2022-12-05 ------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------