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The Federation is alarmed at the prospect of genocide in the Triangulum Galaxy. But could the Ni'yuHji Dominion next come at Earth?
Starfleet and Federation officials have made it no great secret this week that the Civonian Enclave is in imminent danger of being overrun. The latest news reports are becoming increasingly grim as the vessels of the Ni'yuHji Dominion (known as the Nij in Triangulum) begin to close in on K'ritha, capital of the Civonian Enclave.
Unconfirmed reports from within Alpha Fleet Command indicate that the Nij threat to the Federation is being taken seriously. Already, sources within the Starfleet Marine Corps report that additional reinforcements are being sent to Triangulum, and there have been sightings of some of the newest and most powerful ships in Starfleet in the area of the Triangulum wormhole.
Critics, among them Dr. Jack Hall, a civilian specializing in warp technology, attached to the Federation Science Council, dismiss the threat as insignificant. "The Ni'yuHji Dominion doesn't even possess warp technology. They're unfamiliar to areas that you can use that sort of knowledge in," he stated to the Federation News Network.
Most analysts say that the shattered effect, the subspace layer present in Triangulum that reacts violently with warp engine use, has been the primary reason that the Civonian Enclave has not been overrun within the last generation.
"Travel times are increased substantially," Commander Rodger Samonaka of Starfleet's Research & Design Bureau told the Federation News Network. "Even Federation ships, or other vessels from the Milky Way galaxy, can't use their warp engines. So instead of a week-long trip, we're suddenly looking at upwards of two months. And it's helped out the Civonian Enclave tremendously by allowing them time to cobble together defenses between attacks. But it's downright reckless to think that the Ni'yuHji Dominion won't put two-and-two together someday and build a stable warp engine."
Indeed, reports within Starfleet Command are already referring to sightings of Nij vessels utilizing new and previously unencountered technology. "The Ni'yuHji Dominion has always had the upper hand, even over the Federation, when it comes to weapons, research, and personnel," stated Samonaka. "This isn't anything new. But it's clearly not a good sign, and we could have used more help from the Civonians in studying the Ni'yuHji Dominion."
Since first contact between the United Federation of Planets and the Civonian Enclave in 2400, when the USS Avalon and USS Erasmus located the facility then known as "Outpost Camelot," Starfleet officials say that the one-sided war has not always been fought to the Federation's liking.
"It's like we don't exist," complained one officer in a recent Starfleet internal memorandum. "The Civ'a have always insisted on handling the Nij in their own way. Every time we tried to get involved, they lodge a diplomatic complaint, and the rumors of them reconsidering their alliance with us follow within 24 to 36 hours."
Analysts report that throughout much of the complicated Federation-Civonian relationship, the Triangulum natives have also been fighting a defensive war, tied in place largely by battlefield tactics that place an overwhelming emphasis on the preservation of the security of their citizens.
The Nij, according to sources within Starfleet and the Federation Science Council, do not share in such viewpoints. A savage, permanently warlike race that has been described as "Klingons and Jem'Hadar in one" by some experts, Ni'yuHji Dominion battlefield tactics, which place emphasis on continual attacks without thought for self-preservation, reportedly caught SFMC personnel by surprise in the first few engagements.
With more marines leaving hourly for positions in Triangulum, and Starfleet ships taking up patrol positions near the wormhole to that galaxy, concerns are rising in the Federation. If the Civonian Enclave falls, according to some analysts, this could be the Federation's bloodiest war yet, to the cost of billions of lives. |
Federation News Network