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| The settlement, shortly before takeoff |
In the end, the lynxes of Rimworld were by far the worst. Barbarian raiders, pirates and mechanoids couldn't compete with the awesome destructive power of a prowling pack of scaria-enraged lynx foes. One of my colonists was stranded, as is so often the way, outside the settlement walls when the pack emerged, and in his flight back to safety managed to let the entire enraged furry crew inside to prey on my panicked crew. One by one the defenders fell, until there were more comatose wounded than survivors able to carry them to the blood-drenched sickbay. After a grim night of fighting grievous lynx wounds seven colonists had died, thereby halving my contingent. Not to be satisfied with this loss, the devastating effect of losing her husband to the lynx's claw meant my mild-mannered researcher Cathy suffered a psychotic incident and frantically stabbed one of her comatose compatriots to death in the medical ward. (Bit of an overreaction if you ask me, and hardly very neighbourly).
All par for the course in the chaos of this sci-fi survival game, of course, and part of the rich tapestry of story-telling the game creates with its twists and turns. And for this playthrough the lynxes weren't even the most poignant incident. That came near the endgame, as hordes of raiders and mechanoids threw themselves at the settlement to attempt to steal the precious starship my colonists had painstakingly constructed. A troupe of raiders was preparing to assault from one corner of the map, while a clanking cohort of mechanoids lurked in the other extreme of the map. To draw the raiders into an unprepared attack, three of my colonists grabbed sniper rifles and ventured outside to soften up the enemy. This proceeded according to plan until one lucky shot winged my captain of the guard, Karlsen the Defector. Despite his gleaming Marine Armour, the minigun-wielding trooper was crippled by a lucky raider bullet, suffering a cruel wound to his leg. At that moment, the mechanoids commenced their attack, so the remainder of the colonists had to retreat inside the settlement walls. Karlsen, alas, was too slow to reach safety, and was abducted by the wicked raiders, to be taken to an unknown fate of presumed imprisonment.
Karlsen no doubt rues the day his compatriots fled the harsh Rimworld backwater for the safety and new opportunities of interstellar space, leaving him to his fate. Sorry old bean!
