PALISADE 23: An Impossible Ideal Pt. 2

An Impossible Ideal Pt. 2
Episode information
Episode	23
Release Date	August 27, 2023
Length	02:11:57
Content Warnings	Body horror, discussion of mass destruction/death, small/tight spaces, indentured servants and slavery, torture, forced body modification, extreme heat
Meta
Cast	Austin Walker Ali Acampora Andrew Lee Swan Janine Hawkins Sylvi Bullet Keith J. Carberry
Game	Armour Astir
Score	The Stellar Combustor
Episode guide
Previous	An Impossible Ideal Pt. 1
Previous	An Impossible Ideal Pt. 1
Next	An Impossible Ideal Pt. 3
Next	An Impossible Ideal Pt. 3
Previous Arc	In Their Fear
Previous Arc	In Their Fear
Next Arc	Resentment and Frustration
Next Arc	Resentment and Frustration
Links
Episode Page	friendsatthetable.net
Transcript	Google Docs

Episode description

This episode carries content warnings for body horror, discussion of mass destruction/death, small/tight spaces, indentured servants and slavery, torture, forced body modification, and extreme heat.

The ball is in the air; water pours from the pitcher; the rope draws taut. The Blue Channel hides in the shadow of the Chimera’s Lantern, and everyone on board holds their breath. Inside the strange moon, the search for a new source of power—and thus, stability and freedom—for the Figure continues. It is a mission taken in the highest faith, possible only because its members believe utterly in Brnine, Phrygian, and Routine’s ability to infiltrate and dismantle the Stellar Combustor, one way or the other. Of course, they aren’t the only ones moving…

And in between the gaps of the stars / We lay in the dark

Dossier

People

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.
Routine Rennari (he/him): Half-Apostolsian, scion of a minor Kesh noble house, and the Blue Channel's heavy.
Mustard Red (she/her): A cyborg who once served as a member of Brink Proxy, with a speciality in surveillance. Joined the Cause during the Devotees expansion onto Palisade.
Midnite Matinee (she/her): Leporine scout and member of the Blue Channel. She and her trusty Pack-model light AutoHollow Popcorn used to run a repo company, but now are tentatively committed to the Cause and Millennium Break.

Places

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.

Objects

Gambeson: The Gambeson is only about 10 meters tall (less than half an Altar), but it is nevertheless a terrifying scourge of the battlefield. Modeled after an iron maiden, except with it's tortorous doors attached to its back serving as wings. Its head features a metalworked face, twisted into extreme and offputting smile.  Its skeletal frame serves not only as body, but cage: pilots are criminal conscripts forced to pay off their “debt” to Kesh by the Divine Plight, earning their freedom through combat achievements.
Paramerion: Cori’s new Altar, as designed by her brother Formido. Constantly twitching and rippling underneath the regal embellishments of its filigreed armor. Massive metallic wings stay folded on its back, a smaller pair cover its eyes like a visor and the sickles jut out from its forearms when stowed. A halo shaped like a crown rotates above its skull-like head.
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.
BAC Secateurs: Designed and built on Chimera's Lantern by the Blessed Armory of Consecration, an Altar who holds itself in the form of a tortured saint, with sharp, crystaline “holy expressions” emerging from its body, like wounds in reverse. As it pulls these from its body, its form glows like heated glass, then reverberates back into place.

Divines

The Divine, Arbitrage (it/its): The amoral machine turned de facto treasurer keeps the Frontier Syndicate a step ahead in all matters of commerce. Sole minter of “glint,” a newly popular currency on Palisade.
The Divine Plight (she/her): Plight is a 40 meter tall, humanoid Divine cast in black metal armor, and wearing the of a judge or inquisitor. She conscripts the guilty into her army as Gambeson pilots, compelling their loyalty with terrible, Divine feelings of guilt. Hemlock, whose interest is fundamentally in punishment and not justice, was born heir to a mid-tier Kesh House, but jumped at the chance to become an Elect.
The Divine Consecration: Though humanoid in shape, like most Nideo Divines, its chest is a vacuous cavity that serves a living forge. This open wound burns brightly, and Consecration can reach inside of it to produce a range of objects, or a sort of Divine molten metal which rapidly hardens as it is shaped by the Divine. But this is only half of its fearsome nature. Guided by the hand of its elect, a Sovereign Immunity devoutly committed to his role as armorer, Consecration also operates as Nideo's chief weaponsmith, Altar designer, and forge.

Mysteries

Perennial (she/her):  The Principality's so-called 'adversary,' who lives at the center of the galaxy and whose chaotic whims spread through her "Perennial Wave," an ever-present nanoparticle that has recently bonded with Kalmeria.

Contents

Plot

A-Plot: Chimera's Lantern

Thisbe senses that the screeching tooth-monsters are scared. She projects a sense of calm towards them. The monsters still enter the Mosaic Gyratory, but they part around Thisbe and crew, hugging the room's walls to scatter through different exits.

Cori recognizes the Divine Bounty depicted in the mosaic. In another section Thisbe recognizes Loyalty, and she realizes that all of the Divines depicted in the mosaic are shown to be dead. The crew takes the Gyratory's south exit and heads through a long, twisting tunnel, eventually discovering a Nidean base camp. Figure sneaks ahead and sees a few dozen people in the camp, most of whom are settling in for dinner, with a handful of mechs up against the walls. One wall is covered with a map of the ruins, which are shaped like internal organs; Figure is able to share the map with the party's mechs.

The party takes out the enemy combatants, but Figure is left with the Peril "Pierced". The remaining Nidean forces flee. The party, chasing them, finds themselves in a flooded room full of clear, bright water. On the far side is an "evacuation tube" towards which the Nideans are fleeing. Most of these people are unarmed scientists, so Thisbe promises them that if they stop, the party won't kill them. They pause to hear Thisbe out, and Cori—Devotion's sword—kills them all.

Thisbe and Cori start new Gravity clocks:

• Thisbe's: If I am a gun, Cori is a grenade. If she is not stopped she will self-destruct and take others with her.
• Cori's: Thisbe doesn't have the stomach for command.

The "evacuation tube" retracts and reveals itself to be the arm of the Divine Consecration, who punched down through the moon to try to save its people. Consecration is angry, but retreats for the time being. As Cori, Thisbe, and Figure step into the pool in the room, they are filled with clarity of belief:

• Cori's "You are a sword" tenet loosens;
• Thisbe's "My presence is a liability to my operants" hook loosens; and
• Figure's "I've lived two lies; I'd happily die for the truth" hook deepens.

Deep at the bottom of the pool is the corpse of a long, humanoid Divine. This pool is the grave of Souciance.

B-Plot: Stellar Combustor

The heat from the sun damages the hyper stealth vehicle and worsens until it becomes life-threatening for those aboard. Brnine attempts to keep Routine calm. Phrygian transforms and goes out into space, touches the innermost ring, and morphs themself into a shield made from the same heat-shielded material as the ring in order to protect the vehicle. Brnine identifies a way into the ring, and Phrygian instrumentalizes one of their as-yet-unused forms: the deepest, darkest, coldest part of space. They sustain that form for long enough for Brnine and Routine to open the door and get inside the ring, and for Phrygian themself to follow.

Cast

• Austin Walker (GM)
• Ali Acampora (Kalvin Brnine)
• Andrew Lee Swan (Figure)
• Janine Hawkins (Thisbe)
• Sylvia Bullet (Coriolis Sunset)
• Keith J. Carberry (Phrygian)

Other Characters

• Midnite Matinee
• Various Nidean soldiers, pilots, and scientists
• Routine Rennari
• Consecration
• Souciance