The second generation of the colony walked a week before running
out of food. They found some promising rocks that could be dug
into and used as a defensive barrier around the base. Since the
ideology of "The Forest" forbade cutting trees for any reason,
digging a mountain base made most sense. The other option would
have been to dig the trees up and replant them before building
houses.
After a day of digging, Yuyu the Jedi Master lost her mind and
was going to cut up fellow colonists. The colony guards had to
shoot her down, and unfortunately she died immediately. Everyone
understood that she was overcome by grief after losing such a
large amount of friends and family who had to be left behind
in the old base as we peregrined north. We buried her outside
the cave and placed her monosword on the gravestone, as the
persona living inside the weapon would not let anyone else
wield it.
The funeral reminded me of what happened to Purple, the Forest
Keeper, in the first generation base. The pig clan had attacked
during the night, falling in through the bedroom roof into the
barracks. Purple had his own room in the back of the barracks,
so he couldn't get out in time. He held the pigs distracted
while the younger and more vulnerable members ran out and got
the rest of the base organised to counter the raiders. No one
else died that night, thanks to Purple.
The people of the Forest had a distaste for using high tech
weaponry. In a way this was the reason Purple died, since he was
armed only with a bow. The second generation of the cult were more
formidable warriors, being genetically modified to be covered with
fur and having some quite powerful nanotech implanted. For some
reason the Forest has nothing against body modding, even thought
they have some other rather tricky ideas. They also have nothing
against taking slaves and extracting their genes against their
will. Thats how we got the fur genes. After creating a little
team of squirrel-like people who run fast when not wearing clothes,
we gave them jump packs and the best bows we could craft. Whenever
there's a mech raid, we make them the EMP team, even though
they are not happy with the industrial tech.
The other cult sharing the colony with the Forest is a more high
tech one. This is the cult of the Jedi. They fight with the
ultratech melee weapons, wearing shield belts for defence against
bullets and other projectiles. Their cult is more mellow with
the rules and has made a large amount of compromises to accomodate
the Forest. Originally the Jedis were islamic, but it's not very
clear what they are anymore. They even techically allow sex
outside marriage, but no one has yet tested that limit.
The Jedis don't actually learn powers like they do in the
Star Wars. These Jedis have to earn them. The high tech faction on
this planet is called the Grey Empire, and they give out royal
titles along with powers. The spiritual leader of the Jedis, also
known as Father Jedi, got something like six promotions, giving him
a huge amount of mental tricks he could pull up in a battle. Things
like teleport a person into a random location nearby, stun people,
raise stones from the ground to create a wall. These powers
eventually got him killed. And I think that's sort of what got Yuyu
killed as well.
Before we left, we made the Father call the Grey Empire and change
the heir to his title. It used to be his wife, Enna, but we were
not going to take either of them with us. We needed to have the
powers, though. So, he changed the heir to Kod, a young but
promising Jedi. Enna was not happy about that, but she was even
less happy when there was an accident during a routine operation
and Father was left cold on the operating table while we gathered
the pet panthers and the pack elephants and left.
As we waded north, we kept getting some random messages from
the long range scanners of the base, reporting findings of
plasteel. It was a bug. The base was not trying to contact us.
The only person who had been intelligent enough the operate the
scanner was Father.
The walk was hard. One of the ladies was on her last trimester
and actually gave birth during the journey. We named the child
Road Kid. He is one of the true hybrids, not like that squirrel
gang, who actually don't pass their genes on, having only done
superficial gene implantation.
Now it's been a couple of years in the new base. We have fought
off a few mech invasions and some insect infestations and the
base is doing real well. We found technology that allows us
build little helper robots that do the heavy lifting in the
warehouse and the hospital. They clean up too!
Even though the move was hard, and we lost Master Yuyu, things
have settled down now. One of the selection criteria for the
crew was that they all have to get along with each other. That
made us leave that rascally adopted neanderthal kid behind.
He got on everyone's nerves and was fighting like all the time.
We basically left all the old and annoying people behind. Besides,
most of them had lost an arm or a nose in the first gen base
battles, and that just won't do. Ineffective and not pretty to
look at. Matter of fact, we got everyone a plastic surgery
before leaving for our big walk. It turns out that the prettier
the colonists, the better they get along with each other.
I've been sick for a couple of weeks
with a flu. Been really getting into
Rimworld's new DLC "Biotech". It was
a great game before, but now it feels
complete.
