Initially, we intended for our radio relay system to just be used for high priority messages, but other ministers quickly realized how useful it could be for them directly. Whether it be coordinating trade ships to the mainland or getting status updates from construction teams on other islands that are getting them ready for colonization, the ability to communicate without traveling to the location itself has been quite valuable. Which has also led to the need for a broadcast schedule to be set. Certain times have been designated for specific communication tasks, and they've started to really fill out the available time.

Since all of the locations are on the same bandwidth, they also are forced to share the same time schedule. One solution being that a differently tuned set could be built between Drazvok and Kembora, to at least lighten the load a little. If we developed directional antennas as well, that could allow more focused communications without causing a bunch of noise all over the place. Directional antennas need a lot less power to get good signal, with the downside being that you really do need line of sight. Thankfully, from the summit of Kembora, you can see most of Drazvok, so it should be possible to build a whole communications array if we wanted it, though we could start with two pairs for broadcasting and receiving, allowing two way communication.

We should already consider building out a new, dedicated station for naval coordination as well, now that our existing radio station is almost entirely used by communications traffic. We can work backwards for this one, basing our naval communications to be tuned around what is more feasibly sized for the ships themselves, rather than using the radio tower as a basis for the ships.

I don't have much time to work on these projects, given that the capital ship project is nearing the final stages where I'll have to really coordinate all the components. Instead, I've asked Zeb to evaluate his workers for individuals who have worked on multiple electrical projects like the power plants and radio stations, and pick a few to send to the academy. I told him to let me know who they are, since I'm going to start up a radio broadcast club, and I'd like them to be in it. I've said before that I want radio technology to spread, even to non-alliance countries, since it undermines leverage that the elves have politically. It technically undermines a bit of our leverage, since we're also building out the communications on the mainland via telephones, but we're treating that in the same way, and basically distributing the knowledge already.

This year's winter break was quite hectic for me. We've hired on another 22 promising individuals to developing war technology. I spent most of the break working with the existing teams for the capital ship project to get the final design document made. It honestly felt a little odd coordinating the parts, rather than designing each myself. There were quite a few individuals on the project if you include the peripheral references. The design team often reached out to the craftsman who build our existing ships, naval officers and operators, and the minister of the navy. Overall, I'd say about 150 people were involved in the general design.

Ultimately, the design came in at 980 feet long and 190 feet wide. It has two 16-inch turrets, each of which has two barrels. We've included six smaller turrets with our 5-inch shell design from the previous ship model. Each of these turrets will also be utilizing a double barrel design. The reason we've moved to double barrels is that the automatic loading and exhaust mechanism is already asymmetric, and can be mirrored, allowing two feeds from a central point with little extra work.

While they aren't on the current ship design itself, I've ensured that there are locations for smaller turrets to be installed should we want to retrofit anti-air capabilities into the ship. Most of the rest of the ship is just improvements and adaptations of our existing ship's design to a larger form, save for the new power grid, mana crystal, and our cable controlled torpedoes. The torpedoes are an adaptation of the design I made for the clams, and can be lowered off the back or sides of the ship from designated locations. For safety purposes, they're using smokeless powder rather than blasting jelly.

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These ships also don't have an easily accessed loading bay for any sorts of cargo. Everything is sized to handle only the military goods necessary for operation. It'll require just under 2000 individuals to operate, meaning we'll really have to start funneling individuals into the navy. The plan currently is to actually have a mixed crew, leaving certain jobs to dwarves, reducing our own crew burden by nearly half. It's expected that it'll take four years, at a minimum, to actually assemble the whole thing, which will also lead to a reduced rate of production for the existing ship design.

I haven't really been keeping up on how our population distribution has been changing, given how it's way outside of my purview, but I've been told that we shouldn't have a labor issue with manning these sorts of projects. The main labor issue still seems to be not having enough stoneshapers, though that seems to always be the case, since we're still housing and food limited, both of which require construction work to solve. Zeb has said that the number of new stoneshapers has started to climb recently, since they've been making the new terrace farms with a decent amount of manual labor in order to extract stone for the airplane runway.

With the bulk of the capital ship design work being completed, about half of the designers for that project are being moved to other projects. Some are going to remain on helping coordinate construction and answer questions, and a few, namely those working on the turrets and engines are being tasked with continuing research into optimizing those designs, with a limitation of whatever improvements they make needing to fit in the existing design space. Any upgrades are to be well documented and presented annually to me for review.

There are three projects the rest of the individuals are being split between. The first project is yet another ship design, though this one is a non-military cargo ship. It'll still be equipped with a single turret at the front, but will have minimal ammo. The purpose of this ship is to need significantly less crew to operate, while providing an improvement in cargo capacity over our current general use ships.

The second project will take the few individuals who worked with me to design the internal communications and adapted the power generation from land to fit in the ship. They're being tasked with researching directional antennas. I'll be doing some guidance with them to get them on the right track, since it's a bit out of their experience. Eventually, I'm hoping that the new students Zeb has selected will join them in designing more robust communications systems.

The third project is our existing airplane design work, though they'll actually be working on the peripheral design work for an airport instead. Things like an air traffic control tower, hangars, and residences for airmen. Most of these individuals handled the bridge and housing inside the capital ship.

Overall, this accounts for most of the individuals who worked on the capital ship. The new hires are being split among these projects, and one additional military research project we've started. Tiberius is starting to get old, and I really don't want his knowledge, even if esoteric, to be lost. The plan is to build a new underground facility on the last island. It's such a desolate rock, and we planned it for military use anyway. That facility is planned to use a lot of quartz and be used for highly secure testing of different forms of doped fluorite, away from population centers.

With so much trade from the mainland, it's possible for us to begin isolating other elements to use for doping fluorite and seeing what impact they have on it's properties. This is all in addition to whatever Tiberius actually wants built in the lab. The few new hires who are going onto that project have been selected specifically because they're both inquisitive, brave, and good at taking notes. Traits that are all a necessity for working with Tiberius and transferring his knowledge from his mind onto paper. I generally didn't have the patience to work with him for many things, but I can recognize that he actually does have a fairly deep store of knowledge, even if it isn't in a truly rigorous scientific form.

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