Official Appleton Laboratory Station Log
March 13th, 829 A.S. -Recorded by Dr. Ron Kosher
Things have settled down at the base a bit as we finished the first base core upgrade. US| completed their contract for our next core upgrade. We just have a little bit of work left to finish the upgrade.
Looping back to the destruction of Appleton nearly 7 years ago, it seems so long ago, but yet so vivid in my memory. While Alyssa did have extensive experience handling nomad technology, she nor anyone else had the experience to anticipate the problems that it was able to cause when subjected to the various tests we performed upon it. We performed various chemical processes to extract the superconducting components. We had to add lots of heat during these processes which we found strange as the reactions shouldn't have been endothermic. Over the course of the days we were running these processes we inadvertently added several MJ of energy to the sample we were working on. What we didn't realize was that the nomad materials were absorbing energy and entering a metastable state. When we then tried to test the conducting abilities of the material we forced the material to return to the base state and release a massive amount of energy in a very short period of time.
The explosion caused multiple hull breaches, and damaged our reactor so we only had backup power. The decompressed areas included the docking bays, which we could maintain pressurized with force fields, but we didn't have sufficient time to repair the reactor prior to the exhaustion of backup power. Once we lost backup power, the evacuation of the station would become very difficult, so I decided to order an evacuation and the whole crew evacuated to Freeport 1.
We made several attempts to stabilize the situation on the station, but the damage to the station, and lack of power made repairs very difficult. A fire was raging in one of the areas still pressurized, and the fire suppression systems were offline. The fire reached our oxygen supply and caused another explosion damaging the station even further and damaged our MOX supply spreading toxic uranium and plutonium all over the station. At this point we decided that the cleanup and repair effort would cost more than rebuilding the station, and we had the funds at the time for neither. We sat on Freeport 1 and watched the station slowly decay away until another secondary explosion occurred, from what we are not sure, that finally resulted in the destruction of the remains of the station.
We now know the sequence of events that caused the accident with the nomad neurological material, and if we pursue it in the future as a source of material for our power distribution systems we will work with much smaller quantities to keep everything safe, as well as monitor the total amount of energy it could have possibly absorbed.
Our lab safety protocols and our emergency response plan kept everyone safe, and there were no deaths or critical injuries, just some bumps and bruises from the initial explosion which rocked the station.
Official Appleton Laboratory Station Log
August 5th, 829 A.S. -Recorded by Dr. Ron Kosher
Once again I have gotten behind on the logs, but things have been slow. We did complete the core 3 upgrade on March 23rd, just shortly after my last log. We have spent the last several months trying to get all of our equipment setup and our research going. As with any new construction there have been lots of issues, and we have had some trouble getting some of the equipment we need. After all of the setbacks, we are getting close to getting started on some actual work.
We have also gotten our hyperspace scanner fabrication line completed and we will be finishing up our first scanner hopefully today. We had some bumps along the way on the first unit, so I think we are going to sell it to raise some capital and try to do a better job on the next unit. The next scanner we will hold onto for ourselves for scanning the system, but I believe we got the kinks worked out in the fabrication process.
The biggest problem we have had is some harassment by the Corsairs in the system. They never really do much damage to the station, but we have launched some ships on a couple of occasions to chase them away. With the Freeport so close I am not sure what they hope to accomplish, but it seems like they are testing things out, mapping our defenses, looking for weaknesses rather than trying to do any real damage, which worries me for what is to come…
Official Appleton Laboratory Station Log
February 11, 834 A.S. -Recorded by Dr. Ron Kosher
Things have been chugging along. We have made great progress on the graviton based mining array. We have optimized the system for beryllium ore as well now as for niobium and cobalt. The array has nearly double the yield of standard mining arrays, but it does take an insane amount of energy, which we are still working on optimizing. After we get the energy consumption down a bit, I will select another ore for optimization. We also will need to commercialize the technology soon as well, but we need some more development before it is ready for the general public.
We have also had great luck with neutralizing all of the interference on our instruments from the Omega-3 sun, so being in the ice field and using Freeport 1 as a shield is no longer necessary for our operations. I am working to get the station moved out of the ice field to make supplying it a less costly affair. Relocation will also be a costly affair, even though the transit will be a short one. Leaving the field will also allow us to analyze the unusual radiation from the sun more readily, as we won’t have the ice or the Freeport shielding our instruments.
Otherwise, a few scattered Corsair attacks, but nothing very coordinated. We will keep an eye out for any patterns.