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The tale begins with my starting colonist "Bear" (The leftmost of the pawns lined up near the ship). He was created with the prepare carefully mod. His main skills include research and construction and he is a moderate grower. I also gave him 2 strong traits to ease the difficulty, sanguine and industrious. The beginning of the playtrough consisted mostly of securing heat and then rushing batteries and hydroponics. Bear wasn't alone for too long though because right before completing hydroponics a wanderer joined. She is a programmer named Bonfire (Second from the left). She is quite the talented individual as besides the researching capabilities she also has a great passion for animals and modest interest in crafting and medical. Together with his newly found comrade Bear successfully completed the hydroponics set up and a constant farming for rice began.
As the two of them got a stable source of food the next project was making it edible, as they were close to running out of packaged survival meals. There were no cooks in sight so there was only one glorious option left. The nutrient paste dispenser was built and the two could enjoy the fine green paste to their hearts content. The next step was securing more building materials for the compound as there was absolutely nothing but ice on the map. The answer was trading and it needed to be the orbital kind because of the infrequent trade caravans on the sea ice. For this they needed to get their hands on an orbital trade beacon and a comms console. The days flew by researching for microelectronics and growing with the small occasional raids, which were mostly dealt with the harsh temperature and Bear's trusty charge rifle when needed.
When the day finally came and the secrets of microelectronics were uncovered the two had accumulated enough steel from smelting steel slag chunks that they could construct the needed equipment. As Randy had been generous with random drop pods there were quite a bit of miscellaneous items to sell for raw building materials. Marble and Granite were gradually bought by the thousands and "The Compound" was gradually rising from seemingly nothing. As the small colony grew visitors started to come by and enjoy the nothingness of the sea ice (Seriously tho why would anyone visit a plane of ice). To this the newly named "pole people" responded with selling yao to the visitors,... and taking it right back after they collapse on the ice trying to leave the map before freezing to death. The accumulation of bodies from both raiders and guests together with the great conditions for preserving them inspired the two body dumps near the "lake".
The colony planned on a small scale industry from "collecting" everything from these otherwise useless bodies. So every once in a while Bear went to the dump and "collected" some nutrients and useful textile which Bonfire turned into beautiful hats. These hats and the yao produced became the cornerstone of the colony's economy. After prospering for a while raids became increasingly harder and mechanoids started to show up by foot and from crashed ships. A more refined defense was required. Bear planned out an outer perimeter wall with an opening on the other side of the lake. That way raiders would funnel into the lake where they would move slowly and be easier to hit. In addition to the funnel Bear constructed turrets and added sandbags for cover, both for the turrets and him and Bonfire. The newly constructed killbox worked as intended and raids where manageable for a while longer.
The colony's population wouldn't stay as two for too long. A group of huskies joined the colony from out of nowhere from which only two where left alive (sea ice rules). Bonfire named them "Snow" and "Ice" and their job in the colony would consist of hauling. After the huskies were trained and ready to go they tackled on the gruesome job of hauling the bodies of an immediate raid that just finished. While hauling Bonfire spotted a promising raider downed in the ice cold water of the lake. His name is Urian (Middle one). He is an excellent grower with also a great passion for cooking. "No more paste!", was the driving force of capturing and trying to recruit this man. After being successfully recruited by bear, Urian made himself at home in a room adjacent to the freezer. There he spent his days cooking fine meals when he didn't work at the hydroponics bay. A while after Bear and Bonfire decided to get married. Oh wait, nope they immediately broke up and from now on they where ex lovers. Still liked one another after that though so social fights weren't a problem.
Once the mechs started to use drop pods, Bear began the work of fortifying the compound both indoors and outdoors. This meant adding more doors for cover and turrets in almost every room. The outdoors area between the perimeter wall and the main structure was filled with turrets and sandbags where added for cover wherever needed. One day an animal handler ship flew into orbit and they had a pair of megasloths for sale. Bear thought that they would make a fine addition to the indoors defense to counter drop pod raids. On top of that their wool makes a hell of a parka. Bear didn't have any doubts when he bought the pair and Bonfire got to work to taming the beasts. Bonfire the programmer had played way too much osrs and named the two "Unit" and "Gf". Later on two other megasloths were born with the more tame names "Grill" and "Unit.Jr"
As the colony had progressed this far a special drop pod landed on the ice. Bear's sister Katie (second from the right) had crash landed and was severely injured. As the colony's main doctor, Bonfire took a few units of industrial medicine and sprinted to the crash site where she patched the worst of katie's wounds on site. Katie was brought back to the colony's recently built hospital wing, where she made a full recovery and decided to join her brothers colony. She isn't the best pawn but has some interest in art, which she practices as her main job. Eventually she became quite good at sculpting and made many notable works that were placed all over in the colony. The finest works where placed in the rec / dining room and the hydroponics bay.
As the time flew by all sorts of improvements were made in the compound and some new discoveries were made (more mods), like that you can actually fish in the sea, who would have thought?. The docks were built and additional equipment were added to the laboratory. Eventually Bear started thinking about building a space ship and actually leaving this planet. A space ship needs a reactor, which attracts raiders and mechs. Because of this Bear thought about counter measures to last the inevitable days of fighting. He came up with two.
Strengthen the defenses even more. At this point the lake was already watched by dozens of turrets, of which a respectable number were big auto cannons and even bigger uranium slug turrets. A second perimeter wall had also been added to counter sappers with strategical openings combined with mines&deadfall traps.
Build an army of bionic soldiers.
Bear decided on executing both plans. Though the bionic soldier army part was only partly a success. During the following human raids Bear was on the lookout for a good specimen for his clone army. After a while he found a woman named "Vanessa" (The rightmost of the pawns) among a downed tribal raid. She is an expert shooter with a minor passion for melee. She also has the though and nimble traits which makes her a formidable soldier. Her recruitment process was swift and Bear began the process of cloning her while Bonfire manufactured bionics. Vanessa was "stored" in a cryptosleep casket in the hospital. That way she didn't eat the colony's food and didn't need a proper bedroom. After a while Vanessa was given all the bionic parts possible and she became a damn good soldier.
Unfortunately a badly timed solar flare cut the current in the whole base, including the laboratory. The cloning vat where Vanessa's clone resided began to quickly deteriorate as a consequence of the power shortage. Bear couldn't reach the vat in time to maintain it and the clone died. At that point the clone had been growing for a long time and Bear couldn't see himself waiting for another clone to escape this planet. Bear begun the construction of the ship. All the other preparations where complete. The whole colony had a set of strong thrumbofur clothing, marine helmets and the flak amour the could squeeze under their thick parkas. They had a food stockpile to last them several weeks. They had all the drugs they needed to last the nightly raids and the really tough ones that would require go-juice. As the ship was complete Bear begun the reactor startup. The countdown sat at 15 days. The colony of Pole People was ready.
The following days were rough with a non-stop onslaught of mechanoids and human raids (since the rector was activated during summer when the temperatures allowed human raiders). The Turret-wall by the lake took heavy damage many times and needed constant maintenance. Once a heavy mechanoid raid managed to start a chain reaction of turret explosions on the southern end which took out a good chunk of the bottom turrets. This was normally prevented by some forward turrets on bridges that took most of the damage during raids but that time they were all destroyed and couldn't protect the main line. Thanks to a breather between raids bear and the colonists managed to fix the turrets before the next raid.
During the later stage of the onslaught a devastating mech-drop pod raid hit the compound. It had two centipedes in it with a mix of lancers and scythers thrown into the mix. The indoors area of the compound had always been a weak spot in the colony. This time the animal front took heavy casualties. The colony's hauler huskies Snow and Ice both got severe injuries that would soon lead to their deaths (Death rattle mod). There was nothing to be done but Bonfire didn't want to see them die as they had bonded with her over the years. The colony made the decision to partially save them by dragging them over to the cryptosleep caskets over at the hospital and freezing them to an eternal deep slumber. Bonfire didn't take it lightly but it was better than letting them die. The others comforted her and said that maybe someone in the future can find them and have the power to save them.
And so the day came. The full 15 days of onslaught were now only a memory to the Pole People. The frequent raids ended as the startup completed and the ship stood ready waiting for it's passengers. Bear had decided to leave the megasloths behind, as they needed a lot of food to be kept alive and they couldn't manage those amounts onto the ship. The time had come for the colonists to grab their best gear, food and medicine and head to another (hopefully glitter) world.