PALISADE 26: Resentment and Frustration Pt. 1

Episode description[edit | edit source]

This episode carries content warnings for discussions of assassinations and death.
The star at the center of the Palisade system seemed to release a breath, and all at once across the Bilateral Intercession, the line between “outcome,” “consequence,” and “blowback” became stunningly clear. Malicious action alone would have led to a great loss. But in negligent inaction, something worse has emerged: chaos. Now, something must be done. Blame must be assigned. Accountability must be achieved. Change must come to Palisade.
This week on PALISADE: Resentment and Frustration Pt 1
Shadows of planes / Flying overhead ^{[Note 1]}

Dossier[edit | edit source]

People[edit | edit source]

Stargrave Elcessor (she/her): Leader of the Bilateral Interecession’s occupation of Palisade, assigned personally by Cynosure Whitestar-Kesh. As a Stargrave, she has been granted the means and “right” to detonate the star at the center of Palisade’s star system if she determines that those here are an existential threat to the Principality.

Connadine (he/him): Commander of the BIS on Palisade. An expert in psychological operations and folklore. As a composer, his opus is the Adagio, a plan to get everyone on Palisade operating in ways not only predictable, but scripted. As a conductor, his orchestra now turns towards the second movement.

Occam Olio (they/them): Columnar member of the Frontier Syndicate and low level officer of Lock & Cross Security Services. Sharp the way a knife is. Made themself a hero among Palisade Bilats during Frontier Syndicate operation against Rose River.

Crysanth Kesh (she/her): Mother of Clementine, a.k.a. The Witch in Glass. Once, third in line to the throne of Kesh and de facto leader of the Curtain of Divinity, the predecessor to the Bilateral Intelligence Service.

Lucia Whitestar (she/her): The young “Lady Whitestar” emerged as a strategic genius during the early conflict between Kesh and Apostolos on PARTIZAN five years ago. Seventh in line to the throne of Princept.

Factions[edit | edit source]

Bilateral Intercession: One of two factions vying for leadership of the Principality, comprised by Stels Kesh and Nideo, and lead by the so-called Peaceful Princept, Cynosure Whitestar-Kesh (he/him), who took control of the faction from the Curtain, a secretive intelligence organization with roots in Kesh’s ancient spy operations. The “Bilats” are a conservative and reactionary force, aiming to return the Principality to its roots both literally and figuratively. After a long campaign against the Pact of Free States, they managed to take control of Palisade.

The Pact of Free States: One of the two factions vying for leadership of the Principality, a joint operation by Stels Columnar and Apostolos.

The New Asterism: What was once a schism between Received and Progressive Asterism has now been healed by the false prophet Gur Sevraq (he/they), or at least someone in his name and face. The New Asterism claims that to be a citizen of the Principality is to have an obligation to "better the world," in the sense that one invests in property or in the way that a settler “rehabilitates” or “improves” the places they claim by violence.

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. After centuries of fighting a purely defensive war, the Branched have now begun to strike into the Principality’s territory.

Places[edit | edit source]

Chimera's Lantern: The second moon of Palisade, shaped oddly like a wasp’s nest or paper lantern. New arrivals to the world find its occasional glow unnatural and frightening. Thisbe and the Figure found evidence that it could be tied to driving the bulk of ancient Divine Principality forces off of Palisade. Home to the Chimeric Cadent (they/them, it/its), an amalgam of the ancient Excerpt ⸢Signet⸣, the mysterious Waking Cadent, and the Divine Belgard. As one being, they protect the corpses of a number of Divines, including Sagacity, Dissent, Felicity, Barricade, and Bounty—its newest resident.

Objects[edit | edit source]

The Stellar Combustor: A weapon of immense destruction, capable of destroying countless star systems if deployed without a firebreak. Has been used in some form or another since the time of the earliest Divines. In current form they take the form of a twirling, 3-ringed space station that rotates around a system’s sun.

Divines[edit | edit source]

Discernment (it/its): Able to see the whole of the galaxy for one moment a year, this massive Divine was stolen by Millennium Break in the years after Operation Shackled Sun.

The Divine Crusade (they/them): Leads Stel Nideo’s occupation on Palisade along with their Elect, Gentian. Crusade is an enormous, bipedal machine covered (or perhaps made with) beautiful stained glass.

I have heard those cursed words, and said them, too, again and again—appropriately, but to deleterious effect. Those three words which haunted me well before I was a phantasmal whisper in anyone's ear. Those three words will serve as inescapable burden and catalyzing challenge and easy alibi: the wheel turns.

Their appeal is immediate and unsurprising. We live in a world of wheels, of circles, of cogs and cycles. Across countless worlds seasons may differ—the long, misty summers of Artemisios; the thrice-returning autumns of Tandem-12—yet each is a division in time, repeating so steadily that we shape ourselves to them. And even on those worlds without air, without differentiation, there is that old, blessed thing: the orbit. And the rotation. And the sphere itself, and thus the day, and thus the routine; round like clock; complex, yet simple, like clockwork. There we are, day by day, trapped under the axle.

And I do not deny the power of this centripetal force. How could I, a being alive and dead and alive again twice? The wheel does turn. The daylily shutters under frost, then breaches anew come spring. Schools of resonant minnows entangle themselves on the spinning rhythms of the pulsar wave, but none of this is eternal. None of it is endless. If only it were, then we would not need to face the truth: that we turned the wheel first.

We set the gears into the watch body. We took the stars, irregular and boiling and jagged, and carved until they were round in our minds. We pressed the pencil to the page and summoned the circle. And know this, Figure:

One day we will draw a different shape. We must.”

– Gur Sevraq

Plot[edit | edit source]

Austin, Jack, and Art take stock of the faction-level state of the game. Stargrave Elcessor, the BIS's second pillar, has fallen, and Connadine and the Paint Shop are furious at Elcessor. Cynosure Whitestar-Kesh doesn't believe that the stellar combustors could truly have been deactivated by a handful of Millennium Break agents, and Connadine is also frustrated that, just as he did when Millennium Break stole the Divine Discernment, Cynosure has underestimated what Millennium Break can do. All three divisions of the Authority have taken points of Disfavour, especially the BIS.

Stargrave Elecessor's forces are court-martialed. New management comes in on the Diadem Gravtrain. The Paint Shop is put under guard: no one may enter or leave. Connadine pens a pleasant letter reminding its addressee that the stellar combustor situation was not his fault. New Bilat forces arrive on the planet, under Gentian's command.

Stel Nideo, with the Frontier Syndicate's support, has ousted the BIS from its role in the occupation, to be replaced by a minor division led by Lucia Whitestar in the next conflict turn. Nideo's Crusade is now the Authority's major division.