PARTIZAN 31: The Grand Premiere

Episode Description

It has been just over fifty days since Millennium Break took Cruciat, and each day has been more busy than the last. The hammer of the Divine Principality fell on the organization’s independent cells across the moon, and now the leaders of Millennium Break seek allies wherever they can find them.

No potential partner in the fight against tyranny is more important than the Isles of Logos. As a sovereign nation with key control in Partizan’s great sea, the Isle could offer Millennium Break a literal port in troubled waters. And so, Gucci Garantine and Apparatus Aperitif have spent the better part of a month negotiating towards that end.

Protecting these ever-moving negotiations has been trying, as SBBR can attest to. Even the quiet days, where nothing happens, require utmost focus and practiced determination. Yet they cannot hope for such a today to be such a day: One where the only red they see is that of the carpet rolled out for VIPs, where the only flash in their eyes comes from the cameras capturing the event.

To the north, the air of Obelle cracks with the sound of artillery fire. But here in Auspice, Zo'la has finished their film, and it is due its audience.

This week on PARTIZAN: The Grand Premiere

///Operation Dossier\\\

//Organizations\\

The Isles of Logos: An independent nation built by the followers of the prophet Logos Kantel’s around their very first church. Though only a small handful of islands in the Prophet's Sea, the Isles keep a standing defense force that rivals any individual unit of the Major Stels.

The Branched: A post-human society of beings who have transformed their bodies into forms terrifying and spectacular and free--only to have the threat of war force them to rebuild themselves as soldiers first and foremost.

The Black Century: Infamous retinue of the Divine Motion. Each member of this 100-person company serves for 100 years. Motion guarantees them this service.

The Church of the Resin Heart: A Disciples of Logos church on Partizan which claims to be the true inheritor of the prophet’s religious mission. The “resin heart” in question is a 3-foot large object--a component of the Exemplar--pulled from the sea 400+ years ago and displayed as a relic by the Church. In mourning after the loss of Gur Sevraq, though still committed to the cause.

//People\\

Break Lieutenant Kalar Anakalar (he/him): A Millennium Break soldier who specializes in fighting Hollows without one of his own. Large, even for the commonly tall, bird-like Talonites. White and grey plumage, a long or cool coat. Originally a steeplejack in Obelle and a member of a religious community devoted to the Divine Peace. Believes that Divines should not be used in war.

Phrygian (they/them): Also known by their callsign, Deck 7, Phrygian is a member of the Branched who arrived on Partizan with a team of undercover researchers who sought to understand the God preached about by Gur Sevraq. While investigating, they and their team were captured and researched by Stel Apostolos and The Pact of Necessary Venture. Phyrgian is the only remaining member of their team.

Cas'alear Rizah (cas/cas’, they/them): Leader of The Swordbreakers, sibling of the Dahlia. Cas has brown skin with dark green hair up in a bun, with a few strands hanging down in front of their face (which is framed with similarly colored scales covering cas’ jawline and neck. Broken sword tattoos under their eyes. Reputation as being beautiful and brave by allies, unflinching and unpredictable by foes. Pilots the notorious Ataraxia. Cares more about metaphors than astrophysics.

Boole Batanca (they/them): Chancellor of the Isle of Logos, one of two chief executives of the small sovereign nation. A cephalopod type species, squid-like species, the same as Gigas Acano from Twilight Mirage. White/blue skin with black/brown markings. Tentacle hands, tentacle mouth, eyes adjust in size depending on environment and light. Unlike Gigas, though, this one also has some sort of shell like structure running up their back and parts of their head, almost like hair.

//Places\\

Auspice: A seaside city in the Prophet’s Path north of Marengo (which it is smaller than) and south of Obelle (which it dwarfs). Auspice is the final destination of the land travel portion of the yearly pilgrimage led by The Church of the Resin Heart, which has a great temple in the city called the High Altar. Resting on a landmass that appears on a map to be a finger pointing eastward, it has become a coastal refuge for members of Millennium Break.

The Golden Branch: A sector of the galaxy extremely far from PARTIZAN, on the other side of the galactic core. The civilizations of Kesh and Apostolos first began there. Now, it is home to the Branched.

//Divines\\

The Divine Motion: Long after enemy fuel tanks run empty, Motion continues to power Apostolosian machines of war (like its infamous retinue, the Black Century) and service (including the massive Barranca Loop that allows Apostolos to regularly launch ships spaceward). Ver'million Blue’s rival. Has taken a new elect, a young, yet intuitive Apostolosian commander known to be attentive and authoritative in equal measure.

//Things\\

Strand Semaphore: Using ancient Hyphan technology, this messenger service is able to send text-based communications to anywhere on-moon, so long as they’ve built an outpost there. The backbone of the private comms network used by Millennium Break.

Ataraxia: A white, purple, and yellow mantid-shaped machine blessed by the Divine Commitment and developed by Stel Columnar’s Zenith Fund. Each of its six curved limbs can light up its edges with energy beams. On the ground, it can dance in combat in such a way that any two limbs can be its temporary feet, and when it’s in flight, it becomes a complete whirlwind of violence. Named for the philosophical concept key to ancient Stoicism.

//Additional Notes\\

Primary Objectives:

Prevent the High Altar (Point Ampersand) from being breached.
If Attacked, escort Boole to Point Bracket for Extraction.

Bonus Objective: Prevent the forward base at Point Comma from falling. This is where your long distance Strand Semaphore station is, along with long range scanners.

Rules of Engagement:

Deployment of chemical, biological, and/or poisonous weapons: Even in the case of open combat, none of these weapons are to be used. We need to convince the Isles of Logos to joining up with us.

Prisoners must be taken alive: We need intel, we need bargaining chips, and we need to show this world that we’re just not the terrorists that we’ve been made out to be.

Plot

Opening Narration

“

A letter to the Glorious Princept, elect of Divinity itself and Apokine to the people of Apostolos, from their loyal sibling Cas'alear Rizah:

Dahlia, it has been one month since I joined Millennium Break under your blessing, but these fifty days have felt more like five hundred. Partizan burns…

When I first joined Millennium Break, we’d gained holdings in every major settlement on the moon. Today, we have three, though each is sizable: captured Cruciat in the North; the deep mountains controlled by Lambic House in the East; and here, where I write this letter, the coastline of the Prophet’s Path, the three city alliance of Obelle, Auspice and Marengo. But they are distant, and without port in the sea it is hard to move supplies between them. Which is why Miss Garantine, whose professionalism and leadership I admire, believes that an alliance, or something more with the Isle of Logos is essential.

I still fear it may be too late, the rest of what we once had evacuated, raided, blood soaked, ruined. And in each instance of destruction, a rumour spreads. They say that after an attack, a maligned force breaches the morning mist with rapturous announce, a pied piper and her cloudborne home. They call her the Witch in Glass, who picks over the battlefield and scurries away with whomever yet breathes. I would call her a myth, but the Stels whisper about her too. They are not immune to the chaos, after all.

In fact, as alliances grow deeper – Nidean clerics throwing in with the Kesh elite, Columnar biasing those who claim to fight in your name – the battles here grow longer, dark into the night, and when Girandole rises, its light reveals more than can be borne by any loyal child of the Principality. Orion, meanwhile, has begun to tear itself apart in both meadow and metropolis. What I do not know is if this present alignment of forces is unique to the holy moon or if it is as the old adage holds: "As goes Partizan, so go the stars."

Which is why I ask, and I hope to hear from you, this year or next: Do we still have hope for peace and glory, sibling? Or do the stars burn too?”

Cast

Other Appearances