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A scientist to lead might not be too bad in the current situation. :)
 
2211
2211

Fresh from the election, the political landscape of the Federation started to become more active with additional parties funded. Wade’s presidency marked a moment of stagnation from a political standpoint because the baby steps that the United System was undertaking in the galaxy were so big to, for the first time, unify hearts and souls in the endeavour.

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Now after ten years in living as an intergalactic species, different opinions on how to deal with issues and challenges helped return to the normality of a very varied and colored mix of ideals and goals as seen in human history. A glimpse of the new party formations was already made public during the new elections, but in 2211 these became more clear:
  • National Stability Lobby (NSL) - Lead by President Julia Paquette, focused on financial growth and stability through peaceful means.
  • Free Elections Committee (FEC) - Lead by Scientist Haruna Yamazaki (Commander of the USV Kepler), that works for equality and justice for all denizens of the Federation.
  • Council of High Technology (CHT) - Previously lead by Estelle Warner, the commander of the USV Hawking and, after the elections, by the General Secretary (and still VP, being confirmed by Paquette) Yekaterina Maksimushkina, pushing hard for the advancement of the sciences.
  • Defensive Readiness Movement (DRM) - Lead by the head of the Research Department S, Aanya Patil, advocating for a more careful approach to exploration and a higher budget allocated to the Department of Defense.
  • Alien Suffrage Center (ASC) - Lead by Claudia von Fritsch, commander of the USV Depuy de Lome, that looks for increasing the efforts towards searching for additional life forms in the galaxy
The former president Wade’s party, Citizens for Wade, remained at the Senate after the election results but announced that it will be disbanded at the end of the 10 year mandate.

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As promised by the president, new energy was put to reinforce the exploration of the stars. In particular a new science ship, the USV Hubble (SSC-004), was launched, commanded by Jose Solano. More anomalies were found through the explored systems confirming that the “emptiness of space” was just a perception of mankind where space was, effectively, not reachable in its vastity. A non sapient worm-like life form was discovered living inside the core of an asteroid of the system SSD-DX-1 by the crew of the USV Dupuy de Lome. Organized in colonies, these 2 meters long worms were lithovores and able to sustain the coldness of space.
Science Officer Estelle Warner, onboard her trusty USV Hawking, managed to partially translate an alien mural on Gliese 823 Ic. It was a memorial for an extinct alien race that once maintained a small interstellar empire in the very same region of the Federation. The race was eventually exterminated by the creators of the mural, which was dated to be more than 300 million years old, leading to the conclusion that the “Writers'' don't exist anymore and somehow regretted their choice over the fate of the exterminated race. The mural seemed to be in remarkably good condition, which led to further analysis on its composition.
Lastly, an automated mining base was discovered, always by the USV Dupuy de Lome, built in close orbit around an asteroid in the SSD-DX-1 system. Large chunk of the hull of the base was missing, along with jagged holes, indicating damage sustained by most likely heavy weapons.

The news of the discoveries were generally available to the public in short time, and the last ones were quite concerning as they clearly show that, at least in the past, the galaxy was a very violent place.
But the discoveries were not over.
The third “missing probe” founded two years before in the Gliese 823 system was missing the central CPU and main storage drives, preventing any information retrieval. So the crew of the USV Hawking was investigating the region for clues.
On the eventing of September 3rd (Earth UTC and calendar was kept as galactic standard, with Centauria for example adapting to having a fluid way of measure time), the ship received a message:

Radio Operator Chapman [RO]: “Commander, we are receiving a video transmission from the system main star”
Commander Estelle Warner [EW]: “Put it on screen”

The ship bridge was illuminated by the holoscreen that was showing some sort of grotesque “bird-like” creature. And the creature was talking, in simple English:

Alien: “What you want, alien? This probe ours. Salvage. We find first! You leave now. Yes. Interrupting delicate operation, your ships are. Must concentrate. Or… if you want probe, we can sell. 100 credits and probe yours. Good deal. Very good. You get probe, less work for us, everybody wins. Especially us”
EW: “Hello...mmh.. alien, I’m Science Officer Estelle Warner of the United Systems Feder..”

She was cut short.

Alien: “no talk, no losing time, decide”
EW: “I need time”
Alien: “Take small time, we wait”.

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The crew was in part terrified, in part astonished, all of them were standing still, in silence. The first contact with a sapient spacefaring civilization has been made. Estelle Warner run for her private quarters and established a connection back with the Secretary of the Department of Research that, in a matter of 10 minutes, plugged in with maximum emergency all the members of the Federal Council and the President. The alien was still waiting, still visible in the holoscreen on the ship’s bridge. One of the officers that was still on the bridge collapsed on the ground, unconscious due to a nervous breakdown.

It took 10 minutes for the Council to agree on Nick Harris, the Secretary of Defense, suggested approach which was to pay immediately the money while trying at the same time to keep the communications open and get more information from the aliens. In the meantime the Starfleet was put on high alert and Admiral Feng Gao ordered to move it to the USV Hawking position, an operation that would have taken 5 hyperdrive jumps for a total travel time of approximately a week.
Due to the credits being a currency based on energy, Warner ordered the crew to stock a ship accumulator and she immediately returned to the bridge to re-established a connection to the alien.

EW: “Can I ask you where you came from?”
Alien: “Yes or No?”
EW: “I need to know how to transfer the credits to you and to agree on what a unit means for you”
Alien: “We know, it’s ok, leave the accumulator, retreat to the system outskirts”
EW: “I cannot negotiate like that, I need to know..”

Cut short again

Alien: “We destroy probe, or system outskirts and we destroy not”

Estelle decided to agree and, after leaving the accumulator, ordered the ship to retreat. The alien ship, that was out of visual contact, was barely picked up by the Hawking radar. The ship reached the accumulator position and jumped away in a spark, leaving the crew of the Hawking clueless about its destination. No more contact was made from the aliens and the communication channel used before was static.
The Hawking then decided to go back and found a box, in plastic material, completely flat, with a very simple mechanism to unlock that contained the missing probe pieces.

The Department of Security, through the FIS, the Federal Information Service, ordered the full lockdown of any information regarding the alien encounter, everything was classified as galactic security matters and the ship had to go back to Earth where every crew member had to sign papers that imposed their total silence about the event.
In a very careful process, the information was made available just to the high ranking officials of the Federations and top scientists that could have helped understand more exactly what happened on Gliese 823, as information like this could have panicked the population in no time.

To sum up, in a matter of two hours, the United Systems discovered that alien spacefarers races exist and they knew more about humans than humans knew about them, clearly. Plus, these aliens had a more advanced technology, considering the inability for the Hawking to track the alien ship’s jump destination.
All the Federations governing bodies ended up being overwhelmed by the “Alien Birds” topic for the rest of the year, and were struggling to find a way to deal with the new revelation while keeping the information out of public eyes.

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Very strange goings on, and definitely something of a wake up call to the perils of the galaxy
 
Very strange goings on, and definitely something of a wake up call to the perils of the galaxy

Exactly, while writing I'm trying to imagine how this step by step approach to aliens can be processed by common citizens, ok relics, ok inferior than us (the atomic age Anthenabians) but then discovering that there is someone much more advanced than you is definitely scaring
 
It is often concerning when the aliens know more about humanity than the other way around. The alien spoke English in an apparently casual manner and knew of the energy credit system used by the United Systems.
 
Just caught up, and I especially love the illustrations you've made to accompany this (the ships are my favorite; can't wait for when you build bigger ones/find alien vessels).

Subbed!
 
2212
2212

In February the station around the Z1156 system was completed, it was named Quasar Station and the system renamed to Columbus. It would have facilitated the effort in reaching and colonizing the ocean planet in the nearby 89 Aquarii. Approximately in the same days, President Paquette announced the end of the early colonization phase on Sirius Prime. The colony was now self-sufficient, becoming the third planet inhabited by humans after of course Earth and Centauria.

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On the second planet of Gliese 8429, a massive crater was discovered on the planet's surface. The size suggests a collision caused by a ship exiting an hyperlane at maximum velocity. The crater is dated 10,000 years back and scientists had no clue on how the owners of the ship were capable of exiting hyperlanes so close to the system star and not in the system outer space as usually happens with humans hyperdrive engines.

The First Contact Department, a sub branch of the Department of Xeno Affairs was working closely with the Department of Security on the previous year Bird-Alien incident. Nothing particular was discovered on the enigmatic spacefarer alien, their ship or their origin but there were continuous debates whether the information should have been provided to the population. Although the encounter didn’t leave any room for fearing dangers from the alien race, the uncertainty of the situation was considered to be destabilizing, moreover, the risk of information leaking was growing every day, putting at risk the establishment's credibility.

A security meeting was held in April and president Paquette was informed about the possible risks of both scenarios: continuing to keep the secrecy or disclosing the full incident. Paquette decided for the latter. Her consideration was based on the assumption that, sooner or later, mankind would have faced other alien spacefaring civilizations, as everything so far, from the relics to the strange incident, suggested that the galaxy was a very lively place.

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In August, Paquette addressed the population via a unified HyperNet video message.

“Citizens of the Federation,
After careful consideration, I’ve decided to bring to your attention that during the end of the last year, our science ship USV Hawking made a first contact with a spacefaring alien race. The contact was limited and peaceful, we were not able to establish a diplomatic channel nor dispatching a scientific team to understand the nature of the entity we were talking to. We only know that its appearance resembled an Earth-like bird, and we will disclose the image we have to the media shortly.

As I said, the encounter was peaceful and apparently the alien was communicating in a language resembling simplified english. I know that this can be very unsettling but fear not, as even if we are not able to pick up any other message nor traces of these aliens in the last months, we’re anyway keeping the starfleet and all our armed forces in high alert, just in case, even if I strongly believe that, as the encounter suggested, this species is not dangerous in any way.

It will be my task to keep you all informed on any new information we will be able to discover on the subject.
It’s clear, and it’s important for all of us to understand, that this is an additional proof of the fact that the galaxy may be possibly populated by several other species and civilization, and I’m sure we will be able to reach all of them at some point, bringing our peaceful way and expanding our comprehension of the universe, together.”


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In the following months, as expected, the topic was the fulcrum of every broadcast, program, transmission in the United Systems. Speculations about the alien nature or intent were massive and many times the same Department of Security had to stop individuals that were spreading fake news, especially the one focused on apocalyptic-like scenarios regarding the future evolution of this first encounter.

In December, the USV Hawking that was surveying the system 36 Ophiuchi, stumbled across a formation of automated drones that was guarding an automated mining base. The ship had to flee the system and these drones were actively targeting the Hawking. Again Estelle Warner was in the eye of the hurricane. She contacted Earth immediately informing about the discovery and in the next few days a series of mini-unmanned starships were sent nearby to investigate these drones' origin.
Even in this case the humans were in front of abandoned relics of the past, but this time they were dangerous. The course of the action approved was to limit the system access to ensure safety while at the same time trying to hack these machines and, somehow, shutting them down.

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Space is proving time and time again to be a challenging place.
 
Given how this government is steup I think a conspiracy/cover-up was likely to have been very counter-productive.
 
What excellent graphics and a great back story that hits the perfect sweet spot of being well developed without being overwhelming. You mentioned English was your second language in your first post, I doubt I could post anything this high quality in English (and it is my first and only language) let alone in a second as you have so you have nothing to worry about there.

I'm looking forwards to seeing where this goes and I was interested to see that President Paquette leads the National Stability Lobby despite being a scientist. How are relations between her and the Council of High Technology? Cordial or do they see her as something of a "traitor" to her fellow scientists?
 
I love the way you get into the mindset of a first contact situation, just wonderfully atmospheric. :)
 
Space is proving time and time again to be a challenging place.
Yeah, I imagine the herculean efforts of people's mind to deal with cultural-shock in a very short time

Given how this government is steup I think a conspiracy/cover-up was likely to have been very counter-productive.
Definitely, speaking with the "mind" of the President, I think that if you know that this is just a prelude to inevitable encounters it's better to have people start adapting to the reality

What excellent graphics and a great back story that hits the perfect sweet spot of being well developed without being overwhelming. You mentioned English was your second language in your first post, I doubt I could post anything this high quality in English (and it is my first and only language) let alone in a second as you have so you have nothing to worry about there.

I'm looking forwards to seeing where this goes and I was interested to see that President Paquette leads the National Stability Lobby despite being a scientist. How are relations between her and the Council of High Technology? Cordial or do they see her as something of a "traitor" to her fellow scientists?

Than you very much Cromwell, I really appreciate your feedback! I'm trying to have a mixed balance, chronicles, then some more depth on one topic, then maybe a section of dialogues but generally I try to summarize for the sake of the reader. I think the medium itself (the forums) are not the best in having walls of text, even if these may be super interesting.

I believe that part of the gaps that are left open are usually filled naturally by the reader, one of the thing however that I do is to keep a lot of notes (in forms of documents and spreadsheets) regarding multiple aspects of the story, some sort of an hidden "wikipedia" of the fiction, that allows me to consistently put in for example organizations, corporations, actors and places. I need still to find the best way to do that, because I believe I can leverage on this data much more.

Regarding the Paquette position, I have to think that being in an early stage of the federal political landscape, there aren't a lot of frictions. Btw Stellaris leverage on leaders for parties so these people need to work alongside anyway (an example is the VP and General Secretary Maksimushkina, that "servers" Paquette but belong to another political party) but I'm pretty sure that as soon as the situation will get more difficult, frictions will definitely starts. We have to keep in mind that in these "first encounters" years, any choice can have very dramatic consequences.

I love the way you get into the mindset of a first contact situation, just wonderfully atmospheric. :)

Thank you very much! I really wanted to give much more importance to the event!
 
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2213-2215
2213

The Department of Space announced the completion of a station orbiting the main star in the system HD 4888241, usual step for pathing the way for the colonization of the system, which contained the oceanic planet with titanic life forms that was discovered years ago. The system was renamed Darwin, honoring the 19th century naturalist, and the station was named Calypso Station.

In HD 842101 instead, a new type of lifeform was discovered: spaceborne entities, larger than human frigates that float in space. Quickly nicknamed “Space Amoeba”, the creatures are kept at a distance by federal starships since it was not clear whether they could have been dangerous or not. Studies on Earth started immediately to find a way to approach them in a pacific way.

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On Earth, Elkross Engineering, in collaboration with the Research Division E, announced the successful manufacturing of nanometric scale machineries. These will be used initially in advanced scientific instruments to help the practical studies of miniaturized systems. Mashima Industries presents a prototype of a new mass driver weapon, the coilgun. Based on gauss rifle principles, these projectile accelerators shows better accuracy and terminal speed compared to the RKC-1 400mm cannon, always manufactured by Mashima. The stocks of both Mashima Industries (MIN) and Elkross Engineering (EKN) rose significantly by more than 30% in 2 months.

The Federal Senate passed a new legislation that increased the staff of the three Research Divisions (P, E and S) and the Scientific Exploration Flotilla. President Paquette at a press conference confirms that this is one of the cornerstones of her presidential mandate.

In the 89 Aquarii system, the home of the atomic-age aliens, the Athenabians, the “Aquarius Station” as it was called is finished. The station would have served as an additional base of operation for establishing a permanent lab in the orbit of the second planet, inhabited by the well-known frog-like aliens.
In November, human ships started to assemble on the planet's orbit but on the 12th day multiple flashes were spotted on the planet's surface.
It was immediately clear that the nations (or factions as detailed studies on the aliens were not yet performed) started a massive nuclear exchange. The nuclear war continued for three days and it was estimated that hundreds of thousands of warheads exploded, leaving any kind of peacekeeping operation by federal forces too dangerous to perform. President Paquette decided for a non-intervention that led to a strong opposition from the public opinion and many media headlines defined the situation as an act of cowardice of the full mankind.
When finally the flashes stopped, no lights were spotted anymore on the surface; radioactivity readings were so high that it was estimated that there were no possibilities for any life forms to be still alive on the planet.
The Anthenabians were annihilated from the galaxy by their own hands, a fate that mankind risked many times in the past. The Federal Cartographic Office decided to rename the system Anthenabia to at least remember the now extinguished civilization.

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2214

In the Mu Telescopii system, the seventh planet was found to be very rich in minerals, the discovery was thanks to a “makeshift” upgrade to the gravitational sensors of the USV Kepler performed by the crewmembers. Haruna Yamazaki, the ship’s commander is praised by many officials in the federation along with her crew.
On Earth the first museum of alien artifacts is inaugurated, it contains many discoveries made in the previous decade that are no longer of scientific interest. The Museum is located in the Kanto Supercluster, a megacity in Japan.

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Jose Maria Solano, the head scientist of the team that was exploring the Centauria ruins discovered six years before, announced that a total of 26 different sapient species remains had been found. All of them show signs of violent death caused by blades, spears or arrows, and some of these weapons were found in some sort of ceremonial chamber. The team also discovered an inscription that was translated to “Valley of Mak’Vaehl - Hunting Lodge Primus”.

Always on Centauria, President Paquette with the Secretary of Defense Nick Harris review the first two Planetary Divisions formed during a parade on Trident City, the planetary capital. The two divisions, the “Third” and “Fourth”, sums up with the two on Earth to constitute the Federal Army. All of the conventional forces that were part of the old armies of the Earth will be slowly converted to this new type of division in the plans of the Department of Defense, where units of land, air and sea work together in a single structure, manning advanced technological weaponry. After the parade, President Paquette also visited the first branch office of the Department of Federal Affairs built in an extrasolar colony. This office will be crucial to coordinate administrative efforts on Centauria.

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2215

The black hole CID-947 in the galactic north is renamed Northern Eye from the FCO (Federal Cartographic Office) and Outpost 947 is a station built in the black hole system to facilitate and monitor access to the system. Regardless of the unusual location, the Spaceborne Command (the organization of the DoD that manages starbases non-scientific personnel) received a huge number of applications. Apparently the black hole fascinated a lot of people.
Four new frigates are built at the shipyards of the Helios One station: these are two FF-1 Mercury and two FFG-2 Mars.

The USV Kepler in July discovers what were dubbed as “Volatile Motes” on the second planet of Nu Centauri. These are preternatural particles that contain a tremendous amount of energy, which could be exploited in energy production, as fuel or even as explosives. Although a way to extract the energy from these particles was not found yet, the general consensus inside the federation is to try to establish a permanent outpost in the system, for future exploitation.

The year ends with very disturbing news. What can be defined as a “dimensional portal” is discovered on Sirius Prime, in a remote location near the planet North Pole. In the following days a research facility around the portal is built, called Doorway Outpost. The scientific team noticed a strange air current which was eventually determined to be caused by a slight leakage of atmosphere into the portal. The rate of loss is far too small to make any difference to life on the planet but this induced a series of tests to determine whether the portal can be crossed or not. The portal itself was composed of an oval rocky structure that contained a pitch black “mirror-like” wall.
Due to the unknown nature of the portal, the Federal Information Service decided again to impose an information quarantine and the facility was guarded by a team of the Joint Special Operation Division. President Paquetta was promptly informed and departed for Sirius Prime. Her arrival coincided with the reception of a signal coming through the portal. Incredibly, the signal was identical to common human conference protocols, and with Paquette present, it was put on screen.

With the amazement of the full viewers, the video showed a human-like room where, nothing less than the very same Julia Paquette, with different clothing, showed up. Technicians double checked and the signal was live. The following conversation was in part hilarious, in part unsettling.

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Julia Paquette, and her counterpart in the video feed introduced each other, they had the same name, the very same role and they were both at the head of mankind. The Julia Paquette on the portal came from a different dimension, that was simply what both realized during the communications. In the other reality, humans navigated using “warp drives”, engines tearing the fabric of space, that for some reasons woke up what the “other” Paquette defined as “Warp Beasts”, some sort of interdimensional aliens that started a war against mankind but was, luckily, losing. Both Presidents agreed to keep the communications open to somehow help each other.

After the video feed was closed, the first words of Paquette were “What the hell just happened?”

Apparently, the theories in favour of multiple realities and dimensions were true, changing radically the perception of the very same reality for humans. This time Paquette decided to cover up fully the event as it would have been too destabilizing for the public. Task Force Vagrant, a team composed of scientists and military personnel from multiple federal departments, was created to manage the Doorway Outpost and handle the portal’s studies.
 
The fate of the Anthenabians is a reminder of what could have been for humanity although the Anthenabians had more nuclear warheads than humanity during the Cold War.
The Federation makes first contact with itself or rather an alternative version of humanity in a mirror dimension at war against with warp beasts! An interesting and disturbing thought to consider. There are possibilities are there for trade and learning to consider. How long can this portal be kept secret from the rest of humanity?
 
I like the design of the Museum of Diversity
 
Well the discovery of an alternate dimension Parquette was rather surprising. Sad to see the Athenabians gone, although given their rather violent nature maybe they would have been more a potential enemy once they hit the space age than a potential ally. Who knows if any still persist in underground bunkers ending their history in the deep places of the world?
 
How long can this portal be kept secret from the rest of humanity?
I think as long as trade is concerned it can somehow kept secret but in the short term, in the end eventually with more and more people aware of it the portal may became a public affair

I like the design of the Museum of Diversity
I got the image somewhere on internet.. it should be a concept art for a real museum

Well the discovery of an alternate dimension Parquette was rather surprising. Sad to see the Athenabians gone, although given their rather violent nature maybe they would have been more a potential enemy once they hit the space age than a potential ally. Who knows if any still persist in underground bunkers ending their history in the deep places of the world?
It would be very cool! At some point I believe it will be possible to colonize it given the proper technology, let see!
 
2216 - The Living Sea
2216 - The Living Sea

A new starbase, Berenice Station, was built in 43 Beta Comae Berenice. The system was renamed to Kepler and it will be exploited for the particularly high deposits of minerals and sources of energy credits. The Department of Space announced that Excelsior Station (Sirius system) and Calypso Station (Darwin System) will be upgraded to better help and support the local plans for colonization.
In the Darwin system, the colony ship USV Mistley (Tabora class, SSM-006) landed in an atoll on the oceanic planet previously discovered, effectively starting the colonization phase. The planet was renamed Horizon and in the following months a science team was stationed to continue the analysis of the “living ocean”, as described in 2208, since it caused emotions, visions and thoughts to people staring at it.

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In the weeks before the Mistley touch-down on Horizon, the Department of Research sent multiple messages to the Presidium addressing Paquette to halt the colonization operation at least after a full study on the mysterious ocean was performed. The matter was brought to the Federal Council that voted anyway to go forward with the colonization, especially after the Secretary of Economy expressed a lot of concerns regarding the investment that multiple megacorporations already did on the venture. The stop would have meant a sensible market crash with hundreds of credits simply “burnt” at the stock exchanges (talking about currency, in a federal citizen day to day life the unit of measurement used is the “pico”, that stands for pico-credit so one billionth part of a credit). Luckily at least, the local titanic fauna was confirmed to be docile, grazing the seas simply ignoring human ships.

Allison Baxter, the director of the Scientific Exploration Flotilla, was contacted one month after the Mistley touch-down by the commander of the USV Hawking, Estelle Warner, who requested her immediate transfer to the surface of Horizon to join the science team studying the ocean. Warner was the first to discover back in 2008 the weird behavior related to the water and she claimed that, since then, she was “hounded night and day by thoughts of the mysterious sea presence” insisting that there was, in fact a presence and these thoughts were induced in her head by it. Baxter knew Estelle Warner very well and decided to accept the request, thought keeping for herself Warner’s motives as they would have definitely undermined her credibility. Science Officer Anna Mayfield was promoted as the new Commander of the Hawking, which changes its captain after sixteen years. Publicly the change of Warner was justified by the willingness of Estelle to move to a more “relaxed” role within the Department of Research.

Baxter’s choice of having Estelle Warner on the planet revealed to be more than right, in fact Estelle led the team there to establish a “connection” with the living ocean. The team described the planetary sea as a Psionic Entity: its seemingly incorporeal state in fact belied a complex and coherent quantum wave structure that approximated a massive neural network. This paved the road for research into psionic theory, deepening the human understanding of the interactions between quantum states and consciousness.

The psionic theory itself defined the mind as a reflection of the universe, a microcosmos, that can potentially be reached by some species, and the ability of Estelle Warner to reach it means that humans can potentially be ready to unleash the full potential of it. As usual, the FIS (Federal Information Service) was called upon the discovery. The FIS itself was still coping with the previous years discoveries of the bird-alien and the still unknown to the public dimensional portal in Sirius Prime and suggested the President to disclose everything regarding the living sea “as fast as possible” since the planet was already populated by colonists. The Federal news channels reported the news promptly and many wondered what this new discovery could have led to, especially for the whole humankind.

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Again President Paquette, exhausted by these continuous revelations, had to address the federation citizens, which received the news not really aware of what that means and implies. The continuous shock however, led to an increase of suicides and depression cases amongst the federation in the last months of the year. The Department of Federal Affairs, especially the Federal Health Service, closely monitored the situation and reported to the heads of the United Systems that “citizens felt lost” as the very foundations of their knowledge about humans' place in the universe were constantly challenged. Religions, that saw a constant decrease along the centuries in terms of followers, saw a massive abandon rate during the event of these years.

Paquette herself endured a nervous breakdown in December that was covered up, she was anyway able to recover before the end of the year.
 
The focus on the final section here on the mental consequences of all these changes strikes me as very plausible, especially given current events.
 
Well such a collapse in previous stories of man and his place in the world, now there's an opening to craft a new story and identity in the midst of the new cosmos! It should prove exhilarating for those willing to take up the challenge!