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Fourth Fleet Diplomatic Operations – Fiction Vignette

Description

A fiction vignette is a brief, self-contained written snapshot that captures a moment in time, a mood, a feeling, a sensation, or a specific facet of a character. A good vignette isn’t about moving the plot along; it’s about lingering in tightly-honed prose to describe what a character is seeing, feeling, touching, smelling, or tasting in a particular moment. Literary examples of vignettes include the chapters of Hemingway’s In our time and Anderson’s “The Book of the Grotesque.” As a stand-alone, these pieces are typically no more than 1,200 words long. In writing that short, every word must be chosen thoughtfully.

Vignettes are for world-building, delving into characters’ interiority, looking at your core question from different angles, and providing a thematic and stylistic break between plot-heavy scenes. They are difficult to write well without lapsing into clichés or purple prose. They are your opportunity to let one moment, one metaphor, or one feeling shine.

For this competition, you will write a fiction vignette describing some moment related to diplomacy. That could be a description of an alien world during first contact, a moment at a diplomatic reception, or any other opportunity you can find to showcase your talents as a honed, descriptive writer.

 

Criteria

  • Entries should be submitted directly into the competition field; it is acceptable if they are also posted into a story post, but the only thing that should go into the submission field here is the text of your submission.
  • Entries must be no longer than 1,200 words.
  • Entries will be judged on originality (25%), style and diction (25%), relation to Star Trek canon and diplomacy (25%), and adherence to the genre of vignette as described above (25%).

Winners

Submissions

User Content Date Entry
Traan (#3099)

Tyler walked away, a single tear rolled down his cheek. He'd live on for a few more years and published a few more papers. But one day he didn’t show up to teach his class, and was found deceased in his apartment on campus. He would never come to realize that though he had been punished by one group of people for what he did that day so long ago aboard the Blythe, he had been quietly celebrated by another group of people. The two groups were Starfleet Command and the nascent but growing Cetacean Rights movement respectively. Then a week later, his funeral would show all the invited attendees just how much the latter group appreciated, 'their pal' Frederick.

His funeral was supposed to be a modest affair. Tyler's family, family friends, several work colleagues, and a few dozen of his fellow Starfleet officers, many middle aged, or elderly by now. No more than about 100 people. The ceremony took place at a cemetery in Tyler's home town of Victoria, BC, Canada, Earth.

But at about 0850h that morning, right before the funeral was to begin at 0900h, the local transporter hubs were nearly overwhelmed with inbound transports. As it turned thousand cetaceans from all over the planet had heard about the funeral through the pygmy beluga, Captain Mee IH. Mee IH himself was one of the oldest pygmy belugas in Starfleet now at the ripe old age of 63, and was also one of the first belugas to command a non-aquatic Starfleet capital ship. He had sent out a notification on a local cetacean chat room when he arrived on Earth for the funeral a few hours prior.

As a testament to Captain Frederick J Tyler, Phd, SD and the efficiency of the local transporter hub's staffs, four thousand and eight three cetaceans also attended the funeral.

 2025-10-12 23:55:33
Ishreth Dal (#2998)

The very first thing that hit him was the overwhelmingly sweet scent of flowers.

Ok, that was not what he expected. He was steeling himself for the scents of blood, piss and decay. Not... flowers.
His antennae curled downwards, nostrils flaring. A most unbecoming expression that he hoped to cull back into a placid diplomatic veneer as soon as possible.

The scent wasn't the light, pure, wholesome smell of fresh flowers. It was cloying and sickly, dripping with overtones of artificial sugar. To his Andorian senses it was overpowering, and he found himself blinking to try to clear the water from his eyes.

All around the away team people were drunkenly gyrating with arms held upwards into the transparent Dome-a-steel tempered sunshine. Songs and catcalls wafted over the general din of a party-going crowd. It was like Risa, if Risa was smothered in the scent of fake maple syrup.

One lovely young thing ambled forward, greeting them with a wide smile. Her eyes were shining and slightly over wide. To the casual observer they were full of love and friendliness. To the clinically trained triage specialist she had an unusual split-second delay on pupil dilation, which made Ishreth start suspecting narcotics were in play.

Coming to aid a distress call concerning rioting and mob violence, the Salvation hadn’t received any instructions on beam down, merely to seek Council Member Vaxo. Ishreth was fairly sure they were not being approached by Vaxo, but whoever this was smiled with expectation. She drifted forward, the very picture of grace and pleasantries, offering out a brightly colored, sweetly stinking lei to each of them.

Almost immediately Ishreth could feel a nasty pressure build in his sinuses as one antenna twitched trying to parse out the combination of perfumes. Or what the perfumes were trying to cover.

Decades of his youth spent in diplomatic training kept his expression neutral as beside him Ibanez coughed, and Roix had to lay a hand on the science officer’s shoulder to keep him from blurting out anything undiplomatic. Ishreth remembered the days when Ibanez’s outbursts used to ruffle him, now they felt well-worn, like a comfortable hat that had been broken in long ago.

A polite thank you was offered, and the trio followed the greeter through a knotted maze of people singing and dancing in the filtered sunlight. Not a trace of the civil violence and rioting that had been reported. Nor a trace of any industrial work, trade or commerce. Just hedonism as far as the habitat dome allowed sight.

The greeter led them to a turbolift where the only option was down, delving deep into the colony’s belly. She lingered at the edge, unwilling to step into the smooth metallic capsule, while simultaneously urging – almost pushing – the trio inside. She smiled again, too wide, too many teeth before she gave the lift instructions and stepped backwards as if bitten.

While every fiber of his being screamed at him that this was wrong, Ishreth remained calm. Beside him Ibanez was not, ripping off his lei and stamping his foot on the flowers. The perfume filled the lift, with an undercurrent of a metallic tangy narcotic. As Ibanez calmed, Roix and Ishreth left their leis on the floor, undamaged and unwanted.

The lift slowed, their minds cleared. It stopped and a deep industrial darkness greeted them. It was time to figure out what was going on in Hyposia colony.

 2025-10-12 17:19:17
Trevenan Williams (#1295)

Always at the very moment I wake up, the first thing I register is his presiding absence from everything that now defines my life.

He is nowhere, and that knowledge worries at a wound I know that will never close yet still ever compels me to strive to salve- though I know it is key to his legacy that I try.

He is everywhere.

Conversely and with no small measure of guilt, I hate myself for resenting that taunting fact in the ever-revolving kaleidoscope of faces belonging to the trite and complete strangers that jostle to ‘Thank me for his Sacrifice’ as if they knew the man that gave me the life I am trapped within.

A mordant sentinel to a legacy to his bullish tendencies certainly elicited, but slave to cultish sentiment the Man himself would have detested .

So, I wake at the insistence of the clock at the beginning of each shipboard duty rotation and, unlike a normal person, am inevitably forced to confront the legacy of my fallen father before a chance to sweep the crust of sweep from my eyes has even been afforded.

Most mornings, at the foot of my crumpled bedsheets, the Legacy of Rear-Admiral Eustace Oliver Hanley stands insurmountably tall.

Most days I attempt to swing my legs out of whichever is the opposite side of the bed from which his eternally judgmental gaze seems to laze so keenly upon.

Any short reprieve seems worth the chance to make for the sanctity of the small bathroom and the minor comfort of the booth before the sonic shower activated and the suffusing noise drives his unwelcome compare away, along with sloughing off the inevitable weight of yesterday’s decision.

I exit to puzzle at my doubtful face in the mirror.

I feel that I should have some semblance of agency of this is at least, but there in the fogged reversal is a visage that I am keenly aware that is another aspect that I cannot even lay key ownership to.

In the doubt – vaunted eyes, I see a suggestion of the same cocksure bravado that contributed to his legend at Wolf 359 and by that same gaze worry that I am somehow cursed to be ridden like a bridled mare onward to folly and the detriment of my crew because of this.

When I eventually tire of these self – flagellationary thoughts, I remind myself that I have a ship to run and compel myself to put on three things.

The Starfleet uniform that I earned on my own terms.

The Face that I choose to wear to assume the burdens of Command.

And lastly, the hardest mantle of all.

I wear his name.

((From the personal Log of Lt Cdr Lane Hanley, USS Kirk - Commanding))

 2025-10-09 04:54:22
Aloran (#2232)

The room was too warm. The air recyclers whispered above, moving stale heat in slow, circular sighs. A cup of Tarkalean tea sat cooling beside the terminal, its steam thinning into the recycled air. Aloran had stopped drinking it an hour ago, though the faint sweetness of the spice still clung to his tongue.

Across the table, the Federation ambassador, a human named Raines, rubbed his temple and muttered something about “mutual interests.” His voice was dry and fraying at the edges. Three junior diplomats - Aloran’s working group for the week - sat behind him, each fading in their own way. Kiro with her stylus poised eternally above her PADD, as if meaning to write. Vehl tracing the rim of his glass, hypnotised by the condensation bead circling his thumb. And young Datar, who watched Aloran with an expression that suggested curiosity and fatigue was wrestling for dominance.

The treaty document glowed across the table, projected in amber script. So many clauses, so many subsections, the language both dense and delicate, like lace woven from steel wire. It was not about borders or trade this time. It was about relevance. Feeling. Sentiment.

The representatives from Voraii Prime, a minor Federation member world far from anywhere of consequence, had grown weary of being footnotes in policy briefs. They wanted recognition, representation beyond their meagre, minor voice in the Federation’s bureaucratic apparatus. In their last communiqué, they called themselves “the forgotten frontier.”

Raines had sighed then, too. “Every decade, it’s another one,” he’d said. “Some world thinks the Federation’s orbit doesn’t quite reach them.”

But Aloran thought of it differently. A world’s sense of neglect was a gravity of its own, subtle and inexorable. It pulled at the center until the structure itself shifted.

He leaned closer to the text, the soft light spilling across his face. The language of the treaty was beautiful in its precision and cruel in its indifference. Each word chosen to mean something, yet crafted to promise nothing. The clause under dispute read: “Member systems shall enjoy equitable consideration in all matters of Federation jurisdiction, within reason and practicality.”

Within reason. Within practicality.

Aloran traced the words in his mind. How much history had been hidden inside those twin vagaries? The Federation, too, felt tired. He could feel it in the slow turns of its bureaucracy, the way empathy had become policy and policy had become distance. He had not noticed the shift earlier in his career, but now, he often regretted being seen as representing an indifferent power. With everything that the Federation had been through some of this shift was a logical phase. But it created rifts which could widen, weakening the resolve necessary to restore the Federation’s ambition.

Behind him, one of the younger diplomats shifted, the rustle of fabric loud in the silence. Raines sighed again. “They want to insert a new preamble clause,” he said. “Something about ‘cultural centrality and dignity of member states.’ It’s symbolic nonsense. They think it’ll make them feel important.”

Aloran did not reply. He reread the clause again, the words shimmering faintly as if resisting interpretation.

The Voraii were a proud, methodical people who were photosynthetic, translucent in the light, with voices that harmonised naturally. He had spent two months among them once, standing in for a minor official on leave. He remembered how they spoke of sunlight not as warmth, but as sustenance for memory. We forget in the dark, his interlocutors had told him.

Raines broke the silence. “You’re quiet, Aloran. What do you think?”

Aloran took a slow breath. “I think that symbolism can survive longer when the actions are absent. If the Voraii believe this clause gives them dignity, then we should allow them the dignity of believing so. What is the cost to us? And the benefit to them?”

Raines blinked, half irritated, half considering. “That’s poetry, not policy.”

“Sometimes that is what is needed. Policy is technocratic. It alienates emotion,” Aloran said softly.

The hum of the air recyclers deepened for a moment, a sigh through unseen vents. Kiro finally set her stylus down. Datar’s eyes had drifted to the viewport beyond, where Voraii’s small sun bled through a haze of dust and distance. The light there was tired, too.

Aloran closed the treaty text. “Let the clause stand, ambassador,” he said. “It costs us nothing. But to them, it will read like sunlight.”

No one spoke for a long time. The only sound was the faint tick of the cooling tea cup beside him. When he reached for it, the surface was still warm, just enough to remind him that even cooled things held traces of heat.

USS Farragut, present day

Night had settled aboard the Farragut in its artificial way, the lights dimmed, corridors softened into muted gold. Aloran sat alone in the observation lounge. The stars outside were thin tonight, dimmed by the sweep of a dust cloud. Even they seemed reluctant to shine. His reflection hovered faintly in the window.

On the table beside him lay a single PADD. The words he had spoken earlier that day in the hope of inspiring some of his more militant colleagues to think more broadly about their mission. He had spoken about symbols, dignity, and sunlight. Metaphors. The words looked smaller now, stripped of voice and inflection, flattened into text.

He scrolled through the transcript, his fingertip gliding across the surface. The lines were polite, careful, professional. Perfectly Starfleet. And hollow.

He thought of Ambassador Raines, still likely alive but he knew not where or what his life now consisted of.

The ship gave a low, almost imperceptible shudder as it adjusted course. The vibration passed through the hull like a sigh. Aloran watched a mote of light drift past the window.

He wondered, not for the first time, if the Federation’s endless diplomacy had become a kind of ritual, reduced in meaning and not for building understanding, but for preventing the fear or silence that would follow its absence. He looked once more at the stars. Distant, patient, unjudging. They seemed neither impressed nor indifferent. Simply enduring.

 2025-10-08 19:51:10
Olivia Carrillo (#2199)

—- Conference Room, Jem'Hadar Battleship —



The Vorta's smile unnerved Captain Olivia Carrillo. The more polite and friendly he became, the more she felt her skin want to crawl off her body. She had gone out on a limb coming aboard the battleship. But there had been little other choice, as the Federation ship was outgunned. He seemed like he was the same Vorta as had dealt with Captain Benjamin Sisko during the Dominion War. But despite him having the same face as the man in the records, Carrillo assumed it was a result of the cloning that the Founders were known to do on their most loyal subjects.

To her left the Vulcan T'Venik, a Federation Ambassador took the lead, "How is it that we can be of service."

"I just wanted to meet you, seeing as you're in Dominion space," the Vorta said.

"We're well within open space as defined by the treaty that ended the war," Carrillo said, not pointing out who had won that war. That sort of thing could go without saying. Clearly the Vorta might have the same genes as his predecessor but likely also the same institutional memory.

"Accidents happen in space," he pointed out, looking pleased with the observation, and the implied threat behind it.

"And you also know we have a science ship with excellent sensors and a warp drive that surpasses anything you have at the edge of the system. Anything unfortunate happens and they'll be back in the Alpha Quadrant to play the whole thing to Starfleet Command," Carrillo said, "And after what happened with the Borg and those that assisted them Starfleet's really not in the mood where you want to push them."

The capture of the fleet. The attack on Starbase One. The assimilation of most of the fleet.

The Vorta chuckled as he glanced at the Vulcan Ambassador, "I was always told that I'd enjoy a human's sense of humour. Do you get as much enjoyment out of her as I do?"

T'Venik who had been asked the question shook her head, "Humans are not my preferred social companions. However in this case I do not believe she is attempting levity. The captain's assessment of Starfleet's battle readiness is correct."

The Vorta grinned. Then suddenly the door opened and in came a changeling. Unlike those that had perfected the looks of solids and taken over important roles in Starfleet the changeling had the distinctive flat and not quite properly formed face. The Vorta scrambled to open up a seat, as well as hurry out the Jem'Hadar guards from the room so that it was just the changeling, the Vorta and their guests.

T'Venik raised an eyebrow, "This is unexpected."

"I am here to request your assistance," the Changeling said, in his even voice.

Captain Carrillo could tell that the Vulcan Ambassador was as surprised to see the shapeshifter as she was. The Changelings were reclusive, more so since their kind had helped the Borg attempt to take over Earth. They were not known to exit Dominion space much these days.

"And how could we assist you," T'Venik asked.

"We are dealing with a breakaway faction of the Jem'Hadar, who've established a secret ketracel-white manufacturing facility. It gives them an independence that's been… vexing," the changeling said.

The pair of Federation citizens looked at each other, "It seems like a more independent Jem'Hadar is in our best interests. No offence, but probing up your military is not within my job description."

"An independent Jem'Hadar would seek to retaliate for the loses of the War with the Alpha Quadrant," the changeling said, "An independent Jem'Hadar would seek conquest with no objective and no final goal. They are perfectly engineered soldiers, without the need for a supply for ketracel-white or loyalty to us there would be no stopping them."

"What would you need from us," Carrillo said not yet convinced.

"Find it, with your sensors. We'll deal with it from there," the Vorta said, preferring to handle the dirty details

"I need to consult with my crew," Carrillo said.

"You have twelve hours," the Vorta said smiling, though he did not say what would happen then. Captain Carrillo assumed it would be unpleasant whatever it was.

 2025-10-07 22:55:01

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