First of all, happy new year to everybody.
1958
January: Civilian shipyard Simmons Enterprises reached 58kt, another 10kt are to be added.
February: With Polaris II having reached a population of 25m contracts to move 20 factories there via civilian shipping are drawn up. In addition 1200 Corbomite and Uridium and 1200 Duranium, 600 Tritanium and 600 Vendarite are moved there by transports to enable building 20 additional factories and 20 financial centers which should help with the current wealth problems (more financial centers will be added in the future). Another civilian mine has been added at Comet#4, bringing the total up to 6.
The current industry at Polaris II is producing civilian transport, entertainment products, furs and machinery while Polaris is producing chemicals, consumer electronics, machinery and recreational drugs.
March: After completing repairs Victory 1 heads back to London to continue looking for jump points. When the Victory reaches grav survey location #27 the rudimentary close range scanners are suddenly reporting a contact. A unknown ship design from a unknown race with a termal signature of 252 sitting right at the survey location, making it a likely grav survey ship as well. Captain Charlie Kaur - the most junior of the 5 captains currently serving in the navy - is unsure what to do at first, but since he hopes that the grav ship is as unarmed as his own vessel he decides to start the survey after having send out all avaiable data about the unknown ship to the Agincourt class (Akira Kurosawa) waiting at the jump point.
The ship is called the Mojokassa class for now and Captain Kaur tries to establish communication. When the news reaches Polaris a new diplomacy team is formed and everybody on the king's council is anxiously waiting for any new developement in the encounter with the first extra-Polaris race. The aliens answer Captain Kaur's hail, but it become clear that some time will be needed before any real communication can be established, but at least no shots have been fired and the aliens seem to be willing to talk. The news is quickly relayed to Polaris via the Akira Kurosawa. At the 22nd the alien ship suddenly moves away from the survey point and due to the poor sensors of the Victory neither its speed nor its heading can be learned.
At Polaris there is a huge discussion if the aliens are actually living in the London system or if they live somewhere else and just exploring the system as we are doing. With all planets in London having been surveyed and no signs of intelligent life (or even any life at all) have been found it seems most likely that they are from another system as well, unless one of the still unexplored asteroids or comets turns out to be their home planet, but given their size this seems very unlikely.
May: A new jump point is found in the London system and the Argincourt heads out to investigate. Communications have been established with the aliens, they call themself the Palikir Protectorate. Jason Stvenson completed research into Ion drives and is ordered to build a 500t military prototype.
June: The new JP in London leads to the Belfast system. It contains 4 planets (3 terrestrial, 1 gas giant - all of them without any moons) and 24 comets. Belfast A IV has a 163m km orbit around its sun. Agincourt heads back to London to have its report relayed back to Polaris. With the geo survey of London nearly completed the geo ships are ordered to Belfast. Aardvark is ordered to provide a gate from the Tribals already resting at Polaris and will be used as a tanker in Belfast. Research into Composite Armor is completed by Connor Wallis and since the academies have failed to provide any new scientists his team starts to research Small Jump Gate Construction Module. A new research labs has been build and is assigned to Connor Wallis. A 4th academy has been completed as well, hopefully providing additional scientists in the near future.
July: Laura Little completed Turret Tracking Speed 5000 and since there is still no suitable scientists she starts to work at Fire Controll Speed 2000. Another JP is found in London and Akira Kurosawa heads out to investigate. Geo survey of London (inner system) has been completed (there are still about 20 asteroids/comets more than 10bn km out), showing large deposits of TN elements.
Duranium - 3.5mt (100%) at London III moon 30
Neutronium - 200kt (100%) at London IC moon 4
Corbomite - 299kt (50%) at Comet#5
Tritanium - 17.3mt (60%) at the potential colony at London III moon 31
Boronide - 1.1mt (90%) at London III moon 30
Mercassium - 1.7mt (60%) at London III moon 30
Vendarite - 16.7mt (70%) at London III moon 31
Sorium - 348kt (100%) at London IV
Uridium - 77kt (100%) at Comet#24
Corundium - 321kt (90%) at Comet#24
Gallicite - 117kt (80%) at Comet#5
But despite this mineral wealth and London III moon 31 looking like a decent colony location the presence of the Palikir Protectorate makes the King's Council unsure if the colony should be established. But since a jump gate the civilians require is still some years away there might be enough time for better intel in order to make a more informed decision.
August: Grav survey of Manchester is completed showing no other jump points, making it a very good and safe location for the first outer-Polaris colony. The Victory heads to Polaris for an overhaul.
September: Akira Kurosawa arrived in the Birmingham system, a binary with 7 planets in orbit around Birmingham A and Birmingham B - in orbit roughly 8bn km out - having no planets. Birmingham I, II, III and V are terrestrial and the other planets gas giants. There are 71 moons, 29 asteroids in 5 comets in the system as well. Once the news from the Akira is relayed back to Polaris her commander, Commander Brooke Brennan is awarded the Order of the Explorer for her first jump into the unknown.
October: Another jump point is found in London, bringing the total up to 5. In the longer term this makes the system very interesting as a stepping stone to other systems, espcially with the good supply of TN elements, but as said before, the presence of aliens is a concern. By mid October finally a new scientist gruduates from the academy, Eleanor Singh who specialises in power and propulsion and despite her young age has all the markings of a brilliant scientist (25%, 20 labs), sadly this does not help with the missing specialists for construction and sensors. She takes over the prototype engine project which should finish later this month from Jason Stevenson who gets a single lab to work on Max Engine Power Modifier x1.25. After completing the military engine prototype Eleanor starts to look into lowering fuel consumption (0.
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November: Another new scientist graduated from the academy, Matthew Short who specialises in biology and genetics and has great organisational talents (30 labs), but is only a medicore scientist (10%). At the moment there are no free labs and other research priorities, but in the medium term research into better terraforming techniques will be needed.
December: Simmons Enterprises expands its 2 slipways by another 10kt to 68kt, the without knowing what the size of new civilian ships is going to be needed it will continually upgrade from now on.
At the end of 1958 Polaris population is at 589m (+12) and Polaris II at 26,8m (+2,1) and Polaris IV moon 6 at 0,5m (+0,5). 54 new construction factories were build (810) and 11 new automines with an additional 16 mines (477) having been converted to automines (110). 1 research lab (23) and 1 new academy have been added (4). 20 factories were moved to Polaris II and 1 new factory has been build (21).
Scientists/projects:
Brooke Begum - MK 55%, 35 labs/4 used (+5%, +10labs) - Levitated-Pit Implosion Warhead (Apr 59)
Laura Little - EW 20%, 35 labs/5 used (+5%) - Fire control 2000 (Dec 59)
Jason Stevenson - PP 15%, 40 labs/1 used (unchanged) - Max Engine Power Modifier (May 61)
Conor Wallis - DS 25%, 10 labs/6 used (+10%) - Small Jump Gate Module (Nov 59)
Oliver Fuller - EW 15%, 10 labs/4 used (unchanged) - Spinal Mount (Feb 61)
Eleanore Singh - PP 30%, 20 labs/3 used (new) - Fuel Consumption 0.8 (Jan 60)
Matthew Short - BG 10%, 30 labs (new)
Civilian Shipping (overall income is down from 2010 to 1690):
Shepherd Corp - 13 ships (1160 income)
Godfrey Lines - 14 ships (+2 - 500 income)
Lloyd T&T - 3 ships (20 income)
Payne Transport - 2 ships (10 income)
Sharp Company - 3 ships (no income)
The wealth situation got slightly worse with stable income at 14.6k (84% pop tax) and 16.8k spend (+0.8k - 57% construction, 32% research).