I'd like to take the system with the most sorium resources. After all, defending strategic quantities of fuel would be quite a nice strategical objective.
Other than that, to celebrate the cooperation and peaceful collaboration between the admirals, I'll make the designs I make public - for now, that's just a geosurvey scout, though. Jump-capable, with a crew endurance of twenty years and half of that fuel endurance, the Geologist class will be able to reach all systems through jump points - but only cleared systems will be save, because it's basically just a purpose-built class. You could call it the 'fire and forget geo survey', too.
Geologist class Geological Survey Vessel 6,000 tons 64 Crew 699 BP TCS 120 TH 240 EM 0
2000 km/s JR 1-25(C) Armour 1-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/3 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 73 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 240 months Spare Berths 0
JC6K 1000t Commercial Jump Drive Max Ship Size 6000 tons Distance 25k km Squadron Size 1
240 EP Commercial Ion Drive (1) Power 240 Fuel Use 8.49% Signature 240 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,600,000 Litres Range 565.4 billion km (3271 days at full power)
Geological Survey Sensors (3) 3 Survey Points Per Hour
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
As for research priorities, I've got three in mind: Box launchers, fuel efficiency (because we're lacking so much there) and the engine max power modifier.