There are still some hard limits on population that far from the core so it will take time for the Herotitus population to grow in a sustainable way. Its not like Mammoths or Behemoths loaded with colonists are just going to drop ten thousand people on world and leave empty.
A Mule or Monarch based colonization effort (side to the main trade of goods to the big boys) will bring in tens of thousand or so at most per year (300-500 on a Monarch, up to a hundred on a Mule or Danais).
An Olympus recharge station with 8 slots running full speed will transit almost 500 jumpships and consume almost 100 kilotons of hydrogen fuel (which with 50kWh/Kg hydrolysis is a very big number and that is without selling fuel to passerbys) per year which is pretty staggering actually. I probably will write a fun fan fic about that at some later time.
Since this universe is not as destructive, I was figuring the colonization/refugee fleets would be larger, allowing for more evacuation from threatened/failing worlds. Large population worlds would still be large, but the smaller worlds would be able to get more arrivals, as long as the arrivals could support themselves. As an example, Terra might still start at 12B, but refugees would drop it to ~7B rather than OTL ~6B. There would be more stellar combat, but slightly stronger shipyard support that is not destroyed. With more surviving shipyards there are more ships available to drop off passengers, preferably on a world that won't be a target and has plenty of room to absorb refugees. The death rate among those refugees might be fairly impressive, and lead to the main government visiting every few months to see if the new arrivals are dead yet, and grabbing their materials if they are.
For the recharge stations, I figured they were equipped with outsize solar sails, so even if the world had a star with a 300-hour recharge, the sail is ~66% larger than necessary so it can support all the transiting Jumpships and still provide a full charge every 175 hours. The real fun is that a station with an outsize sail and 8 Energy Storage Batteries, that would mean the whole sail is about 14 times the size of a Jumpship's sail.
Somewhat more seriously, Taurian (and even a little Canopian, in about that ratio) security will be fine. There will still be the handful of protestors just outside the gate with "Spheroids GO HOME!" signs all the time. They'll build snowmen to hold the signs overnight. And on "Hooray, the Star League is DEAD!" day? There will be a whole lot more protestors every year (but only on that day), with even more creative signs (e.g., "Remember Tentativa? WE DO!").
Completely seriously, the land provided for the ComPow facility will be on the other side of the Drop Port from the city (and the terminal, obviously). Abutting the Drop Port, in fact. One less flank to defend for Lothario's reduced militia, and that much more of a drive to access directly. Speaking of which, personnel debarking Drop Ships will have to go through the terminal on the city side before proceeding to the ComPow facility. If you want that road paved, there will be a cost... 
Also completely seriously: the minute the Lothians have barely enough organic power generation to tell ComPow to go home? They WILL!
Ah, but that is where the fun will happen. Building native power generation will take time and effort, while the ComPow facility will be providing power immediately (first from the Dropship, then from the reactor). You will eventually be able to build a multi-megawatt facility, but there will always be other buildings that need to be built, and all they need is just a quick hookup for a little bit of power from the ComPow reactor to handle their demand. We will never prevent you from building your own power plants, we will just make sure that you never have a need to build them.
And yes, personnel and equipment/material delays due to insufficient staff in the terminal will be written into the contract to add on to the time frame to assemble the reactor. If your personnel cause delays, that will cause contract breach. If your personnel provide materials that are not of sufficient quality, then delays until the quality material are delivered will cause contract breach. On the other hand, providing the necessary materials of the right quality would mean an extensive amount of currency and precious materials entering your economy, giving your government the funding for whatever it chooses.
For facility defense, we will be limiting ourselves to energy-armed vehicles, turrets, and infantry. This way if pirates attempt to attack our facility all of the weapons fire from our units will tend to go up into the air, rather than into your city. The fact that we have a giant power plant means all that energy weaponry is effectively unlimited in firepower. Similarly, there will be no ballistic or missile weaponry, as your city would serve as a backstop to those weapons.
For the J Edgar, you might just go with a third Flamer. Or instead of 3 Flamers, make it a Flamer, a Fluid Gun, and a tank of water. Lothario is an icy world, and spraying water over an invader's infantry would stop that attack really quickly. It would also serve as a fast response firefighting unit as needed.
I don't think many of these people have the technical manuals to repair their technology, let alone more of an understanding than Comstar, on Terra, does.
They don't need to understand all the data, they just need to get a copy to us. It can be bribing an operator inside the building, it can be someone sneaking in and using a basic computer system to copy the mainframe (as much as their little computer can handle), as long as ComPow gets a copy of the data.
Oh, and no, you're picking first! And you're only picking one, but you get a special, extra rare tech popping out of the Gacha-here, I'll give you the unique chance to take a tech nobody else can get. After else, with your huge cash infusion, you can do *original research*.
(snip very nice list)
I hate giving ComStar unique tech choices, but it's position as 'never really lost anything' does require me to put in the extra effort.
ComPow may not have lost anything, but other nations have a much bigger budget.
This is the project I want:
Project Traitorous Blessed Eight: The various computer firms of the old Hegemony are hemorrhaging workers-we can cream the best of them off, found a new company under the ComStar/Pow umbrella, and keep their genius to ourselves.
With computer scientists, we can use the existing systems to perform large-quantity number-crunching to achieve other goals. HPG systems can allow us to potentially send out multi-part problems to multiple computer systems at HPG facilities across the Inner Sphere, and the slightly higher power demands are met nicely by our existing reactor programs. By subdividing work like this we can run simulations of materials at multiple locations, only needing to pass around the subcategories of materials to the different HPG stations. Updates in knowledge of physical science can be sent around via HPG, and added to the existing databases present. A station that receives a request for 5000 different heavy calculations can take 1500 of them for itself, and pass on the other 3500 in chunks of 500 each to the seven other stations it is connected to. Those stations can then keep at least one third the data for themselves and pass smaller chunks on to their subordinates, etc. If a subordinate HPG finishes its chunk of data, it sends the result up and can request another chunk from its 'elder' HPG and work on that data. When an Elder starts running low on data, either due to its own calculations or from subordinates requesting data, it sends the result up and requests more chunks from its 'superior'. The central system on Terra archives the data and reports how many and which chunks of data have been processed so far. The key is to make sure we don't get recursive setups in the programs that tie up the systems and waste CPU time. (This would essentially be using HPGs to perform
Distributed Computing across computer systems in multiple star systems. Something that might take 2 months on Terra would only take a week if distributed across multiple other computers.)
We should also combine this with detailed system maps to allow for Pirate point jumps for our Jumpship fleet, to allow for faster recharge rates in unmanned or ComPow-controlled systems. The detailed system maps can be acquired from Explorer Corps operations and purchased from Interstellar Expeditions. Systems with an HPG already present can perform the calculations using local observations and send the data back to whichever HPG requested it.
They will also be used to train the next generation of computer scientists, so we do not lose their experience.
Most importantly, we can use their knowledge of computer systems to improve our communications and physical encryption systems to prevent anyone else from reading our transmissions.
(ComPow is currently centered on Terra, but by doing this correctly I can make ComPow a decentralized setup so it can shift anywhere in the galaxy if needed. If something happens to Terra, a few commands by an authorized user at any HPG facility will shift the center of the HPG network to anywhere the Primus wants. This is often used by a Precentor or above when thy have to travel across the Inner Sphere. They log their destination into the network, and estimated arrival time. They can log uploads into the network while traveling, allowing the system to trace their path. When they arrive at their destination they log in again, and all their files/email have already been transferred.)
Delayed projects, and reasons why:
Project Cameron - (OOC: this would likely let me find the
Helm Core, but in-character I don't know that). This can be continued with the data crunching through our existing databases, and by increasing our Explorer Corps operations. The Blessed Eight and River Rouge projects would be needed for it. (Capellan Confederation might go for this, as they have the Economic Supercomputer and could run a program on it to try and spot anomalies like this)
Project Helios - Advanced laser designs would serve admirably to improve our existing defenses at our power plants and HPG stations
Project Juttland - this improvement would start by using compact core freighters to test our abilities to construct large engines and the Compact KF cores, then install the weapons on designs that work. We can use the computer systems developed under the Blessed Eight program to further optimize weapon layouts by performing multiple scenarios against different ship types and mixes, to determine what fleet composition works better. This way we will have Warships that are proven effective, rather than just copying the existing designs because they have always been that way. We might want to run a project through the Technocrats' Economic Supercomputer to determine what should be the maximum cost for different sizes of compact core freighters before we actually build any for economic purposes. (The FWL might go for this as they have the extra shipyard that could be turned over to Compact Core research)
Project Maginot: We will need to set up some defense network, and this will allow us to have 'skilled' defenders with no training needed. Once they are set up we can use them to serve as an OpFor for our own forces to improve our own training programs.
Project Magnitogorsk - we should try and keep these facilities stable, as eventually we will be able to bring them online again. However the Endo-steel produced will likely need to be sold to the House Lords, and we will need to make sure that an equal amount is available to all five for first bids (i.e. if we have 5 kilotons of Endo-Steel, then each House Lord gets to purchase 1 kiloton worth. Any they cannot or will not purchase is then put up for auction). (FWL could try to develop this technology, as their extra orbital facilities for Jumpship production would pair well with this)
Project River Rouge - Although the option for an unlimited supply of XL engines is useful, we will soon have to sell these engines to the other Houses to keep them happy. (Lyrans might try to build their own version of this, as they already have the Auto-Factory tooling)
Project Tercio - the Houses already produce these vehicles in large quantities, so we would be attempting to enter existing markets with competitors already established. Similar to the plan for the Endo-Steel facility we would have to divide up our sales among the five House Lord equally, with only the remainder being placed on the auction. It could be useful as supplies for our own ComGuards though (FedSuns might go for this, as it will also benefit the Outback region)
Project Tesla - this could be useful for local battery systems to handle surges/brownouts faster than the existing flywheel setups we use. With batteries there is no need to worry about a multi-kiloton flywheel spinning out of its cradle due to half a square centimeter of off-balance friction. Yes, I was there when it happened. It was a very interesting day. (Draconis might go for this as it will provide power backup and stabilization while remaining calm and quiet)
Very low priority:
Project Marshal - Those robots are already produced on Dustball. Don't ask again until you can give a child-friendly demonstration
Project Muller - Although this may pay off in benefits for better artillery weapons, we are not interested at this time as it will impose an additional logistic strain on any military forces we deploy.
Project Polymorph - although it is tempting to combine this with Warship tech, there will be no SDF-1 at this time
Project Ying-Yang - as tempting as it would be to attempt to create Germanium spheres used to HPG-pulse antimatter charges to destroy targets up to 50 ly away, we currently have to pass. (The antimatter would be fed into the sphere, the ship sends a pulse through the sphere, and the antimatter is sent to the destination coordinates. The antimatter arrives shredded, but it is still antimatter. Sorry about that space station, city, or Castle Brian. And this is from a mobile ship that could be anywhere within 50 ly). This will require advanced development of HPG and KF technology, so even if we started now it would not pay off for decades. We would also need a sufficiently mobile platform to mount it on, necessitating Warship development.
