I still don't think it's an Ether Jet, especially since I haven't encountered one (I think) outside of enemy warp ins, and even so, my scientists are well guarded.
Hmm, I guess since the "missing" points are actually additional points, this would be better titled "where did my new brains come from?"
Still odd though. Might have been that a science ship lost earlier may have gone off on its own (I've had this happen a couple times, but very rare and not for a while) and gotten its self killed at Oorye while I was managing my tele-bats - bear in mind I move my science stations, mobile builders and the 10 engineers as a single group at all times so an erroneous command to the group for Oorye would have lost them all.
HMm.. what's so cool 'bout me playstyle? Seems pretty straight forward to me.