Jon, a recent migrant to a homeland democracy joins the quality assurance unit of the Homeland News Agency (HONA) and is sent to a frontier settlement to assist his understanding of media principles. He views progress towards regenerating the bio-diversity of the land and sees that fences are required to exclude the locals whose pastoral culture caused the desertification. Jon observes the hostile locals and witnesses their attacks on the homeland people who must defend. Jon considers the principles of a free press and the community responsibilities that give legitimacy to that freedom: the support of democracy, freedom, justice and security within the law, and begins a relationship with the settlement Director, a forensic ethnologist. As the conflict between settlers and locals intensifies, readers join Jon in considering the limits of a community-responsible news media.