With the war's abrupt ending, Andrew finally had some time to take care of the matters in his own territory, and their name was Legion, for they were many.
The first order of business was to allow his forces to rest, and the same applied to all his territories, since even these beings now taking part in direct combat operations were working around the clock to supply, repair, and build the fleets.
Luckily, the AI didn't have the same problems, and all of them were more than happy to take over, allowing their organic friends to get some much-needed rest.
So while the crews of the ships and stations rested, the territory was anything but idle, as Andrew left orders to expand the empire's industrial capacity as much as possible and to upgrade the newly reconquered territories to imperial standards.
This break lasted for two days, during which the emperor and his ladies, along with their friends, discussed their next steps, and everyone had suggestions and plans of their own.
General Taylor loved the carrier he got to test, as it performed wonderfully as a battleship as well as a support carrier.
However, he insisted that it needed several upgrades, especially in the fighter department, before they were mass produced ind introduced into the main imperial fleets.
-The fighters need to have shields of their own if they are to be useful in any kind of large-scale combat, since at the moment, their survivability is way too low to make them capable of being a decisive factor.
Additionally, their armaments need to change.
The rockets and bombs currently used are working as intended, but even back on Earth, we had better and much more powerful munitions, which, with some upgrades, might be more than ten times as devastating as the munitions we are using right now.
The general voiced his opinion.
Hearing this, both Nairin and Binon took on the challenge to upgrade the small craft as well as get them the new munitions they needed.
The icing on the cake was that if the shipboard fighters got the upgrades, then the base ones would as well, turning them into much more versatile and deadly weapons.
Another decision made by Andrew was a vast expansion of the empire's industrial capacity.
The arrival of Georn, during their battle with Kinokians, showed him for the first time in a while that he was still thinking way too small, and at the moment, he was nothing but an ant that could be crushed at any time.
-The Atlantis project will be put on hold for now.
He decided.
-Additionally, we will stop repairing the ships from the graveyard and start using them as materials to produce our own.
However, it won't be done in Vulcan's shipyard as he has a much more important task.
He will focus all his efforts on building the repair station, as well as the remaining three shipyards and the rest of the parts needed to make him whole again.
I talked it through with him, and he confirmed that rebuilding his parts individually would be much faster than building them into the Atlantis.
As for integrating them later, the plans can still be altered, so we will worry about it later.
For now, our main goal is to become as strong as possible as fast as possible.
He said when they were discussing this matter.
Of course, there was much more happening than discussions on the future of the empire, as there were delegates of many star nations coming to establish diplomatic relations with the new empire, which, despite being so small, was able to defend its territory against a much more powerful enemy, and even took part in invading said enemy's territory.
Apparently, this was enough for many star nations to start taking the Lantean Empire seriously enough to want to establish diplomatic relations.
This made Tarina and her team, whom she praised to the heavens for their work, extremely busy.
The two days of semi-rest passed quickly, and the morning of the third day was the moment the empire became as busy as a beehive.
The whole of the empire's industrial might was put to work, making more of everything.
New stations and sub-stations were being built all the time.
More module parts were being produced, and the new modules assembled in mere minutes.
Shipyards were being expanded or entirely replaced by their bigger and more advanced versions.
Andrew didn't spare the credits as well and bought hundreds of modules through the merchant guild.
In these new shipyards, new battleships were being assembled the moment they went online.
The new battleships were based on the BC-304 Daedalus class from a TV show, which won in the simulations, as its design, which was enlarged several times, was much more versatile than the other designs, allowing it to carry a complement of fighters in its two hangar bays as well as carrying heavy armaments, expected of this class of vessel, as well as its powerful hull which was reinforced during the planing, turning the ship into a behemoth, capable of going head to head with more powerful ships of the same class.
The next ship in line to be designed was the Dreadnought class, but it would take a while even for the AI to run the simulations on every possible design in the database, as well as the ones submitted by engineers and everyone else.
The emperor didn't forget about the traitors his forces captured and decided to put them on trial for treason.
Everyone knew that this was just a formality, but it had to be done.
In the end, most of them were sentenced to death, despite their pleading and claims of being forced into betraying the empire.
The data from their own surveillance systems and communications delivered more than enough proof that over 90% of them were in on it from the beginning, and the rest followed the herd, with a few minor exceptions, who truly were forced into leaving the empire
These few exceptions were tried separately and mostly verified to be truly innocent, as they had no way to stay loyal to the empire and survive.
However, none of them would ever be a station master again, but at least they were alive, which was much more than the rest of the traitors could say.
Their sentence was executed immediately after trial, by the droids, who lined up one group of prisoners after the other and shot them, before putting their bodies into a storage module and sending them into the twin stars of the system.
With that done, and witnessed by all the diplomats and allied forces representatives.
The time came for the elven fleets to return home, as without the war, there was no reason for them to stay.
The same could be said of Teleren, who had to go back and return to his duties.
Admiral Gezrin was also recalled by the Pelozi high command to give them his report.
Andrew was not that happy seeing his friends go, but they all had their duties, and he was also busy all the time now.
Once everyone left, Andrew focused solely on the development of his empire as much as possible, since he had a hunch that he didn't have that much time before the next emergency.
Unfortunately, he had no idea what that emergency could be, so it was anything but easy to prepare for it.