In my previous post, Settling an unknown Ocean World, I detailed my build for @exodenews' second Planetary Challenge, The Baldie Challenge, and explained why I made the decisions I did. Now that the results are in, let's see how I did!
As a reminder, I used the Navy Lieutenant as my Origin, had Eisen Suits in my equipment slot, and had the following crew and cargo:
Now lets see how this build performed and what rewards I earned along the way.
Note: All of the following story content was written by @khazrakh over the past week and is collected here for completeness only. The links to each day's post can be found at the bottom of this page.
Introduction
Everything seemed to be so easy at first. You were on a routine mission in the Tauri System, tasked with the acquisition of additional colonization supplies for your colony ship - the Colombus. Suddenly, everything happened so very fast. It was mere minutes from reports of unknown ships entering the sector, to reports of open hostility, and finally to desperate pleads for help. You don't know where they came from, you don't know why they attacked, but what you do know is that the aliens obliterated most human colonies and space stations within a blink of an eye.
Yet, you were lucky. The first wave of alien attacks didn't target the remote space station that your Baldie Shuttle was docked at. Even better, the Colombus made it out of the onslaught alive as well. With their own destination just outside of your hyperdrive's reach, they transmitted coordinates of an unexplored star system within your engine's range.
Just when you started to upgrade your hyperdrive, the alien armada began their attack on Tauri as well. With only a few minutes to go, you scrambled what you could and made the jump to safety. With its small cargo hold and tiny crew, your Baldie made it to the other side of the universe. If everything goes well, the Colombus will pick you up in 90 days. Until then, you'll have to find a way to survive. With that in mind, you take a look at your options available for colonization.
There are several celestial bodies within the habitable zone of the star system: An Ocean world orbited by a moon and a large Asteroid, seemingly on the same orbit as the planet but on the opposite side of the system. You do a quick scan of each astronomical object and go over the findings:
The Ocean world seems to be almost entirely made up of water with only some tiny islands dotting the southern hemisphere. The planet seems to have a breathable nitrogen oxygen atmosphere and the average temperature seems to be at around 30°C at days, falling just below 10°C at night. With your Baldie's simple scanners, you don't have any means of scanning the oceans for life but the islands seem to be uninhabited.
The moon is devoid of any atmosphere and its surface seems to be made up of rock entirely. From your first observation, temperatures fluctuate between -150°C and +100°C, depending on whether it's day or night. It does have some gravity, but only roughly 33% of what you are used to. Something is special about the moon though. On the northern pole, there are several partly destroyed buildings of alien design. Whoever built them seems to be long gone, but it seems like this moon was once home to a small alien outpost.
Finally, the asteroid seems to be in a stable orbit just across the system - something tells you that it's almost too perfect to be a natural occurrence. It's too small for an atmosphere or gravity but it seems to be made up of a mixture of rare metals and earths. As with the moon, the temperature varies heavily, although the same side of the asteroid seems to be facing the sun at all times. It is perforated with tunnels that may or may not be of natural origin. Because of its dense components, your sensors are only able to scan the outer layers of the asteroid.
A New Home (Initial Landing)
The Ocean World looked like the perfect candidate for a temporary colony. With its lush climate and a breathable atmosphere, it seemed to be the obvious choice to wait out the arrival of the Colombus. Out of the possible islands, the largest one (which still was rather small) was chosen for landing.
While picking the landing site was rather easy, actually getting the Baldie on the ground was not. As an interstellar shuttle, it was never designed to land on a planet without any guiding system. To add insult to injury, sudden gusts of wind made the autopilot refuse to work. If you wanted to make it to the surface alive you had to land the Shuttle yourself...
Landing on a lovely planet with the engine intact and without being shot at? To Tyron this seems to be almost too easy. The landing process is smooth and simple and before you know it the Baldie reaches the ground without any issues. After a final check of your systems, you start to unpack your cargo and to install your Prefabs.
Result of Encounter:
- No damage taken - well done Captain!
- Colony Health remaining: 100
Getting Comfortable (Days 1-15)
After landing on the planets largest island, you quickly began to setup your makeshift colony. You didn't plan on staying here permanently, but 90 days can be a long time trapped on a lonely island. You spent your first days installing your prefabs and checking on the cargo you brought with. The planet may have a breathable atmosphere but you still needed to make sure you had enough food and water to survive until the Colombus picked you up.
Thanks to Soup and Cook your colony will be well supplied for a while. Combined with the food and water from the Baldie, you expect to cover about 2 months until you'd need food or water from the planet. Your Energy is also going to last almost as long as it will take the Colombus to pick you up. With these numbers, you are pretty confident to make it to the end and Eliza and the rest of the crew will have more than enough time to come up with a solution for the last month.
Result of Check-Up:
- You are set for now
- Colony Health remaining: 100
With your colony finally established, you begin to explore your new island home. Although it's the biggest piece of land you scanners found, it still only has a size of roughly 30 square kilometres. Most of the island is made up of a dense alien forest with huge trees. Oddly enough, there are almost no branches or leaves for the first 10-15 metres.
After some days of exploring, you were positive that there are no land animals present on the whole island. The ocean though seems to be blooming with life. All kind of different fish and crustaceans can be found close to the beaches. You seemed to be safe on the island for now and your crew got together in your colony to discuss everything you've found on the island...
While everybody in your crew agrees that the island is really beautiful, none of them has ever been in an actual wilderness. None but Eliza that is. More than once she warns Tyron not to blindly eat these tasty looking blue berries and without her words of caution, Norah would have already picked up that funny colored snail. If something looks tasty, it's probably poisonous. If something looks cute, it probably wants to kill you! she keeps explaining. You don't have any means of catching fish other than shooting at them, so you decide to stick with the fruits and berries you can collect on the island.
Eliza goes on to sample and categorize all plants on the island. Most of them have a pretty poor nutrition value and some are even highly poisonous. Others are safe to eat and having some local fruits for dinner is a welcome variety to the daily Soup and Cook. Eliza even manages to distill some drugs out of some of the poisonous berries. It seems they can be used to greatly increase wound healing. You hope that you'll never need to use them, but it's always best to be prepared.
Your Friendly Eyes also is greatly helpful for exploring the island from the air. With its advanced sensors you even manage to locate an underground source of fresh water close to your colony. Getting to the water is no problem at all and with that, you are now set to easily survive until the Colombus arrives to pick you up.
Result of Encounter:
- Local Medicine found: Colony Health + 5
- Colony Health remaining: 105
- Earned Reward: Tom Friendly Eyes XY-6
First Blood (Days 16-30)
As the days went by, your crew slowly started to feel at home in your colony. Thanks to the lush climate and without any predators around, it was a rather peaceful albeit monotonous life. It seemed like you were really lucky with your welcoming new home...
Eliza and Norah made it a habit to chat with every member of the colony for some minutes every day. They wanted to make sure that everybody was on the same page and everybody felt comfortable as a part of the community. Luckily, your crew was a very homogeneous bunch that shared a strong morale codex. Still, with each passing day, it seemed everybody was a little more on edge. It felt like your crew members were annoyed faster with each other and Alanna Vös even insulted the Military Engineer because of his horrible haircut.
Something was odd. Eliza suspected that something or someone must make everyone a little more aggressive. It was nothing to worry about yet, but she didn't want for things to turn violent. It was time for some experimentation! The tests went on for several days, but she finally was confident in sharing her results. There's something in the water! Without the ability to easily catch living specimen, she couldn't tell where it was coming from exactly. But no matter - Everybody, stand clear of the water and don't ever eat anything coming out of that ocean!
Result of Encounter
- Nothing bad happened - Great job Captain!
- Colony Health remaining: 105
- Earned Reward: Science Student
Halftime Show (Days 31-45)
With the change in menu, everybody was quickly getting back to normal and the mood in your colony was relaxed and optimistic. There was not too much to do so everybody was trying to keep a day-to-day routine. Tyron and Alanna Vös were training together, while Eliza kept doing more research on the local flora.
On one of these days, the earth suddenly started shaking violently. EARTHQUAKE! Everybody get down!! The earth kept shaking for next to a minute, but luckily nobody got hurt and there was no damage done to your installations. While Tyron and Alanna Vös were relieved and wanted to resume their training, Eliza was worried. This is going to cause a major flood wave. Everybody, get everything you can into the Shelter Happy Five and prepare for the worst! Everyone scrambles to pack up as much as possible and get it into the shelter. Once you have everything prepared, your crew gets inside as well and closes the door.
It doesn't take long until the flood hits you. A wave of almost 10 metres height is hitting the island with full force, violently pushing against your Shelter. Luckily, the Happy 5 is made to resist far worse, so you know that you are safe inside for now. You'll have to wait the flood out and see how the rest of your colony fared once it's over...
Results of Encounter
- Your colony got flooded: 10 damage
- Colony Health remaining: 95
- Earned Reward: Federal Government Police
Heating Up (Days 46-60)
The wave had hit your island fast and hard. Without appropriate shelter you would have never survived the impact. Your crew remained in safety until the flood waters had receded. Luckily, most of your supplies had been safely stored, so at least your crew would not run out of food and water until the Colombus arrived.
Once your crew was certain that it was safe to go outside again, they started to record the damage done...
The Shelter Happy Five had done a great job keeping you safe. But this was a construction specifically built to resist basically everything thrown at it from the outside. Your other installation was not that lucky, though. The X-Gen TR100 was badly damaged but at least it was still standing.
The Military Engineer took a closer look at it and did some initial tests. It's badly damaged but I should be able to fix it. Should take me about a week! he proclaimed. You were not particularly happy about not having a shelter with atmospheric shielding for a whole week but it was better than just scrapping it!
Result of Encounter
- Nothing got destroyed or damaged beyond repair - Great job Captain!
- Colony Health remaining: 95
With the damage to your colony recorded, your crew set off to check on the rest of the island. You were not exactly sure what to look for, but maybe the flood washed ashore something of value?
We'll split up a bit to cover more ground, but stay in shouting range to me everybody! Alanna Vös assumed command of the expedition. It might have still been the same old island, but it's better to be safe than sorry. The crew started with checking the shoreline. It seemed like nothing had changed there expect for some fish and crustaceans trapped in puddles. Remember, don't get in touch with any sea-life! Eliza reminded everybody. With the coast completely checked, your crew turned to the forest making up most of the island.
The trees seemed to be mostly unaffected by the flood, with only some smaller ones damaged or uprooted. It seemed like there wasn't much to be seen here. Eliza concluded that these floods must be more or less frequent and that the trees had adapted to it over time. After some more wandering around, Alanna Vös abruptly stopped. Look, there's something in the trees!
In about 10 metres height, there were dozens of strange animals sitting on one of the trees. It could best be described as some kind of crab with a proboscis, seemingly sucking something out of the trees. They were about 30-40 cm in diameter and their color was close if not identical to that of the trees. Look, there are more over there! Eliza had found another tree with at least 20 more of these crabs. Tyron had a bad feeling about that. They are everywhere! Your crew agreed that it was possibly a good idea to slowly retreat from the scene, but it was already too late for that.
Almost unnoticed, some of the crabs had already jumped down from the trees. With a speed not thought possible, they charged towards the crew. Alanna Vös turned to the ones closest to the crew and started shooting. More and more crabs descended from the surrounding trees and the rest of your crew joined in on the action. After almost 5 minutes of constant blasting and firing everybody stopped. Looks like there are no more of them alive.
Your crew checked on each other, seems everybody was still standing. On second look, there were several holes in Tyron's Spartan Elite suit and he was bleeding heavily. Eliza rushed to him and immediately started treating his wounds. What kind of creature was that? They went right through my armor!
Eliza collected some specimen that were not completely obliterated for further study and your crew returned to the colony. You survived the onslaught without casualties, but it cost you most of your ammunition and it will take Tyron some time to recover.
Result of Encounter
- Tyron got bitten - 10 damage
- Colony Health remaining: 85
- Earned Reward: Rekatron Judgement Day
Getting to the Home Stretch
With these mysterious crabs eliminated, everything was slowly getting back to normal in the colony. There were no further earthquakes and no signs of a second flood. It was still some days until the rendezvous with the Colombus but your crew started to relax a bit. Things were looking good...
It was a busy time for your colony. Alanna Vös spent most of her time checking if there were any crabs remaining in the nearby part of the forest. With each passing day, she found less and less of them still alive, but she was not willing to take any risks. Eliza was tending to Tyron who had lost a lot of blood but was about to make a full recovery. The Military Engineer had just finished repair of the generator and power was back up. Norah was busy doing an inventory of your remaining supplies when the Military Engineer came rushing in. We are being hailed! Norah did not expect that We are? Is it the Colombus already? The Military Engineer shook his head. It is not. They didn't introduce themselves, but they are asking to talk to the commander of that colony and, uh, I assume that's you...?
Norah had never seen it that way, but it was probably true nevertheless. Put them through to me. Her communications screen turns on and a man in his forties wearing a uniform Norah had never seen is looking at her. Without any introduction he gets to the point at once. Who are you and what are you doing here? Norah had been a diplomat most of her live and she knew that kind of question. It was from the "give us the wrong answer and you are dead"-category. Something she had learned about these kind of encounters was that it was best to be as vague as possible without sounding disrespectful.
We are a small group of travelers who crash landed on that planet. That did not really convince the man. You crash landed here? So how did you get to the far end of the universe in the first place? Norah gave it a long thought before she replied. There was a malfunction with our hyperdrive, for some reason we made a jump to this system instead to our destination in Hitari Beta. The man and Norah kept staring at each other for what felt like an eternity. He finally broke the silence So the aliens finally did attack? With all her experience, Norah was not able to contain her surprise about the question. I...they... The man was not willing to wait for her answer. Who sent you here? There was that tone again.
We were docked at a remote station when they attacked. We are an independent group of settlers, we lost contact to our colony ship during the attack. How do you... Again the man was not interested in listening to her question. So you are telling me you are not affiliated with any group or faction? What was your colony ship called? She gave it a long thought. The Colombus. The man looked away from the camera for about 10 seconds, than gave somebody outside the screen a short nod. Will you survive? Odd question. We hope to. Norah replied. Alright, we don't have time to help you. Good luck. and with that the screen went blank again.
Who was that man? Where did he come from and how did he know about the alien attack? Norah did not know what to think, but she had a feeling that things could have gone a lot worse had she given other answers...
Result of Encounter:
- Nothing bad happened - Well done Captain!
- Colony Health remaining: 85
- Earned Reward: Alpha Booster Pack x1
All Good Things Come to an End
Norah still had mixed feelings about her conversation the other day. Whoever that man hailing them was, she was convinced that he would have destroyed the colony without second thoughts had she given him the wrong answers. But what was he doing here in the first place? While she was still lost in her thoughts, she suddenly got pulled back to reality by a bright beam of light going to the sky on the horizon. She immediately got up to meet up with the rest of the officers.
What the hyperdrive is that, Eliza!? At first Eliza didn't even realize she was being spoken to. I... I don't know Norah, but it's massive! The beam just kept going to the sky for almost a minute before it simply vanished. That must have been an unbelievable amount of power, we need to know what that was! Tyron, prepare the Friendly Eyes! After the initial scouting, the Friendly Eyes had only been used for routine patrolling missions around your island. Without any more landmasses within 100 km, there was not much use to it - until now.
The source of the energy beam appeared to be on a remote island roughly 150 km away. As the Friendly eyes got closer to it, its scanners went crazy. This is some extreme radiation, I have never seen anything like that! Eliza proclaimed. I have. Tyron answered. When we made the jump to this system, there were the same energy residues. It appears somebody was trying to create a Neuter-field on that island! Norah didn't have any doubts. It must have been the man that hailed us. So much for asking if we'd survive!
The radiation coming from what was left of the Neuter-field generator was massive. If we don't get into cover, this will kill us within days! Eliza urged everybody to get into the Shelter as fast as possible and to remain there until the Colombus was coming to pick you up. Luckily, the Happy Five had excellent atmospheric shielding and thanks to the Eisen Suits your crew was wearing while making the readings, their radiation dose wasn't that bad.
The last 10 days of your stay were the most boring ones, as your crew spent it completely within the Happy Five. While it was not the most entertaining, you had plenty of food and water to survive for as long as you needed. When the Colombus had finally arrived to pick you up, most of the life on the planet had already died. Your mission had succeeded, but whoever did that would have to answer to Eliza personally. Your adventure had merely begun!
Result of Encounter:
- Nothing bad happened (well the planet is dying, but other than that) - Well done Captain!
- Colony Health remaining: 85
- You have made it to the end of the challenge! Congratulations Captain!
- Earned Reward: Alpha Booster Pack x4, Vanguard
Summary
And that's a wrap! What a fun adventure! Again, a big thanks to the @exodegame moderators, @khazrakh and @balticbadger for all the planning and time that went into putting together a challenge so engaging. Each and every Captain that entered got a personalized story for their own colony as detailed as the one above (which you can read in the links below).
During the first Planetary Challenge I waited until the night before the deadline to put everything together and submit my entry, and while I ended up coming in 4th place, I felt disappointed that I hadn't given myself more time to fine-tune everything. I determined to do better the next time.
So with this challenge, I started doing research the very first day. I started by writing up a summary of each of the landing sites and the possible encounters and dangers each might face. Then I created a spreadsheet listing all of the Crew and Habitats and their skills and statistics, looking over them for any that looked important to include. I detailed all of my conclusions in a post, Building a Baldie Challenge Deck, giving my advice to other Captains wanting to enter the challenge. With that done, I used all of that information to put together my own deck. In all, I spent about 35 hours researching and writing both the information post and the post of the actual build.
It was time well spent! I ended up winning the contest, with a surprise permanent plaque (with its own NFT!) to commemorate my victory, which can be found on my delivery page. A big congratulations to @palasatenea and @digital-wisdom who also placed in the contest, having the highest score and/or surviving the longest on the Moon and Asteroid, respectively. They each earned a commemorative plaque as well for the achievement!
In addition to the Certificate above, I also earned 2 random Commons, 1 random Rare, and 1 random Epic from @exoderewardspool (I've detailed the specific cards I received above), 5 Alpha Boosters, and the Legendary card, the Vanguard, for having the highest score of the surviving Captains.
All these cards (excluding the boosters) were gifted by other Captains to the @exoderewardspool account to be given as rewards in contests such as this one. You can find out which cards might be awarded in future contests by checking the account's page here. If you feel like something important is missing, you can add to the pool too!
I really enjoyed working on my submission and the daily story updates on each colony's progress, successes, and failures and can't wait for the next one.
Links
https://peakd.com/hive-155862/@exodenews/the-baldie-challenge-aftermath-part-one-a-new-home
https://peakd.com/hive-155862/@exodenews/the-baldie-challenge-aftermath-part-two-getting-comfortable
https://peakd.com/hive-155862/@exodenews/the-baldie-challenge-aftermath-part-three-first-blood
https://peakd.com/hive-155862/@exodenews/the-baldie-challenge-aftermath-part-four-halftime-show
https://peakd.com/hive-155862/@exodenews/the-baldie-challenge-aftermath-part-five
Thank you for doing the write up of the whole story, fun to see everything together!
Glad you enjoyed it and once again congratulations on your well deserved victory!
Congratulations, Raudell! Very well deserved Captain!
Good idea to post the winning story/game plan.
Congrats on your win, and enjoy the Vanguard",
Reminds me of The Movie Aliens Aliens APC Don't blow your driveshaft! (or something like that)
Congrats and well done.
Good luck in trying to penetrate my Keeper defences in the Federal Database challenge.