assistant Chief Security Officer
USS Astrea

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