Outside of research though, things are going great! Take the population of those beachfront resorts at Stalaz; the average IQ there is apparently stratospheric, even though they seem to be major party hot-spots ... and the population just keeps growing!
2344: I'm finally starting to catch up with Mirana: Fertile Beta Ceti is now flying the Darlok flag, and the very first Lander my people built is already well on its way down to Kulthos from Paranar, where it visited the Mrrshan colony instead of building one of its own. I also thought I was going to build my third Lander last year, but apparently one of my administrators cut back the project's funding just before it was due to finish for some bureaucratic reason - something about avoiding a quintissential year of quasi-maintenance for a ship without a destination in quantitative range prior to the completion of Beta Ceti's quantum warp beacon. Obviously a scientific analysis, so I just let it go at that. Anyway, the ship was finished this year, and I've given it orders to head for Aurora!
2347: My first Lander's long journey is finally over, as its cryogenically preserved colonists arrive at Kulthos, and stretch and shapeshift into various forms to work out the kinks from their long, frozen sleep.
2349: Last year's scout work at Psilon Proxima was followed up this year by two major discoveries! For one thing, our new deflector shields are finally ready! For another ... well, that was strange. I'll have to think about it a little more and try to understand it before I can even try to explain.
2350: My scientists are the best! And just when I thought they were shirking on me!
We finally have gatling lasers ready, and we're ready to get started on ... on ... um ... is this the same holo-feed? Why am I looking at the new star of the Stalaz Beach Volleyball Team? A moment ago, I was talking to the head of research at the Stalaz weapons technology base; and ... yes, it must be a quasi-quantum disruption in the communications line, I suppose. Fancy a volleyball star knowing words like that though. Anyway, while I wait for the connection to my weapons researchers to come back online, let me explain about our other discovery from last year. You see, I finally got word from one of my long-lost scientists! Strangely enough, he was at the Mrrshan homeworld of Fierias, and asked me what kind of scientist I wanted him to be! He gave me the choice of weapons or computers, and naturally I chose computers since it's been so long since I heard from that team. It turns out, he'd developed ECM Jammer Mark I, which is odd for three reasons: First, I thought I'd told the CS guys to work on robotic controls. Second, I thought they told me ECM 1 technology wasn't in our ... um, quotidian tree. Third, he was wearing a jet black cloak and mantle instead of the usual scientist blue and gold. Oh, yeah. And I had to use my universal translator because the blueprints he sent were all written in Mrrshan. I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation, and I'll hear about it as soon as I get in touch with my scientists again. I hope it happens soon though. Right now, there's no one working on anything!
We'll need some new kind of good news pretty soon anyway; the population boom at those resort locations on Stalaz has got to be played out: They're pretty much all filled up already!
2351: Hey, there's good news after all! Aurora's part of my empire now! That makes one more world than Mirana! Plus, I'm sure those scientists will turn up any day now!
2358: Well, that's funny. That same scientist from Fieras was over at Paranar last year, asking me if I wanted him to be a construction engineer or a weapons scientist. It's been longer since I heard from the construction guys, so I picked them, and he sent me the plans for Improved Industrial Tech 9, also all written in Mrrshan, also not in what they'd called our quotidian tree. I guess he likes dressing in black. Anyway, relations with the Mrrshans had gotten pretty good, so I called up Mirana and quadrupled my trade agreement with her, but it wasn't until just now that I looked over those IIT blueprints and saw a note from the black cloak science guy - in coded Darlok, unlike the rest of the document - that trading my junk technologies for Mirana's would make it easier for him to concentrate on better stuff when he collaborates with the Mrrshan science teams. So I'm giving Mirana something I know must be in her quotidian tree - Class II Deflector Shields - for her Hand Lasers.
I hope it'll pay off soon!
2360: Wow, that black-cloaked scientist guy works quickly all right! He's still at Paranar, sending plans over for Hyper-V Rockets! I still don't understand why everything he sends me is in Mrrshanese. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not the same handwriting as the plans for Hand Lasers, which doesn't make sense at all, unless he can shapeshift his handwriting as well as his body. The weirdest part is that Mirana called afterward to protest my "persistent weapon espionage attempts." I tried to reassure her that I wasn't trying to spy on anyone or anything, but for some reason she didn't believe me.
She's feeling troubled, but I'm sure that will change when she sees there's no spying happening. As you can see, I'm spending heavily on mutually beneficial research and friendship development with her, as I have been every year for the past decade. I'm not sure what those buttons and read-outs used to say - probably there were embarassing typos or something - but my loyal retainers fixed them so I can see just where our money is going, and that's the really important thing.
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Next: Making New... errr ... Friends...
