January 11th 2037: Work on the TES Discovery is started at Imperial shipyards after worker training and shipyard optimization is completed. The ETA for completion is January 3rd 2038.
Feb 11th 2037: The Militarists argue for the design and preparation of a cargo ship that could easily establish offworld bases. While this would also benefit the Geologists, they resist heavily as it would require a diversion of resources from their projects. The compromise leaves a trickle of funding heading to the Militarists.
October 11th 2037: Duke Osbourn reports resource shortage in around a decade in five key Trans-Newtonian materials. Both factions use this to press the Emperor for more funding. While nothing concrete is decided, it adds a sense of urgency to humanity's expansion.
January 3rd 2038: Launch of the TES Discovery on schedule. A young Captain named Ismael Brule is assigned to command the vessel. It departs after a few test procedures to survey the moon.
January 5th 2038: Elections yield the status quo, but an event shortly thereafter would shake things up at the upper level.
Results
Council: 3 Geologists - 1 Militarists - 1 Apolitical
Senate: 1046 Geologists - 1034 Militarists - 3 Apolitical (Geo +12 adv)
January 10th 2038: Duke Raye announces the possibility of wormholes or "jump points" in the solar system, after a review of the original working proposal from 2035. The chance of quick, extrasolar exploration, and more importantly, extraterrestrial contact, gives the Militarists a major upswing in support.
January 14th 2038: TES Discovery reports massive mineral depositions on the moon, calming tensions somewhat.
January 27th 2038: Mercury reported barren, but Venus has even greater deposits yet. Political debate intensifies as Militarists point to their transport designs for a quick solution to reach these minerals.
February 19th 2038: TES Discovery conducts experiments in the asteroid belt (Mars was out of convenient position at this time of year). A very small number of asteroids have significant minerals.
February 20th 2038: Militarists successfully lobby for a comerical launch facility to be constructed, and preparations are made to exploit these new founds resources. Ironically some resources must come from the research act that was mostly benefiting them by this point.
May 13th 2038: Duke Delgrande puts forth the Independent Plan. The basic premise is that the Empire will explore jump points leading away from Sol as soon as it can, but not before constructing at least minimal defenses for Earth. Both factions agree.
July 18th 2038: TES Discovery finally makes it to Mars after taking its roundabout path through the asteroid field. The crew find ample resouces on the red planet.
September 8th 2038: TES Discovery arrives to survey Jupiter's moons after scanning the rest of the
asteroid field.
October 13th 2038: Survey of Jupiter system complete. The results are a bit disapointing. Io has substantial deposits of four materials, including Sorium for fuel, and Ganymede has a large deposit of Uridium. This is enough for development to be probable, but quite a bit less then most hoped.
October 18th 2038: Europa Commerical Shipyard is "completed, though it will take several years before it can produce the proposed designs. Theoretically it could build a ship, but only at 1/3 the size needed by present standards.
November 7th 2038: TES Discovery arrives in the Saturn system to conduct a scan.
November 13th 2038: With the rise in support for the militarists, Rear Admiral Alva Candia and Duke of New England Faustino Stanforth push for military modernization. The Revolutionary Army is still quite large from WW3, needlessly so. What's more, with recent tech developments it is unlikely that the army could handle any new threats found in the depths of space. The idea gains traction, though many are not happy that military research into prototypes has already been conducted. The Emperor okays a troop reduction and future upgrades, but does not specify a time table.
December 3rd, 2038: TES Discovery finds large ammounts of minerals on Titan, but next to no other deposits.
December 22nd 2038: TES Discovery arrives in the Uranus system.
January 3rd 2039: TES Leif Ericson completed and assigned a young Commander Gene Moree as it's chief. Imperial Shipworks begins to retool for the Discovery II class survey ship, using recently developed gravitational sensors placed parallel to the existing geo sensors. With the Sol system mostly surveyed ahead of schedule, TES Leif Ericson remains in port.
January 5th 2039: Elections show the Geologists still trending downwards amidst news that the Uranus survey also has disappointing results with only one moon having minerals.
Results
Council: 2 Geologists - 1 Militarists - 2 Apolitical
Senate: 1060 Geologists - 1051 Militarists - 4 Apolitical (Geo +9 adv)
