-Heads up, this story is a little long. I appreciate anyone who reads it though! :D
It all started with a Yayo farm playthrough on Pheobe Chillax, Rough. I use minimal quality of life mods like EDB Prepare Carefully and Expanded Prosthetics. The idea was to use Yayo to acquire silver and buy my way to a spaceship. Chef, Medic and Brains started with 30 survival meals, 3 revolvers, and 5 medicine. Each were created with EDB Prepare Carefully to be fairly balanced but totally capable of carrying on without the other two. Little did I know, this would be put to the test within the first three years of starting the colony.
Chapter 1 - Genesis
~The complex came together slowly in the first year. I built my core buildings in stone and my secondary buildings in wood to save time and resources (and for story flavor). Once the power started flowing I got my research started with pemmican for missions/emergencies, solar panels for versatile power sources, and batteries to guarantee my fridge stays cold. I also mapped out and started small batches of Yayo to start saving silver.
~Raids were manageable, herbal medicine replaced the beginning reserves and illness didn't set me back too far. If only 1 pawn was well I would refrigerate my harvest until all three could process the Yayo. Things were going pretty well, there was a trickle of cash and I was finding most of what I needed, I relaxed into focusing on research between harvests and finally decided to take on some new pawns.
Chapter 2 - Growth
~First was Lumpy. Funny name for a female pawn, not super skilled, ugly, but not incapable of any tasks so I take her in. She can harvest and process Yayo and help with cleaning and hauling. She almost immediately falls in love with Medic and they soon have a wedding. 4 people gathered in that chow hall that day. This was probably the happiest my colony would ever be. Chef is getting rebuffed by Lumpy but things are good so this isn't an immediate problem. I start a barracks for my worker bees when we get our second pawn.
~Squint is another pretty average pawn, incapable of social but you don't need that to work in the fields so I take her in. Little did I know, Squint would be the crux of this story. I end up rescuing a pawn running from pirates, can't remember her name so I'll call her Susan. Susan can't fight but that's fine. My research has granted my 3 main pawns Assault Rifles so I pass on the revolvers to the ladies. Things are finally starting to plateau out when the first major turn in the story begins.
~I'm turning around about 400 Yayo per harvest and I have a small brewery that I'm not focused on producing a surprising 100-150 beer each run. I'm giving away a ton of drugs because I'm taking all the silver from traders and turning it into sterile tiles, furniture, sculptures, anything to keep it from being liquid cash. One day I get an event with the (relationship) tag. It's Squint's Father and he's being chased by the pirate band. Things are getting a little too easy so I take it on even though it looks like it will be quite a fight.
~As her father enters the map I spend a lot of time considering his bio before switching to the gear tab and seeing Luciferium. Not thinking too much about it I have him drop it and immediately forbid it. (A more experienced player may have taken a second to check his medical tab...) The raid is fun and a little challenging. Because of the layout of the base I have plenty of fall back locations to take cover so we basically engage and kite towards the center, keeping the fastest most skilled colonists in the fight the longest and the rest only engaging when necessary. The melee pirates fall pretty quick while the grenadiers start taking chunks of my walls.
~A few injuries inspires me to build a hospital, by now I have a full complex with prisoner quarters, a hospital, and land available for livestock. My fields are healthy and only one blight has come and gone. Squint is rude but she works just as hard as anyone, Squint's father works slowly but is the only other colonist capable of growing Yayo (Plants skill 6 or higher). Medic and Lumpy constantly give each other positive mood bumps and Susan quietly enjoys a luxurious life as the least productive worker bee on a well protected Yayo farm. Everything is fine until one fateful night.
Chapter 3 - Stumble
~"Medical Emergency" the alert reads, it's Squint's father. He's having a Luciferium withdrawal and he's at 47%. I immediately have my main pawns drafted and watch over him while he's in the field. He finishes his task without problem but I decide it's probably best if I contain him. The arrest goes well, no one has any mood penalty about it. When the withdrawal comes to a head, he snaps and starts attacking the steel door containing him. Against my better judgement I risk my main pawns beating him down and laying him back into his prison bed. The last couple of herbal medicines are far too valuable to me to use them on anesthesia so I patch up his bruises and prepare for the second sparring match by building a sturdier door. Within a week he snaps again and starts banging on the new sandstone door. This time I'm putting Squint between my main pawns and this lunatic. Squint stands at the door and as it finally crumbles. She's forced to pull her revolver and fire six rounds at the man who brought her into this world... (I thought this was particularly flavorful, emptied her revolver). Finally her father falls in front of her, the rage draining from him just as quickly as his life. He dies and I have Squint build his sarcophagus. She has the highest art skill and the quality turns out excellent. (The scene is something like her father working the fields while 9 expressionless meerkats look down on him or some Yayo induced dream like that.)
~Squint spends the next couple of weeks understandably in a funk. She hasn't snapped because things are still good on the farm but I'm watching it closely and letting her have a beer or smokeleaf joint every now and then to take the edge off. I take on some of the muffalos from the map and end up buying chickens from a tribal merchant. Now, on top of the very lucrative drug business, I can expand my pawn's diets and prepare us for colder weather should I need to leave the current tile. I also build a tailoring complex to keep everyone in nice devilstrand clothes. The summers are often between 95 and 100 so everyone is better equipped to deal with the heat.
Chapter 4 - Descent
~A rescue mission comes in with the "Relationship" tag. This time it's Squint's husband. I'm excited to give her a second chance at happiness so I load up my three main pawns and a muffalo for a tour including the rescue mission, trading, and a prisoner rescue quest. They arrive to where he is with no incident. When I enter the map, Harman is laying in the middle of a field with minimal injuries. Medic approaches quickly while Chef and Brains stand guard. It's quiet.... too quiet... Suddenly! nothing happens... I whip up a temporary structure and get Harman back to walking while we collect berries to munch. Of course Chef gets food poisoning so I decide we will count our blessings and just get Harman back to the farm.
That's when it happens. That's when it all falls apart.
~"Psychic Ship" is the alert. I know these can be dangerous but I'm only a half a day out so I switch to my farm to see where it is. The psychic ship lands next to my brewery and starts a fire. Although we are able to put it out the three closest buildings to this thing are wood and my hops field is "fire" distance away. My second mistake of this play through was deciding to try and build a stone wall around the ship. I did not know this will awaken the bots. The massacre following was not quick or merciful. Two lancers and a scyther pop out and immediately start firing on my colonists. Squint fights hard and between her and Lumpy they take down a lancer. The scyther quickly takes down Lumpy, causing her to drop her assault rifle while the other lancer misses it's shot at Squint and starts a fire. Squint is downed the instant the scyther hits her, bleeding profusely while the two bots start to focus on Susan. Susan, incapable of violence is now in a nightmare. Her two fellow colonists are downed and a large fire is consuming the buildings around her. She sprints to the barn to hide but a scyther chases her in and dispenses of her. Squint comes to and picks up Lumpy's rifle, as she takes aim at the Lancer the scyther comes up behind her and delivers the killing blow.
~Susan, Lumpy, and Squint are dead, the fire is consuming my complex and the mechanoids have turned to slaughtering all of my livestock. By the time my main pawns arrive, there is little left to save, they defeat the mechanoids with few wounds but the troubles have only just begun. Harman is injured in the fight and there is no medicine in the colony. Medic patches him up and the three main pawns start the long arduous task of recovering.
The psychic ship has not been destroyed.
~The last two muffalos each go berserk in turn and attack my colonists, killing Harman and headbutting(?) off Medic's right leg. With only the three main pawns left, everyone is hurting emotionally and now all of the money I've worked so hard for seems useless sitting among the ashes and corpses. Eventually Chef, Medic, and Brains stabilize but each takes heavy mood penalties from the devastation. Expanded Prosthetics allows me to give Medic a decent leg to help him with movement, Chef snaps a couple times from the stress and Brains starts a couple of social fights.
Chapter 5 - Rock Bottom
~The colonists are each given sarcophagi, the facility is cleaned up and the Yayo replanted. Luck would find that the fridge was sparred in the attack, the other side of that coin is that the hospital was not. Just as I begin looking around the map for herbal medicine the final nail in the coffin is driven.
~Chef and Brains come down with Malaria. I have no Hospital to treat them in, no medicine to slow the disease. Medic has lost his wife while on a mission to rescue some one that would die to a crazed muffalo shortly upon returning home. He could stomach burying the dead, he could survive losing the business he had worked so hard to build, but this task... watching his closest friends succumb to disease... this task was far too much.
~There was only one option for Medic. Only one way to continue living. He would collect as much food as he could, say his final good byes, and climb into that transport pod to get as close as he could to the ship that help him leave this wicked place. Just as Chef and Brains drew their final breaths, the pod lifted into the air and ascended above the nearby mountain range. This place would become forgotten, time and nature would reclaim it. Only the doctor with one leg would know the story of the Small Yayo Farm.
Edit: Formatting and a friendly warning as to the length of the story.
Submitted January 21, 2019 at 01:54AM by wibery90 http://bit.ly/2U4AGJE
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