With many of my different projects completed, I've taken the last month to coordinate with all the ministers on the various different projects we have upcoming. The main reason being that I'm a bit directionless at this moment. So many projects are occurring around the island, and I don't really have a new one lined up, so I wanted to try to see what needs we might have moving forward. Most of the initial drafts for the academy areas are completed, and it will be quite a while until the dwarven continent is rebuilt enough for us to really begin construction.

Even if we wanted to start construction early, a central part of building out the academy is installing a large crystal on the island, and between the one we plan to gift to Kao, and one for the trade city on the dwarven continent, we're over two years away from having a large crystal available to really begin construction there.

So, after talking with all the various different ministers, I've determined that I should start considering the pursuit of radio communications next. Though the whole endeavor is going to be difficult. As always, I have a pretty decent jumping off point for the knowledge necessary to produce it, but there are a few components that I'll need to develop first. While the idea of designing transistors is interesting, that would take a long time, because the material science necessary is too far behind. By comparison, we've been pulling vacuums with stoneshaping for decades now, so making vacuum tubes should be relatively easy. Vacuum tubes should allow the two kinds of components I need, a triode, which functions as a transistor, and a diode, which is essentially a one way circuit connection.

We already have made capacitors, so from there the rest of the circuit should be relatively easy to design. One of the main steps I want to solve will actually be redefining the equations that govern electronics, which will require a lot of testing. Things like total capacitance, resonance, resistance, etc. Most of the circuits I've worked with so far have been simple enough that I've been able to just wing it, and do some check and guess testing to get it all working.

While I could do that with the radio as well, since the circuit is still relatively simple, the value in being able to make tuned circuits to allow multiple radio frequencies without having to guess and check every time should prove to be more valuable. Additionally, we can likely skip over morse code as an intermediary as well. The binary on/off of morse code was useful for a time because it made transmission much clearer, and audio circuits were a complex development that occurred over top existing circuits. Each stage took understanding to develop. If you already have that understanding though, you may as well build the end product.

I've asked Zeb to direct some of the miners to extend the staircases in the mountain upward, aiming for the peak. They've been going up floor by floor, and digging out the scouting tunnels before continuing until now. The best place for a radio tower is on top of the mountain, to give us the longest line of sight available.

While I understood the theory of vacuum tubes, and building a basic one was actually relatively easy, designing high enough quality components that could be used in multiple places as part of a circuit that wouldn't cause too much signal degradation took me 107 days. Part of that time was spent developing a voltmeter so that I could have a numeric system for determining the quality of the components I was making.

I had a new lab space set up in the research facility for doing all this development. This lab is set up in quite a unique way, if I do say so myself. One of the main reasons I needed a dedicated lab space is that I needed access to a steady AC and DC voltage system for component testing. A mana engine can't really provide that, because changes in mana levels throughout the day will cause some amount of variation in electrical quality.

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To counteract this, I'm using a set of gravity batteries as part of the system to ensure that smooth voltage occurs. The mana engines drive mechanical circuits to lift lead weights, which in turn drive the generators. There are other mechanical components involved to ensure everything operates smoothly, but that is the jist of the system.

By using this method, it let me set baseline numbers that everything else could be calibrated off of, and there was a lot of calibration that had to happen. Basic electricity is relatively easy. A generator on one end of a circuit can drive a motor on the other end, and the only things you need to know are the number of coil rotations on either end to figure out what the resulting behavior will be relative to the behavior at the generator.

This, however, is different. Since multiple components are assembled together, even slight variations in quality from one component to another can cause the frequency between the two circuits to be off by a small amount, and then they won't resonate. The circuits need to be tunable as a result. While technically, you could make all the tuning relative, and not use numbers and it would work, that would prevent anyone from communicating what station to tune in to.

Putting numbers to everything, as I expected, took up quite a bit of time. The numbers I've chosen for everything are arbitrary as well, but they work within the equations I've derived. There isn't a way for me to measure some universal value to base it off of without spending an inordinate amount of time, so we'll just have to live with this. At some point in the future, when the academy is up and running, and we've developed measurement systems for all number of things, I'd then like to go an make a version of a metric system, but that requires a lot of knowledge we don't really have yet.

I'm confident in the components I've created, so my next step will be in actually recreating radio circuits. After that, microphones, modulation, and amplifiers will all need developed. I do need to take a break on this for a short while, however, as the situation on the mainland seems to finally be coming to a conclusion.

The tanks have all been fully repaired, and the dwarves have recaptured most of their territory. They've already started reconstruction in quite a few places. There has been no evidence of any of the old royal family found anywhere else, as such they've set a date for Kao's coronation as the new king of the dwarves. It's set for 44 days from now. Zaka and myself were both formally invited to attend. Zaka and I both have reservations about going, as there is some potential that something could go wrong, but we've also been told we're allowed to bring our own protection as we see fit, and that they'll have most of the dwarven military present as further protection.

On one hand, the elves haven't done anything yet, and I might be paranoid about it. This would also probably one of the worst times to cause a commotion for them, as it'd probably cause neutral factions to be upset by their actions. Zaka and I have decided to go, but we'll be paying very close attention to the situation. If something was going to occur, I'd expect it to happen before or after the coronation when we're traveling, rather than while we're there.

As a bit of a safety net, we're going to bring along with us a significant amount of the dwarves from Kembora who contributed to the manufacturing during the war effort. This is under the guise that they contributed to this achievement, and as such should see the fruits of their labors. Realistically though, having them with us should prevent any large scale attacks on us, as that'd spark a real diplomatic crisis.

While Zaka and I will be gone, the island will be on high alert as well. There is the chance that an attack could occur on the island instead. Mass destruction of our facilities could set us back over a decade, which would give the elves a chance to catch up in technology using whatever information Elora gathered while she was on our island.

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