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2059 ANNUAL REPORT
Call it the calm after the storm. 2059 was a pretty quiet year, for which most everyone was very thankful. The 'excitement' of '58 is not generally preferred by sane people.
The army goes with experience, promoting 48-year-old Joann Altschuler as it's most recent brigadier general to fill the vacancy, while it was decided they could make do with six generals and so a seventh was not needed.
The year's biggest news was the deployment of the first Forrestals, as the first one takes up station at the Epsilon Eridani jump point on April 27th. A second is added later, and a third is en route to the Lalande point by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the first sensors are deployed on a pair of shuttles in March, and 2059 sees most of the shuttles refit and the harvesters less than a month away from finishing their run of refits. The freighters will take much longer, and the Tod & MacGregor begins the long process of adding a second slipway to speed up the process, but that will take over two years to finish.
The private sector continues to do our work for us, placing four more mining complexes on Sedna for a total now of 15. That's over 1.6kt, somewhere in the range of a quarter of our duranium supply, from that rock alone. Almost 4 million credits a year now goes to that worthy investment. At this rate, it will soon be the top line item in our annual budget.
Automines continue to be shipped out to Triton, which is now in the low 40s. The mineral crisis, which lasted over two decades, can be decisively declared to be over. Shipyards are now free to make whatever expansion/construction is deemed necessary, Earth's industrial capacity is expanding(and would expand faster were it not for the need to pour resources immediately into laboratories, deep space scanners, new shipyards, etc.). SPACE has reached a clear transition, much more economically viable now and sustainably so for decades, probably centuries, but the alien threat has taken center stage.
The expected weapons review and implications of it is now on everyone's minds, expected about a month into the new year ...
Commissioned Officers
Mid-January -- The meteoric Mitchell Feeser is now promoted to Commander, and immediately tapped by HQ as their top captain candidate despite his relative lack of experience. It's possible he could skip any kind of military ship command entirely.
Early March -- Five naval officers are dismissed.
May 30 -- Latest pair of Perrys are completed, and Rob Nielsen III is assigned to one as the CO. He won't be going anywhere for a while, as they will stay at Earth to be refit with sensors.
Late December -- Joe Tycho increases his EW expertise to 30%, Rob Nielsen III increases Fleet Movement Initiative to 168.
Research & Development
June 11 -- Research rate increased(Deacon Palmer). The more efficient storage equipment and techniques immediately accelerate every project ongoing, as well as freeing up the two laboratories that were being used by Palmer's team. He'll take over work on improving the construction rate of our factories(previously led by Shannon Patteson and a third finished). Elsewhere, Joe Tycho gets back in the game with resumption of his work on improving turret tracking speed after nearly a year's hiatus, and Elwood Tousant starts a project focused on improving EM sensors.
That's it, just one research project completed for the year. Like I said, a quiet season.
Earth
Early August -- Freighter refits begin. New research lab built, Dr. Edward Groat gets to work on reducing thermal emissions from engines.
Early December -- The third Forrestal is completed and heads to the Lalande 21185 jump point, with Olad Mrtav in command.
Mid-December -- Duranium on Machholz has been exhausted. From time to time various minerals have dried up, but this is a significant development as it is the main reason for the 27+ mines on the rock. There are still significant deposits of neutronium and corundium there, as well as mercassium and sorium, so for now no diverting of mines will occur.
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