Pity, but it's why my campaign is on hold until 5.2. My experience is that wormhole in your home system equals death, (or complete campaign distortion at best).

I also need to get Organism names into my database. Fred Blogs is not a suitable name (grin).

The years in which nothing happens can be used to add background and atmosphere.

Norm quickly snatched up the freed labs in his quest to brute force the economy into being awesome so he could get back to designing new ways for things to go boom as fast as possible.

This one for example, quite humorous.

"Ok, it's been four months, and it's now painfully obvious we're alone out here. So, status reports, everyone.

Kevin Stalworth cleared his throat and began his part. "We have 500 automated mines on B-III, and 64 here. I recommend we move all automated mines to B-III to take advantage of the wider array of minerals provided there. Also, I'd like a geological survey team formed to do a deeper analysis than the Schrade survey ships were capable of. A bit of bad news I've discovered is that we don't have copies of the geosurveys for anything but our colonies, so we'll eventually have to do that on our own."

"Don't expect that any time soon, though," chimed in Leroy Pettingil, self appointed flyboy representative to the growing Robia government. "We have no shipyards. Those will need to be built, retooled, expanded, painted, you name it. That's the easy part, by the way. The hard part is when we you have the ships built, and discover that the system is about a light year across. Our little Ion drives won't get us very far. Maybe if we had hyperdrives. Norm, please tell me we have hyperdrives."

Chief Scientist Norman Reay flung his hands up in the air, "Pfah! No, we don't have hyperdrives. The emergency tech package Schrade left in the hands of the colony AI," he pointed at the ceiling for emphasis, "is smeg. We have no Biotech, but we don't need it, really. We're getting, what, twenty tons per mining facility? Yes, yes, so we're not horrible there. Our research labs are slightly better than bare-bones. I have no idea how to quantify that, though. Defensive tech is smeg. Crystal-collapsiwhatever armor is a long way off. We lucked out in missiles. Schrade really wanted giant explosions, and I helped get them there." Norm beamed for a moment before launching back into his speech. "Thanks to that, we have fusion-boosted nukes. It doesn't tear holes in the fabric of reality, but it's better than a slap in the face. Our engines, as stated earlier, are Ion. We lucked out and ended up with tech that will allow us to run our engines with half as much fuel, so if you're willing to take it slow, long distance flights aren't so impossible. Oh, yes. Our energy weapons are smeg, and we're damn near blind with the sensor tech we have."

Son Percella sighed and began issuing orders. Mines were to be moved to B-III. Construction was to begin on a commercial, followed by a naval, shipyard. Max Chopp (ooc - O_O; ), the sensor specialist was to take 5 labs and concentrate on improving their active sensor strengths. Norm was to take 10 labs and design a faster reloading missile launcher. Anderson Asbell was to take the last lab and design a bigger meson cannon.

"We're going to be stuck in this place for a decade, aren't we?" grumbled Leroy.

- - -

What had originally been a corporate governed colony became by that January a self governing Oligarchy of sorts. Leaders of various fields presented themselves and were included for the betterment or Robia. Son Percella, no longer dealing with her corporate overlords, became the unofficial head of Robia's civilian sector, and thus the entire group, largely by being the only one who wanted the job and knew how to do it. Kevin Stalworth as well became the head geologist by being the only qualified person who wanted the job. Leroy Pettingil, being the oldest and best pilot was the natural choice to lead what was shaping up to be the Robian navy, if they ever got a ship built. Norman Reay, though not the smartest scientist on staff, was the best administrator, and well qualified to lead the scientific community. The red haired stepchild of the group was Zane Flegle, Police Chief of a largely law abiding world, and potential General if the govenment ever got around to converting the police into an army. Unfortunately his dreams of sending people to blow stuff up was deemed secondary to improving the economic position of Robia.

- - -

On July 6th, Norman Reay completed research into Missile Launcher Reload Rate 2, and was immediately sent back to the lab to improve on it.

By July 14th, the two Galcia class cargo ships finished transporting automated mines from B-IV to B-III, and were given orders transport all minerals mined back to the main colony.

On the 26th of July, Robia's first commercial shipyard was completed. The Shadow Hawk, a 2100 ton geosurvey design that had been recently finalized was laid down, and construction began on a second slipway.

After nearly ten months of work, the Evette Sanchez Geology Team discovered a 100kt uridium deposit on B-IV. Unfortunately, they also concluded the survey, and were rushed to B-III aboard the next cargo flight.

New Year - 2737

On January 9th, Max Chopp completed research into what he deemed 'Active Grav Sensor Strength 12'. Immediately after reporting this, he went back to chewing nails and thinking of new ways to improve Robian sensors.

On February 20th, Robia's first naval shipyard came online. Seeing as there wasn't much need for it at the moment, work began to add 2000 tons of capacity to it in preparation for future needs. As well, work began on a second commercial shipyard which was expected to be needed soon after it was finished.

July saw the completion of an improved missile reload mechanism. As the smallest missiles still could not be rapid-fired with this new component, Norman Reay was thrown back into the lab to try again.

On August 14th, the Shadow Hawk, first of its kind, and first ship ever built by the people of Robia was completed. The small geosurvey vessel was given into command of Valencia Delcaro, pilot of the ship that had warned Robia of the Empire's defeat.

On the 19th of October, work was completed on Robia's second commercial shipyard, and several mass drivers took its place on the construction list.

Construction of three mass drivers was completed on December 9th. One was shipped off to the B-III mining colony to take some of the burden off the cargo task group.

New Year 2738

August 16 marked the end of a long and mostly fruitless geological survey of the B-III mining colony. 100kt of Sorium was discovered, and added to the 1.6 million tons already on record. Nobody was really impressed, and the geology team was disbanded due to lack of interest.

December 21 marked the completion of 'Active Grav Sensor Strength 16' by Max Chopp and his jolly band of scientists. Max moved away from active sensors, and towards gravitational survey sensors for his next project, citing 'a boring three years' as his reason.

New Year 2739

Norman Reay completed research into a new kind of reloading mechanism for missile launchers on February 16th. He still failed to get it to the point where he could rapid fire tiny missiles. Unfortunately for him, he was overrule by the other heads of the Robian government and ordered to delve into economic research since their hope for an academy grad specializing in non-weapons research grew slimmer every year. (OOC: what the hell, RNG?) This disagreement went on for several days, but eventually Norm began looking into ways to increase factory construction speeds.

May 16th saw the end of the long life of the research project into 12cm Meson cannons. Norm quickly snatched up the freed labs in his quest to brute force the economy into being awesome so he could get back to designing new ways for things to go boom as fast as possible.

June 21st ended, for the most part, the geosurvey of the Robian inner system. All non asteroids within 200 billion kilometers had been surveyed, and the task group was headed back to Robia-B to sweep the single field in range before heading home. All in all, the survey was a huge success. Within acceptable distances, there were huge deposits of all known trans-newtonian elements, enough to last the Robian survivors a century or more and build ships rivaling the Empire in size, if not firepower. Even the rarest of elements had tens of millions of tons available. The only problem would be getting them out in a reasonable amount of time.

- - -

OOC:
This part took longer than I hoped, and nearly nothing happened, but such is life. More posts to come in this thread, probably detailing the times up to the first jump, maybe a bit later. Basically the boring startup bits before I start blowing stuff up.