In the game, besides from achievements and events Alliances have no functional purpose. I believe the intent for them is to group up with other crews to fend off attacks. Therefor it stands to reason that there should be a way to talk to the other allied crews.
I purpose this, In every ship there is a bird cage. What if every ship had a carrier pigeon to talk a small note to another ship. A crew mate would walk up to the cage. select send message. then the pigeon would fly off. once out of render it would de-spawn. After a couple minutes it would respawn in the render of the target ship, and land on the bell at the bottom of the mast, and start coo-ing, and ringing the bell. once a crew mate checks the letter they can send the pigeon back, or equip the pigeon with a response. If they don't check the pigeon in five minutes it will fly back to its home ship.
