Additional Bases

Creating microstations inside the stars that we had probes in wasn't entirely a bad idea. It would allow us to better monitor systems and perform some of the upgrades without having a risk of our precious resources being intercepted by an alien ship. We started first with our new home system, creating a small facility inside the star with the same plant life we had been developing for the triple star system. It was much easier to balance out this particular station due to there only being a single star to work with. Once it was done we began upgrading its capabilities which allowed for more accurate scans that reached out further. The shield was also given the new modifications that allowed for double shielding and adding different aspects to the shields as well. If we really wanted to we might be able to stealth an entire system from our enemies, so long as our energy output was enough to integrate with a shield of this size. Once this station was done we began sending out resources to have the rest of the stars begin their construction. By the time they finished we would have numerous stations under our control with enough monitoring going on that any movement within the galaxy should be detectable. The only problem we were going to face however was a mass shortage on crystals, which meant more emotional time for me unless we could develop a way to create them.

Well, at least not all the emotions were terrible, and Ambri was there to assist as well so it went a lot faster. We both agreed when we had created enough crystals for our immediate purpose that we needed to figure out how to create these differently, it was hard on us to make these crystals and it took twice as much time to recover completely from the effects of the enhanced emotions. During this recovery time I worked on trying to figure out how to create synthetic crystals, it was a slow process due to the remaining effects but it gave me something to do to pass the time. I lost track of time doing this, several hours after I should have been done recovering Ambri came to make sure everything was all right. I had been making progress in figuring out a solution, but had not produced a crystal yet. When she walked in I was a bit surprised and that emotion interacted with the environment dome I had been working on. That tiny spark of emotion started the reaction I had been working toward and a small glitter formed in the center of all the energy.

It took some work to get the controls to do what I needed, but once they were working I was able to get the energies to form around this little seed crystal and it began to grow. Once I had it to a good, workable size I stopped the process and removed the crystal from the environment, it wasn't until I held the crystal that I realized the flaw in my plan, I had used up the seed and left nothing to build on again, however the nearly artificial crystal was done with very little emotional investment into it. I gave the crystal to Evan to study, to make sure it held the same properties despite the lack of our personal energies being invested into it. Ambri waited patiently with me for the results, she wanted to know as much as I did if we would be able to stop creating them in the way that we did. While we waited I worked some more on the dome, I created a spot in it to deposit the seed crystal in and hoped that I could just use an energy feed through the seed to create a bigger crystal in the dome below. I also tweaked the settings to allow it to continuously create crystals as the ones it had were removed. If all worked well we would never be short of crystals so long as resources were abundant.