CR-718

CR-718

CR-718
General Information
Class	Marconi-class
Affiliation	Starfleet - managed Federation Department of Communications
Status	Active
Location
Sector	Bajor Sector
Quadrant	Alpha Quadrant
Assignment
Role	Subspace communications relay hub
Template:Starbase

"In the new era, thought itself will be transmitted by radio."

    —Guglielmo Marconi

Relay Station CR-718 is a Marconi-class subspace communications relay and hub station intended for trunkline communications usage as well as sector communications coordination. CR-718 is placed on the Federation side of the Badlands to serve the coreward regions of the Bajor Sector not served by the communications hub within the Bajor system itself. The station also serves as the first station in the more recent relay chain installed across the Badlands to provide constant near-realtime communications with Deep Space 47. CR-718's increased transmission power and sensitive receiver array allowed for materials savings of 2 whole unmanned arrays across the Badlands, greatly reducing maintenance requirements as well for the teams responsible for ensuring the Badlands Chain is operational with a 99% uptime expectation.

Design

The Marconi-class stations were designed by the Federation Communications Bureau (FCB) using a preexisting deep space outpost design as the core of the station. Seeking material savings, availability of parts and quick assembly time, the station design is roughly similar to the type used across the Federation for stellar observatories. From here however the design is adapted and modified to suit the complex infrastructural needs of the FCB.

A majority of the original design's observational equipment has been removed in favour of increased databanks and signal processors. The Marconi-class was designed to be a communications hub, able to handle a sector's worth of civilian Federation and Starfleet priority communications. The station's databanks are separate from its main computers and feature the same level of encryption as would be expected on any major starbase, ensuring any communications that pass through are kept safe and secure. Signal processing equipment aboard the station can make out extensively garbled communications, clear it and relay it as required.

Further to these changes within the station's primary hull, the Marconi-class also features a vast array of subspace transceivers or exquisite sensitivity. Externally this gives the impression of the station as a spider sitting in the middle of a truly vast spider web. Unfortunately, the majority of these arrays are extended so far from the station that should it come under attack, they fall outside of the station's shield bubble. During design and construction, this was considered an acceptable trade as the arrays were easily replaced and a larger shield bubble would have been most costly to fit and maintain.

Borg Incident aboard CR-718

CR-718's history is an unremarkable one, from its construction just after the Cardassian Wars, surviving unscathed during the Dominion War and to the modern day with the construction of the relay chain to DS47. All of that changed however in June of 2401.

Unbeknownst to the station's sole operator at the time, the Borg Collective had been targeting the station with a spatial trajectory, intent on inserting a drone aboard the station in an attempt to surreptitiously gain access to classified Starfleet and Federation communication networks. While the exact purpose of this attempt was never made clear, it is suspected the Collective were either attempting to gather intelligence about Post-Frontier Day Starfleet, or attempting to follow through with another attack via a man-in-the-middle operation inside Starfleet's communication loop. CR-718 was likely chosen as well due to its sensitive placement with the Federation's communications links as well as being on the far side of the Federation, near hostile powers, in an attempt to allay fears of possible Borg incursion.

The Borg's attempt to gain access to the station undetected did result in several minor system faults and the sole operator aboard made contact with Starfleet requesting technical assistance. These faults grew and unfortunately, the station's operator, attempting to resolve some of the faults himself, encountered the drone. While attempting to broadcast a mayday to the ship dispatched to assist, the USS Atlantis, the drone killed the man and prevented him from informing Atlantis of the situation.