PALISADE 39: A Mechanical Whine Pt. 1

A Mechanical Whine Pt. 1
Episode information
Episode	39
Release Date	March 1, 2024
Length	2 hours 19 minutes
Meta
Cast	Austin Walker Ali Acampora Andrew Lee Swan Janine Hawkins Sylvia Bullet Keith J. Carberry
Game	Armour Astir
Score	Nothing is Stationary
Episode guide
Previous	Reach In / Reach Out Pt. 2
Previous	Reach In / Reach Out Pt. 2
Next	A Mechanical Whine Pt. 2
Next	A Mechanical Whine Pt. 2
Previous Arc	Reach In / Reach Out
Previous Arc	Reach In / Reach Out
Next Arc	Where They Are
Next Arc	Where They Are
Links
Episode Page	friendsatthetable.net
Transcript	Google Docs

Episode description

Across Palisade, Millennium Break and its allies launch into action. One after another, the Frontier Syndicate’s egg-like power plants came under direct attack. With enough of them brought offline, the group’s ploy to revive Motion would be halted—at least temporarily. That is where the Blue Channel would do their work: Infiltrate the campus of the Lone Marble Group; locate a kill switch for the terrible project; bring it all to a permanent end.

This week on PALISADE: A Mechanical Whine Pt. 1

Blood on the horizon

Dossier

People

Telford Stare (he/they): One of several foremen tied to the Lone Marble Group's contractor operations division.

Organizations

The Frontier Syndicate: A powerful conglomerate with a broad purview, including technology, heavy industry, entertainment, telecommunications, and transportation. Led by Exenceaster March (he/him), the Syndicate betrayed the Pact of Free States and joined the Bilats in order to be part of their colonization efforts on Palisade. Developed the Altar, the predominant war machine of the current era.
The Lone Marble Group: Built around a single artifact recovered from an Advent facility, this Frontier Syndicate subsidiary develops the future of Bilat war machinery.
The Church of Received Asterism: The most widely practiced faith in the galaxy, and one of the earliest major organizations in the Divine Principality, created at the beginning of the Miraculous Millenium, over 3000 years ago. Teaches that Divines, the immortal machines and mechs that helped establish the Principality's hold on the galaxy, reflect the best aspects of the state itself. The divine Strength, in other words, is like a living flag of the Principality's own strength. Organized as a central church, led by a religious leader named a “Cycle,” whose will is enacted across the Principality by their many “Songs,” who rule worlds, star systems, or sometimes entire constellations.
The Church of Progressive Asterism: Created as the teachings of the prophet Logos Kantel grew in popularity 1000 years ago, and made a secondary state religion in order to prevent a large schism. Teaches that Divines are true embodiments of their names, and that the citizens and states of the Principality should look to them as guiding stars. The Divine Strength, in other words, is a reflection of strength itself, or maybe "god's strength," and we should aspire to make our strength look like the divine's. Unlike Received Asterism, there is no single central church, but hundreds of smaller sects, schools, and cults, each devoted to individual Divines, grouped sub-pantheons, or otherwise adjusted beliefs.
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. If Received Asterism places virtue in the state and Progressive Asterism places it in the Divines, the New Asterism places it in the Principality's mythologized point of origin: The Twilight Mirage.

Places

Bontive Valley: Blessed by the departed divine Bounty, the Valley provides the Bilats with fruit that never rots and hyper-nutritional grain.
Temple of the Threshold: Built at the center of a massive bridge that crosses the Diadem, this serves as the home of New Asterism and its false prophet,
The Twilight Mirage: Created over 5000 years ago by what was then the Divine Empyrean in an effort to protect the Divine Fleet, of which they were a member. The Mirage is a false nebula that obscures the position of its inhabitants both visually and by distorting time and space. Inside, there is now a vibrant and peaceful culture that spans eight planets, orbiting a dark and living Divine sun.

Divines

The Divine Resonance (it/its): The watchful guardian, doting caregiver, and ardent supporter of Nideo's colonial efforts on Palisade.
The Divine Integrity (it/its): Sometimes appearing as an articulated staff or a metallic spine, Integrity integrates itself into its chosen user. Once the two are connected, Integrity becomes a powerful exoskeleton, and supports its user in matters of military and morale. Until being assassinated by Brnine, Dahlia, the Glorious Princept, was the elect of Integrity. Now, it has found a new home in Thisbe.
The Divine Motion (she/her): One of the founding members of the Pact, the necromantic Apostolosian divine once led its infamous retinue, the Black Century, on Partizan. They were defeated and dispersed, turned into part of Kalmeria, during Operation Shackled Sun.

Contents

Opening

“

This is a message to the people of the Twilight Mirage from Gur Sevraq, Song of Palisade, founder of the New Asterism, rector of the Temple of the Threshold, and plenipotentiary of all Divinity.

I pray it does not arrive too late, because I know that Millennium Break has come to you with mellifluous words and promised gifts. But I will not speak in sophistic rhythms, and I warn you: revolutionary futures are only ever repackaged presents, and the present is death. I bring something simpler, something I know you value. I bring you tranquility. I bring you peace.

And I offer this gift to all, to the reformist and the reactionary, to the reluctant, and yes, even the radical—the radical whom I once was, the radical to whom I wish I could say that you think that what comes next will be a grand revisioning, but I have seen the future, and if Millennium Break is allowed to bring us to it, it will be a shattered aquarium. It will be scattershot violence. It will be the all-at-once thawing of a great glacier, and the flood that comes after. It will be blood all of the time.

That will not be better than the Divine Principality. You think you are prepared to be the bloody hand that turns the wheel. No one is prepared for that. It is not a wheel, it is not the rise and fall of empires, it is not a cycle of justice and tyranny. What comes next will simply be unending internecine conflict between uncountable fragments across a world we no longer know. It will be a galactic class of warlords. It will be starvation. It will be daily terror.

To our new neighbors, this is what we seek to be a bulwark against. We are coming home not to conquer, but to build. Our doors are open. Send your envoys. Send your theologians. We are eager to talk.”

– Puppet of Gur Sevraq

Cast

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