Gur Sevraq

Gur Sevraq
Basic Information
Pronouns	he/him, they/them
Titles	The Friend Liberator of the Divine Future Disciple of Logos Rector of the Church of the Resin Heart Agitant of all Divinity
People	Columnar synthetic
Connections
Af­fil­i­a­tion(s)	The Friends of Gur Sevraq The True Divine Perennial Future Rapid Evening Millennium Break
Re­la­tion­ships	Apparatus Aperitif (sibling) Clementine Kesh The Figure
Meta Info
Season	PARTIZAN and PALISADE
Debut	The Road to PARTIZAN 05: Ech0 & Dusk to Midnight (intro)

“

My name is Gur Sevraq, and I have stolen the Future.”

– Gur Sevraq, "Ech0 & Dusk to Midnight"

Gur Sevraq (/gər səvˈrɑːk/ or /gər sɪvˈræk/) or The Friend is a reported miracle worker and the leader of the Church of the Resin Heart. He stole the Divine Future prior to the start of PARTIZAN.

Appearance

Gur is a Columnar synthetic. They are a spider-like humanoid with eight limbs, which are normally hidden under their clothes. They have with big mandibles and six eyes resembling angle brackets (if each were made of three dots) pointing towards one another, like the Lacuna rpg cover art of a cartoonish spider in a hat.

In his first appearance, Gur wears long cloaks and robes layered over one another in natural colours (tans, khakis, browns, and very light pale sand tones). These clothes include splashes of teals and oranges from individual cloth or sewn-in ribbons, so that "as they move around, different layers show and move" in an almost hypnotizing way. Their similarly-coloured low turban, ringed by an orange ribbon, covers the very top of his head. In his second appearance, he wears different fabrics, this time in very saturated blues, silvers and whites that somehow still give the impression of warmth.

This section contains spoilers for PARTIZAN Episode 28 onwards.
Click here to reveal.

Their ghost no longer wears any robes, and their spider-like form is fully visible.

Personality

Gur is a skilled preacher and rhetorician, although with friends he has a tendency to get distracted, ramble and go on tangents. They are deeply faithful, and do not appreciate mockery of their relationship to God. Along with his followers, the Friends of Gur Sevraq, he naively believes that the spread of communication technology could enable social progression beyond the imperialism of the Divine Principality. They are firmly against slavery and forced labor.

Gur is not a pacifist: they have killed at least two people. He is also willing to manipulate people, or at least to manipulate Clementine Kesh.

This section contains spoilers for The Road to PALISADE 20: City Planning Department.
Click here to reveal.

After death, he has lost much of his old naivete and self assurance, viewing those traits as mere "hubris" and stating that "the revolution never needed [him]". They've also lost faith in the True Divine, but affirm their belief that Millennium Break will and must end the Divine Principality.

History and Involvement

PARTIZAN

Spoiler warning! This section contains major spoilers for all of PARTIZAN. Tread carefully!

Although he grew up as part of the Mysteries Metronomica, Gur Sevraq was led by both his studies and the guidance of Perennial to the service of the True Divine.

With the Friends of Gur Sevraq, Gur was involved in various clandestine operations against the Principality. They stole the Divine Future from Stel Columnar, and during the theft they killed the Pact Elects Myosotis and Plumeria. Future gave them prescience and the ability to imagine futures unconfined by the hegemonic and imperialist world around him.

They contacted the wavering Elect Cymbidium and spurred him to join them on the Isles of Logos, but Cymbidium instead aimed for the Sable Court before his crash in Obelle.

Along with their Church and many pilgrims from both sects of Asterism, he sets out to walk the Prophet's Path on the 1000 year anniversary of Logos Kantel's own walk. The ambush during this journey leads to him being held as a somewhat-willing captive by his former escorts, the Rapid Evening. During this time Gur first communicates telepathically with Valence, shortly before the True Divine's attention turns to Partizan and they are instructed to assemble the Exemplar.

His kidnapping makes him an increasingly important symbol for various factions of the Principality. It also serves as a pretext for an intensification of the Principality's civil war, with Stel Kesh blaming Stel Apostolos for their disappearance.

When the Rapid Evening takes Fort Icebreaker, Gur helps to hide it from the eyes of the Stels. When Millennium Break forms he uses the opportunity to spread the message of revolution, but does not run in Millennium Break's elections.

After Millennium Break seizes Cruciat, with Clem about to be ousted, Gur has an argument with Clem that culminates in both of them attacking each other and falling from atop Fort Icebreaker into the sea. Both were considered to have disappeared or died by the rest of Millennium Break. Clem washes up on the shores of Chorus Island, and eventually finds Gur's ghost trapped in a caved-in room. He advises her initially on faith and continues to serve as her advisor when she takes the Reflecting Pool.

PALISADE

Spoiler warning! This section contains major spoilers for all of PALISADE. Tread carefully!

In the five years since the events of PARTIZAN, Gur's ghost has continued to haunt the Witch in Glass. When the Figure frees themself from the Witch in Glass, Perennial transfers Gur's ghost over: they no longer haunt the Witch, and now haunt the Figure. Aboard the Blue Channel, Gur tells Figure about the tapes that Brnine has of conversations between themself and Valence, leading Figure to watch the tapes. Following Figure's own death, the fate of Gur's ghost is uncertain.

The Puppet

Spoiler warning! This section contains major spoilers for all of PARTIZAN. Tread carefully!

The puppet of Gur Sevraq, a.k.a. the false Gur Sevraq, is an imposter created and controlled by the Curtain of Divinity which, following Gur's death, stole his body and reloaded it with an old memory core and stolen or secret recordings from before he died. The Curtain uses the puppet for propagandistic purposes and to distort the messages Gur conveyed during their life.

This section contains spoilers for PALISADE 41: A Mechanical Whine Pt. 3.
Click here to reveal.

The puppet is in truth the Divine Future moving through and speaking with Gur's body. Although the Curtain installed the puppet with a "bad algorithm" that could only speak using old recordings of Gur's speeches, rearranged to convey different meanings, over time Future took it over. With its knowledge of Gur's beliefs and behavior, it was able to convincingly impersonate him while advancing its own agenda.

In their first speech, the puppet remains "clearly wounded and broken" from Gur's fight with Clementine. By the beginning of PALISADE, they have become the Song of Palisade and a symbol and prophet of New Asterism, reuniting both sects of Asterism and adjusting their philosophies to aim adherents toward settler-colonialism. Their speeches characterize Palisade as a garden which must be tended by Principality citizens.

Relationships

Clementine Kesh

After being captured by Clementine, Gur seems willing to work with her towards her goals, up to a point. He spends some time at her bedside attempting to educate her, and they begin playing chess together. However, he is not willing to leave the rest of the Rapid Evening imprisoned under her control. They continue trying to win her over after the formation of Millennium Break, but Clem's complete unwillingness to learn, grow, or listen leads to increasing acrimony between them.

This section contains spoilers for PARTIZAN Episode 28 onwards.
Click here to reveal.

In particular, Clementine insults Gur's faith, which leads to the physical altercation where they fall from Icebreaker. After Clementine finds them on Chorus Island, the two continue to clash, but Gur begins to teach Clementine about faith, Perennial, and other topics she had not been receptive to before. She is the only one who can see or hear his ghost: Perennial has bound them together. Gur is unable to communicate with his gods and unsure what would happen to him if he let Clem die. For that reason, despite hating her and being ashamed of his own perceived cowardice, they serve as a whisper in her ear to keep her from committing outright atrocities.

Valence

Valence and Gur meet when Valence visits the Church of the Resin Heart during downtime, but their first major interaction is after Gur's disappearance, when Valence telepathically contacts them on behalf of the church to make sure they are well. They see each other again during a vision in "Divine Attention". Gur Sevraq also invites Valence and the Rapid Evening to join Millennium Break.

While Valence is occasionally irritated with Gur for lecturing, they generally get along well. They have similar interests as religious scholars and worshipers of the True Divine and enjoy discussing the nature of faith. They are also both charged with uncovering the Exemplar.

This section contains spoilers for PARTIZAN Episode 38 onwards.
Click here to reveal.

Valence is deeply affected by Gur's death. It spurs them to redouble their efforts to find the parts of the Exemplar, a search which ends in their own death as well. After "The Red Light", Sovereign Immunity ends up uncovering records from Gur and Valence and giving them to Broun. This includes notes from their conversations on faith that Valence, the more grounded of the two, had been recording to someday turn into a book.

True Divine

The True Divine grants Gur Sevraq the ability to work miracles. This power is only available when the Portcullis Gates open and strengthen their connection. Past miracles have ranged from restarting a generator to hiding an entire mobile military fortress from the Principality.

This section contains spoilers for The Road to PALISADE 20: City Planning Department.
Click here to reveal.

After his death, Gur was unable to hear from the True Divine any longer. In their introduction to "City Planning Department" they have clearly lost faith in the True Divine, describing them as "empty synecdoche for justice...so easily diluted and dispersed".

Bond (Kingdom)

• Milli is right to distrust all who seek to direct her power, but she ought fight for those who share her dreams yet lack her strength.

Trivia

• In the postmortem, Austin said that in a live action adaptation Gur would be voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Gallery

• 

  Art by rosehipsister

Quotes

“

We are driven by this one understanding: that history looms, not the way an ominous shadow casts over the land, but like a machine that weaves. It pulls threads together alike and not, according to pattern, material, and process. And as it stands, the Divine Principality will weave this age, this so-called Perfect Millennium, forever.

And so here is our outrageous idea, slipping from incoherence into necessity: we will work the loom of history ourselves. We will set the pattern, pull the cloth, slide the shuttle, and bring together each of our different threads into something that to look at it once complete is to see something so essential it is hard to imagine the world before it. A future unlike the past, a yet unnamed tomorrow. Together we will break this millennium.”

– Millennium Break: We Will Take Hold of the Loom of History! (opening narration)

Appears in

The Road to PARTIZAN

• The Road to PARTIZAN 05: Ech0 & Dusk to Midnight (intro only)
• The Road to PARTIZAN 09: Microscope Pt. 1 (intro only)

PARTIZAN

• PARTIZAN 05: Profit and Loss
• PARTIZAN 09: DESERT SQUIRE - VANTAGE
• PARTIZAN 10: DESERT SQUIRE - RIPOSTE
• PARTIZAN 11: DESERT SQUIRE - SLEIGHT
• PARTIZAN 12: A Call From an Island
• PARTIZAN 13: A Captive Audience
• PARTIZAN 15: Divine Attention
• PARTIZAN 16: BITTER AIR - BEHEST
• PARTIZAN 18: BITTER AIR - COMBUSTION
• PARTIZAN 19: On the Edge of Fracture
• PARTIZAN 20: On the Eve of Revolution
• PARTIZAN 21: Millennium Break: We Will Take Hold of the Loom of History!
• PARTIZAN 22: Millennium Break: Forward, to Piracy (Sharp Tensions Across Tremulous Seas)
• PARTIZAN 23: Millennium Break: Who Will Lead Millennium Break?
• PARTIZAN 24: Millennium Break: The First and Second Arrests of Clementine Kesh
• PARTIZAN 25: Millennium Break: Courage in the Shadow of Opportunity
• PARTIZAN 26: Millennium Break: Breaking Vigil
• PARTIZAN 27: Millennium Break: She said, "To Win We Must Play!"
• PARTIZAN 28: Millennium Break: The Storm Over Cruciat
• PARTIZAN 35: The Witch in the Glass Pt. 1
• PARTIZAN 36: The Witch in the Glass Pt. 2

The Road to PALISADE

• The Road to PALISADE 20: City Planning Department (intro only)

PALISADE

• PALISADE 25: An Impossible Ideal Pt. 4
• PALISADE 26: Resentment and Frustration Pt. 1 (intro only)
• PALISADE 28: Honesty and Integrity Pt. 1
• PALISADE 29: Honesty and Integrity Pt. 2
• PALISADE 31: Seize the Chance Pt. 2
• PALISADE 33: Seize the Chance Pt. 4
• PALISADE 37: Reach In / Reach Out Pt. 1 (intro only)