For those who come after us, or find us. We awoke during the crash, screams of the dying as their stasis pods went into emergency activation mode and then being burning up in the atmosphere. Only three survived. We quickly took stock of our surroundings saluting our fallen shipmates and immediately carved into the nearby mountain side for protection from the rain. Luckily those damn space potatoes can survive a nuclear holocaust and we immediately began planting them into the earth, luckily this planet has breathable atmosphere and we're not sucking arsenic or some god awful gas. Two weeks later we have solar farms set up and a couple of beds, as well as a nutrient dispenser. That god awful machine of nutrition, sludge for everyone I guess. The local natives must have heard the supersonic roar as we made our arrival, they just showed up, just out of the history books loincloths and long bows with primitive social skills. No help there. One month later it seems that their is advanced life left in this sector of the galaxy, and it hates us, a loan scout, luckily we quickly dispatched him and spread the clothes around since it seems the equipment locker burned up in the atmosphere and we've been naked this whole time. Now with something between our bare backs and the piercing sun something in our bellies its time to start preparing for the long hall, we name our settlement Lichvielle. Several days later our engineer promises that he can set up a communication station with some time, a lil' metal, and a prayer. We've made contact with some friendly spacers who we traded all of our wood for some silver, food, and a couple of first aid kits.
Month three, we finished smoothing the floor and setting up the bedrooms and dining area, a little civility for this god forsaken rock, feels good and everyone's spirits are up. We made contact with scum, a slaver who we out of the pity in our hearts purchased his entire stock, unfortunately the new crew showed up with 'naught but their skin. More raiders. We finally were able to cloth everyone, unfortunately Claire, the janitor lost her whole left leg and just stays in bed staring at the wall, eyes semi-glazed over, at least she's responsive when spoken too. We decided our only chance is to start from scratch and engineer our way off this rock. A secure stone courtyard was immediately set up and the groundwork was laid down for the Clairise.
Year one, what started off as three survivors has become a small community of 12 pulling together to return to life and civility, we have progressed to internal hydroponics, home cooked meals every day, two geothermal plants to supplement our energy reserves, and enough battery backup for two weeks of continuous use--a month if we ration it. Unfortunately the pirates of deemed us their number one target and we had to set up six mortars on a near continuous bombardment of their siege camps, with two defensive lines set up with automated turrets. Those turrets still disturb all of us those mindless killing machines. Fortunately everyone is fully dressed even if their are holes in most of the jackets, at least those armored vest are more useful to use than to them. Blue, our engineer, assures everyone that he has figured out most of what we need to rebuild a spacefaring vessel, all we need is to get our hands on an AI core to safely navigate the stars while we slumber.
Year two, what must have been the command portion of our ship has entered that atmosphere, and it appears that all that time in space has turned Rebecca our once friendly AI into the demoness from hell. She whispers insanities day in and night from the smashed portion of her hull out in the wilderness, Blue tells us that she has a large contingent of defense drones under her control and the moment we approach her they will activate. A plan is laid out, her hull piece lays near a geothermal vent, we are to harness this energy and setup a firing nest supported by smattering of defense turrets and the fire of our mortars. Her whispers increase...driving everyone closer to the brink, we must strike now or I fear everyone may abandon hope and be drawn into her lair. Day one of the siege, we begin bombardment with EMP, incendiary, and standard explosive rounds, the second the rounds go off out spills seven scyther class assault drones with five centipede class destroyers. We open up with both of our mini-guns, the r4 plasma launchers, lmgs, and snipers begin popping off. Three days later we've fallen back with near everyone wounded under fire, burns missing arms, guts and blood spilling everywhere. Half way through the assault a pod with eight more centipedes dropped near on-top of our front lines destroying the geothermal plant powering the turrets forcing us to fall back. Luckily no one died, but Rebecca's power grows her whispers are near seductive in their maddening embrace, Luke begins screaming for them to stop. We all fear that our time may be growing short we have but a few days left. Carlos, our pacifist medic patches everyone up to the best of his ability and we renew our bombardment and ready a second assault. We sprint out. Falls of explosive death come hurdling in, trees burst into flames, we encroach every nearer. Luke and Loreign open up with their mini-guns pinning down those damnable bots and everyone rushes in firing burst after burst, John goes down bleeding out and Carlos gets his brains blown out trying to rescue him, however Lynda manages to dodge in and grab him. Success! Three mortar rounds land straight on the hall and it cracks and blows to pieces, we haul ass back to the base. Those mechs follow us in, we manage to catch them in a cross fire between our remaining turrets and those who can still fight. Victory. The crops have been untended, everyone is wounded, and the best doctor is crow food, starvation runs rampant. Luckily a muffalo wonders in close and we are able to pick him off, butchered and devoured in less than a day, however the shot in the arm of nutrients gives everyone the morale to pull through until the potatoes begin flowing back in. With Rebecca successfully tamed and installed we drag ourselves onboard the Clairise.
She won't go, Claire, the one who originally dreamed up this plan won't go, she just lies in bed telling us to leave her, that its not worth it, she'll be here when we send rescue. We try. Two weeks of arguing and she won't leave the bed, and the raiders are back. More than ever almost 30 of them out their we can hear the gunfire as they exchange cross fire with our turrets and the muffled explosions as they detonate, they are getting closer. Our food supplies are running low with the power fluctuating wildly as they being setting fire to the solar farms, our batteries are nearly depleted and we have to keep cycling power to the remaining turrets as the raiders grow closer and closer, we hug Claire leave a lmg by her side and run to the heavily fortified hangar where our mortars continue firing, we launch one last salvo and everyone crams into their sleeper tube, we close our eyes and glimpse as Claire fires one last burst from her lmg before being set ablaze and then shot in the face and we launch into space. Rebecca whispers into our ears as we begin to slumber...you're mine.
Ooh, very nice. Good story, good ending.
That must have been a scary moment when mechs spilled out of Rebecca's hull, and when more dropped down from the floating wreckage. What kind of "passenger" ship were you guys on anyway??
EDIT - Welcome to the Rimworld forum!
That was a great story!
I didn't even read it! But I might eventually!
Have fun with the game OP! Looks like you got the hang of most of this if you can last longer than a year.
I was pretty certain I was SOL when all those additional mechanoids spawned, and since I had designated my siege base (and they landed on the other side of my prepared sandbags and turrets) as a home base I had the good fortune of "mechaniods have landed in the middle of your base and are assaulting immediately!" That was most certainly the most harrowing moment other than that even the final assault by the raiders as I was packing everyone up wasn't too bad I had 20 or so turrets spread across two separate defensive lines and only one entrance. But man those mechanoids nearly killed me wounding so many...that was brutal the only time I considered save scumming and trying to force a different assault, even if they were still mechaniods but spawned on the other side of the map I could have finished up the crashed pod then just grabbed the core and turtled up.