PALISADE 27: Resentment and Frustration Pt. 2

Resentment and Frustration Pt. 2
Episode information
Episode	27
Release Date	September 29, 2023
Length	02:00:29
Content Warnings	Hallucinations, death, and brief mention of mind control
Meta
Cast	Austin Walker Art Martinez-Tebbel Jack de Quidt
Game	Armour Astir
Score	Nothing is Stationary
Episode guide
Previous	Resentment and Frustration Pt. 1
Previous	Resentment and Frustration Pt. 1
Next	Honesty and Integrity Pt. 1
Next	Honesty and Integrity Pt. 1
Previous Arc	An Impossible Ideal
Previous Arc	An Impossible Ideal
Next Arc	Honesty and Integrity
Next Arc	Honesty and Integrity
Links
Episode Page	friendsatthetable.net
Transcript	Google Docs

Episode description

This episode carries content warnings for hallucinations, death, and brief mention of mind control.

Across Palisade, the gears of Kesh’s occupation grind to halt, for however brief a time. Attaches clear the schedules of their client-commanders. Chefs discard the still-fresh ingredients for the coming week’s feasts. Countless BIS operatives—many of whom hid in plain sight as attaches or chefs—simply vanish one midday, lost to long hallways and shaded corners.

And in their stead, the Divine Crusade moves.

This week on PALISADE:  Resentment and Frustration Pt. 2

I bought a 'Rari just so I can go faster (skrrr)

Dossier

People

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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.
Silverbrick (they/them): A “visionary” architect, technologist, and urban planner of the Frontier Syndicate.
Blank Shore (he/him): Ex-Concretist Hacker, happy that “the future is finally here.” Claims to be “perfectly apolitical.”
Jesset City (he/him): After helping to kick off Millennium Break on Partizan, Jesset served as one of its major leaders during its expansion across the Principality. Now, he uses his talents in Hollow and Altar engineering, piloting, and cipher breaking on behalf of the Grey Pond unit of the cause. Still considers himself to be a member of the Party of the Wolf, though those designations have largely fallen from use.
Gentian (she/her): Elect of the Divine Crusade. Impossibly old, yet a source of power and vibrance. Attended to by her two sword bearers (Ramondre (she/her) and Ignadiah (he/him), Knight of Books (Clawed (he/him)), and Knight of Cups (Perevel (they/them)).
Elle Evensong (she/they): Elle arrived to Palisade along with the first wave of Devotees, making a name for herself as a cunning combatant and clever commander. She became a poster child for Twilight Mirage's support of Palisade (and, for members of the Dim Liturgy, a prophesied bridge between the past and the future). But as the war began to heat up, she seemed to vanish into the background. Pilot of the Cataphract.

Factions

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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 Frontier Syndicate: A powerful conglomerate with a broad purview, including technology, heavy industry, entertainment, telecommunications, and transportation. Led by Exenceaster March (he/him), former chair of the Columnar R&D giant the Zenith Fund, the Syndicate betrayed the Pact of Free States and joined the Bilats in order to be part of their colonization efforts on 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.
Jade Kill: Based in Joyous Guard, this military arm of the Cause is operated by the Delegate liberation faction known as Reunion and supported by Kalar Anakalar's (he/him) Giantkiller unit and a wing of Swordbreakers. Led by August Righteousness (he/him).
Lock and Cross Security Services: The largest mercenary unit on Palisade, invited to the world by Exenceaster March. Founded by Maidstone Cross (she/her) and Margate Lock (she/her), a pair of divorcees too committed to their work together to fully separate. Margate was lost to the depths of the Diadem.
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

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Diadem Gravtrain: While the vast trench-city on Palisade's equator lays abandoned, Kesh has reactivated its railway via an operations center in Carmathen.
Bontive Valley: Blessed by the departed divine Bounty, the Valley provides the Bilats with fruit that never rots and hyper-nutritional grain.
Carhaix: The northernmost city in the Bontive Valley, Carhaix is one of the first major settlements founded by the nascent Divine Principality 5,000 years ago. It was created on the site of a battlefield where they obliterated the straggling remnants of the Advent Group, an organization that had invaded and pillaged the Twilight Mirage. After the Principality left Palisade behind, it became one of the Fabreal Duchy’s many centers of power in the northwestern continent. Currently, it is controlled by Jade Kill.

Objects

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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

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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.

Contents

Plot

Fundament Nodes

In Carmathen, Occam Olio and Blank Shore launch a nighttime covert op on the ancient railway roundhouse, supported by a Kesh squad. They descend the vertical tower beneath the roundhouse in search of the last of the Fundament nodes, with the goal of harvesting it for the Frontier Syndicate. Distantly, they hear an explosion: a Jade Kill squad, led by Faithful Emphasis, is on the scene and making maneuvers to counter them.

The Kesh squad descends on ropes to attack Jade Kill, and a shootout ensues. Pawns of the Affliction Dust appear, beings made of compacted dust who morph into doppelgangers of every person present. Blank and Occam do not confront their doppelgangers but instead go around them, and with the Jade Kill squad struggling to overcome the dust's effects, Blank and Occam complete their mission.

Soon, in the new Baseline cities across Palisade, structures like massive smokestacks begin to suck hard black clouds out of the clear sky. Exanceaster March, with the power of the Fundament nodes, has developed a way to siphon particles of Motion out of the air, separating her from the Perennial Wave in Kalmeria. He aims to resurrect her and force her to serve the Frontier Syndicate.

Bontive Valley

Crusade leads a siege on Carhaix that is opposed by Grey Pond. Crusade lays waste to the city. Among Grey Pond's defending forces is Jesset City, piloting a Jury in an attempt to protect an important supply line. Jesset tries to distract Crusade and deflect their attacks for long enough for Grey Pond's forces to regroup. Violet Cove forces arrive to back up Grey Pond, but these reinforcements are not enough: Crusade's forces take back Carhaix, Grey Pond sustains many casualties, and Clawed leaves Jesset badly injured and near death, saved only by the timely intervention of Elle Evensong.

Cast

• Austin Walker (March Institute, Jade Kill, Grey Pond)
• Art Martinez-Tebbel (Crusade, Violet Cove)
• Jack de Quidt (BIS, Rose River, Carmine Bight)

Characters

• Occam Olio
• Blank Shore
• Faithful Emphasis
• Unnamed Jade Kill agent from the Mirage
• Unnamed Talonite Jade Kill agent
• Exanceaster March
• Crusade
• Clawed
• Jesset City
• Elle Evensong