User blog comment:Void Samukai/Tenelapis/@comment-27797576-20150120135206/@comment-11135771-20150120142934

Almost immediately after they began setting up at the pillar, the MRP discovered that the main threat to their new base would be internal rather than external. Construction teams and even ships close to shore fell under attack by huge packs of insectoid burrowing creatures around the size of bears which could appear out of the ground without warning, tunnelling through the very rock itself. The creatures were heavily armored, fast moving, and capable of leaping up to ten metres horizontally, as well as possessing frontal claws powerful enough to rip open armored vehicles given a bit of time. Their numbers seemed to be endless, and losses ran high from the sudden attacks, with nearly every encounter with them ending in defeat by sheer overwhelming numbers combined with the element of surprise. Within a day, a fifth of the ships dispatched to the pillar and two thirds of the ground forces had been lost.

Explorations of the area immediately surrounding Vent Eta also show the existence of a decent number of edible fish.

OOC: Sorry if this seems like GMing, but I don't think there's any way you could have prevented this from happening even if I played it out post-by-post. Even Prometheus forces would get thoroughly wiped by the numbers you're encountering. This particular pillar happens to be the largest and most concentrated Tunneler hive on the entire planet. There are enough of them that the colouration I used on my map to denote their presence is sufficient that I literally can't see the pillar underneath. I promise I don't have anything against you; this was just plain bad luck.

P.S. You can still set up a base at the pillar. It's just going to be really, really difficult. Tunnellers aren't the worst things around, but it's just that this particular area has a ridiculous number of them.