Rolly-Polly Deathmatch #9: Thunda in the Tundra

[The Widowed]

Ensign Boof--or Lieutenant Boof, whatever--was finally getting over the horrible brain-scalding castigation he had gotten from Lord Vader for what was then to be known as the Handyman Incident. After Ernest P. Worrell had demolished half of the Death Star--and the Rebellion had demolished the other half while Ernest puttered off in his jury-rigged astrotruck--Ensign-Lieutenant Boof had been demoted to Commander of an Imperial Light Freighter, transporting all manners of exotic animals captured on the widely varied planets around the galaxy to the finest zoos of Coruscant.

"So let's see...that's eight tauntauns, one wampa...and that's it," Boof sighed, reading the cargo manifest as his freighter crossed into the Galactic Rim. "Pretty slim pickings. That's the last time I ever make a pick-up on Planet Hoth. This route's just a huge waste of fuel."

"But Sir," Sergeant Priss countered, "you're providing a great service to the Empire. The kids love tauntauns."

"I know that. But we could make this route with a blasted tug and make better profits with our shares from the animal sales. It's not like there's a vast plethora of wildlife on Hoth anyway...just tauntauns and wampas."

As if on cue, Private Pringle thrust his head up through the floor hatch to the cargo hold sublevel. "Sir! Bad news! The wampa is loose! He's trying to batter his way into the tauntaun pens!"

"Great Emperor's nose!" Ensign Boof shouted. "That wampa could kill all of our tauntaun stock! Quickly, try to lure the wampa into one of the escape pods! Then we can seal the pod, flood the pod with sedative gas and carry our big angry friend peacefully back to a fresh cage."

*thirty minutes later*

"Good, good," Ensign Boof approved with raspy breath, cradling a bloody gash in his arm. "The wampa's trapped in the pod now. A pity what happened to Private Pringle, but he always wanted to die in the company of wild animals. Sergeant Priss, notify Pringle's next of kin. I'll sedate our wampa."

THWOOM! A violent tremor shook the entire freighter. A chorus of alarms screamed from the console in response.

"Sergeant Buttkiss! Damage report!"

"Uhh...uhh, an asteroid appears to have struck our inferior starboard stern," Buttkiss stammered. "Life support is stable...engines are reduced to 60% maximum power but recovering...navigation is reacquiring our bearing and coordinates...uh oh."

"Uh oh?" Boof snorted.

"We...seem to have lost one of our escape pods, Sir. Its propulsion automatically fired on separation from the freighter, and its suspended animation sequence was evidently triggered during the impact. We can't catch up with it before it leaves Imperial space...."

"Calculate the escape pod's trajectory. Where is it headed?"

Buttkiss mashed a series of keys on the navigation terminal. "The escape pod is headed towards the Milky Way galaxy, in the general direction of the Sol system...by my orbital and chronological calculations, there is an 82% probability that the pod will impact one of the polar regions of Sol III. Estimated time until impact: a long, long time ahead...."

"...in a galaxy far away. Well, what worse news could happen now?"

Buttkiss swallowed hard. "It was the escape pod with the wampa in it, Sir."

Ensign Boof wondered which position he would be demoted to this time.

Combatant One:



A Wampa
Native Climate: Arctic
Diet: Tauntauns, aspiring Jedi Knights, other wampas (in a pinch), maybe a robot or two
Most Notable Physical Asset: Bloody huge claws


Combatant Two:



An Angry, Territorial Polar Bear (with Cubs)
Native Climate: Arctic
Diet: Seals, Eskimos (or Inuits, if you're all Greenpeacey), fish, small whaling vessels
Most Notable Physical Asset: Thick, protective, resilient layers of fat, skin and muscle


GRARRRRRRRHHH!!! Fight!

[WingedAvenger]

I have to give this one to the Wampa, purely because it seems to have a fully developed clavacle.

[Knightward]

The bear. 4 feet on ice gives far better balance, and polar bears are pretty freaking vicious too. Its claws aren't exactly lacking either.

[Nerfed]

Bear for the win. RRRRAWRRR!!

[The Widowed]

Now that a few of you have cast your votes, it's time for me to cast mine...and the wampa gets it.

The polar bear has a great chunk of primal fury coupled with brute force, true. But if The Empire Strikes Back taught us anything, it is this: the wampa is a very cunning and intelligent predator. Cunning enough to prepare ambushes, burying itself in snow and lying in wait. Cunning enough to kill the strongest creature first. Cunning enough to work an icy cave into a crude meat locker, trapping and freezing prey so that the wampa can ration its food supply and eat its captives at its leisure.

And, as any number of action films and sci-fi flicks demonstrate, feral cunning will trump raw brute force any day.

My guess is that the wampa's hunt for prey will begin the moment the escape pod opens. It will initially elude the polar bear, galloping away on all fours if needs be. The wampa will then nosh on a seal or two, satiating its hunger and fortifying its strength. Having prepared itself for a long wait, the wampa will then bury itself in the snow among the outer reaches of the polar bear's territory.

And then, with its scent masked by a fresh layer of snow and its belly still full of warm seal meat, the wampa will wait.

And wait.

And wait.

...until the polar bear comes ambling along, foraging for food to feed herself and her cubs. At which point the wampa will burst up out of the ice and snow with a bestial "HRRROARRRRRHHHH!!!" and rip her gullet right the hell out of her neck with both of its mighty claws.

Then the wampa will smell its way back to the polar bear cave, kill and eat the cubs and establish a new home in that same cave, a hunting camp from which the wampa can perpetually nourish itself as it acclimates itself to this strange new planet to which it has been exiled....

Wampa FTW.

[Akamaz]

the wampa has some intelligence on it's side, whereas the bear has only instinct.

point of order:

(quote from the Darksaber book describing the Wampa)
We thought they were dumb brutes—all teeth and claws, and no brains—but we were wrong."
―Burrk, a former stormtrooper turned big game hunter[src]

also, in the Clone Wars saga, it as demonstrated that Wampa's can be force sensitive and use the force...

[The Widowed]

Should we assume that this wampa is the same kind of non-Force-sensitive wampa that ambushed Luke Skywalker and his ride, just to keep the playing field reasonably balanced between the two?

[Akamaz]

at any rate, the empire was able to train wampas to be guards for one of their installations, so with the ability to learn, and intelligence, Wampa Stompa!

[suburbanhell]

One drinks coke, one kills people. Wampa.

[Dr Jack Wolfe]

Don't we have to take the best of all possible polar bears if we take the best of all possilbe Wampa

I mean they do wear armor




Seriously though, Wampa runs into mama bear and pisses her off before assesing the situation. Unfamiliar world. The bear.