My guess is that Deacon went “apeshit” and is now with the good doctor.

It was a firefight. The androids burst in through the doors into the cafeteria, catching the colonists by surprise. Though the tables up against the doors suggests that some alert had been given and a crude barricade of some sort had been attempted, the positions of the bodies suggests that they were not expecting an attack at that moment and/or at that location. Combat ensued. Note the bullet holes in the tables, some of them are overturned with colonists behind them as though they were being used for cover. The colonists in the most direct path in from the door did not have time to go for cover,  though some out of the immediate line of fire managed to attempt to get some form of limited cover, though judging by the dead colonist slumped against the one table near the top, below a blood-splattered hole in the table, and the three gouges dug into the surface of one table that line up with the three holes in another table closer to the door, the tabletops provided little protection. The wounds are all consistent with advanced, high-powered firearms firing frangible or perhaps explosive rounds. At least some colonists managed to get shots off before being cut down, hitting one of the androids. The androids either discarded their spent weapons after the massacre, or their weapons are built into their bodies.

 Well, I’m a bit drunk, still, and too many cigarettes have been smoked, but even complete carnage has to be well rendered to induce nausea in those conditions. I’m somewhat nauseous, though. I really WASN’T before I decided that a bit of fooling around on that internet-thing was just the thing to put me asleep (at 8.30 in the morning). Cheers! I approve, even if my dreams won’t.

slapstick comment : The colonists are mixed New Zealanders & Australians and clearly insufficient strawberry pavlova had been baked. The head chef’s menacing glare must have been very intimidating, and the sole reason he managed to hold off the angry hoards before trying to make off with the sole remaining portion, which is why the doors were barricaded shut. He then attempted to leap over the counter, and his heart exploded out of his chest. This then induced the great DaVinci Pavlova Riot where everyone tried to kill each other for the right to eat that last remaining slice. 

reasoned comment : Sudden indiscriminate brawling and fighting broke out, possibly induced by a gas from the outside. The members there were waiting in the closed cafeteria until … rescue? … Some barricaded the doorway which was broken open and the surviving baracadeers had their head smashed either side of the doorway, possibly by the single injured android. 

New and fascinated reader here.

And aside from the amazingly-rendered carnage, the thing that caught my eyes were the doors to the cafeteria. They appeared to be limned with something like yellow paint/rust both inside and out, but that doesn’t make sense.

It cannot be rust, since the rest of the facilities are pristine. So that means that something was applied to the edges of the doors, a chemical of some sort?

As for the androids, one reason for them removing of of their own is that the humans are all quite obviously dead, and an android might at least have a recording of what happened here.

And I just now only made the connection between the last comment of Deacon’s, ‘Our objective had appeared to have been achieved and we were preparing to leave’ immediately preceding the scene of dead colonists.  It wasn’t murder or androids going berserk but they were sent in to kill those people.  Now I have to revise my opinion and theories…

There was a riot over the cafeteria prices. Good lord. No tater tot is worth 25 bucks. 

Is it odd that my first thought on seeing this page was, “well, SOMEONE didn’t program these androids with the First Law of Robotics?”

This looks very much like a siege.  Perhaps the colonists first got warning of the approaching members of what I’m going to call Deacon’s team and, upon the landing, many were initially killed before some of them survived long enough to reach the refectory (or would they call it a cafeteria still, in the future?) and began setting up for a form of trench warfare.  The doors…someone here commented that there was what looked like paint on the doors, but it looks more to me like they actually burned off the contacts with the walls and THEN busted the doors down.  

I’m reading through all this in the hopes that this will make Sat come faster, even if I won’t be in town to sit at my computer all “camped” out and hitting the refresh button.