PALISADE 57: Above the Earth Pt. 1

Above the Earth Pt. 1
Episode information
Episode	57
Release Date	July 26, 2024
Length	1 hour 59 minutes
Meta
Cast	Austin, Ali, Dre, Janine, Keith, Sylvi
Game	Armour Astir: Advent
Score	Nothing is Stationary
Episode guide
Previous	Some New Thing Found in the Light, Or: A Year in Nine Parts
Previous	Some New Thing Found in the Light, Or: A Year in Nine Parts
Next	Above the Earth Pt. 2
Next	Above the Earth Pt. 2
Previous Arc	Some New Thing Found in the Light, Or: A Year in Nine Parts
Previous Arc	Some New Thing Found in the Light, Or: A Year in Nine Parts
Next Arc	N/A
Next Arc	N/A
Links
Episode Page	friendsatthetable.net
Transcript	Google Docs

Episode description

With a fleet of Pact vessels heading towards Perennial’s station at the center of the Milky Way, Levi Cascabel-Gardner, Exeter Leap, and the reunited crew of the Blue Channel join with their allies on the beaches of the nearest world. There, they prepare for what is to come: Searching for new tools, drawing formations in the sand, and connecting with the very currents of reality. It is a place they know well, a time of preparation and planning. One last, long held breath under blue skies.

This week on PALISADE: Above the Earth Pt. 1

I think it was the first time I realized that I could change the world

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

Earth: Ancient home of humanity. Moved into orbit around the center of the galaxy by the Old Earth Cult, under guidance by a manipulative and influential divine called Independence.

Divines

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. Now, she has returned to take control of the Pact of Free States, and has set her sights on Perennial at the heart of the galaxy.
The Divine Present (it/its): On first blush, Present might be confused for a small, if luxurious frigate. And sometimes, it is just that: Its oval structure houses living quarters, a humble armory, enough cargo space to hold a single hollow, and even a fully stocked bar. But at a snap of its elect’s fingers, it transforms into a humanoid war machine that serves its elect loyally, outclasses any Altar currently in operation, and is capable of holding its own against many other Divines in combat.

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 bonded with elements of Autonomy Itself and the Divine Motion to create Kalmeria.

Additional Notes

Contents

Opening

“

You are looking up into a clear blue sky, and seeing it: the largest structure in the galaxy. Maybe even beyond the galaxy. It is a space station, long and flat, stretching to the edge of the sky and then turning. Like a circular shelf, hung at the edge of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

This ring-shaped space station, which Perennial calls home—or which is maybe Perennial’s true body at this point—is something like an air filter for reality itself. Perennial and her Wave, innumerable nanomachines, breathed out into the galaxy from this ring, once changed the very laws of physics. Then in the year 1424 of the Perfect Millennium, the Divine Motion and the being called Autonomy Itself were decimated, and their remains co-mingled with the Wave, creating what became known as Kalmeria. Soon, it was the age of the Altar. Soon, there was war on Palisade.

But now you are not on Palisade. You are, for the first time in the Divine Cycle, looking up at the sky from a place familiar to you, and me, and the listeners. From the planet nearest to the center of the galaxy: Earth. You are here, on a beautiful beach preparing for, hopefully, a final confrontation with the Divine Motion. A machine who, at the head of her undying army of thralls, could rightfully be called a necromancer. And some of those forces are here already, in space above, unaware of your presence. They traveled with the very fastest of Apostolosian engines, or were brought here by Present, bit by bit by bit. And now they begin their apocalyptic tasks, because it will be apocalyptic if Motion can claim Perennial’s place at the center of the galaxy. If she can tinker with the rules of reality, bending them towards the biases of her eternal march.”

Cast

• Austin Walker (GM)
• Ali Acampora (Kalvin Brnine)
• Andrew Lee Swan (Levitation Cascabel-Gardner)
• Janine Hawkins (Thisbe)
• Keith J. Carberry (Exeter Leap)
• Sylvi Bullet (Coriolis Sunset)

Other Characters

• Wilkie Burkhard
• Theobald Martell
• Susanna Martell
• Beck Regula
• Bashful Dissent
• Casual Dissent
• Stone Stone
• Maxim Bonaccorso
• Horatio Rowbottom
• Montgomery "Monty" Gloss
• Beautiful-Kick Alexandryah OctoberMalaise
• David Xanatos