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You have decided to use your newfound supply of <span class="mu-i"><span class="mu-s">Azurium</span></span> to construct a heavy industrial base in another star system- Nan!
The Nan system's rich resources make it ideal for a spaceyard- especially considering its products don't need to be shipped to consumers or require a large labor pool- after all, they fly themselves home. But then again, you do have a labor pool in a way- the <span class="mu-s">Baalathi</span>! Their magnesis ability makes them ideal for manipulating Azurium; mixing it with other metals to keep down costs. With only a few magnetic signals, huge structures can be assembled by billions of Baalathi spore- essentially nanomachines. It is difficult to tell if the Baalathi here are doing this because they consider it their obligation to their Hegemonic conquerors, or if they simply do it because they have no thought process with which to choose what to do otherwise.
With the Nan shipyard built, you can now create and support a much larger military fleet of ships. The ability to easily dock and retrofit ships here has also allowed for an increased amount of ship specialization- your “one size fits all” exploration and defense ships may be going obsolete.
The newfound Azurium mine and construction has had a knock on effect on science and materials research. In a new discovery, the <span class="mu-i"><span class="mu-s">source</span></span> of Azurium has been discovered! While you still can't manufacture it yourself, it appears that Azurium only appears in a semi-natural process after a very long timescale, many billions of years at minimum, within planets and moons that are also very old. By this measure, it stands to reason that the <span class="mu-i">most likely</span> place to find Azurium deposits will be in planets and moons that are around very old stars- <span class="mu-i"><span class="mu-s">red giants and red dwarfs</span></span>.
But constructing this shipyard has also opened up your engineers to new possibilities when it comes to ships...
