Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace
Basic Information
Pronouns	it/its
Aliases	The Auger The Machine Past The Reflecting Pool The Crown of Glass
People	Divine
Connections
Af­fil­i­a­tion(s)	Rapid Evening Principality of Kesh
Re­la­tion­ships	Keen Forester Gloaming (Chief Intercessor) Figure A (janitor) Tanner Indiana (designer) Renna Rose (proposed by) Leal Leraphon Plumeria (Elect) Cymbidium (Elect) The Witch in Crystal (Elect)
Meta Info
Season	Twilight Mirage The Road to PARTIZAN PARTIZAN PALISADE
Debut	Twilight Mirage 54: Downtime on Skein

Crystal Palace, also known as Past and the Reflecting Pool, among other names, has variously been described as a Divine or post-Divine oracle. Built some years after the events of COUNTER/Weight, its predictions are a guiding force in the Milky Way galaxy throughout Twilight Mirage, enabling the Rapid Evening to monitor and neutralise any potentially disruptive agents in the galaxy. During this era it is affiliated with the Principality of Kesh. By the time PARTIZAN picks up thousands of years later, it has become a Divine of Stel Kesh.

Crystal Palace stores an untold amount of information about the cultures it has observed, including the Divine Principality itself.

Appearance

Crystal Palace is not a typical computer. Its design features many pulleys, chains, punch cards and conveyor belts, the motion of which plays a part in its computation.

It is the size of a city.

History & Involvement

Origins

The idea for Crystal Palace is first proposed in a paper by Renna Rose and colleagues titled "Counter-Example Guided Model for Non-Interventionist Regulation of the Meta-Divine". This paper is published within living memory of the events of COUNTER/Weight. The construction of the machine is originally thought impossible.

Crystal Palace is designed around 600 years later by Tanner Indiana in an effort to create peace in the Principality, and as a result of the conditions in which Tanner and his parents and peers live. 200 years after this is the First Day of Guaranteed Events.

Twilight Mirage

Around 30,000 years later, Crystal Palace sends Demani Dusk and Gray Gloaming to the Twilight Mirage as Primary and Satellite Rapid Evening agents. It tasks them with monitoring the situation in the Mirage. Crystal Palace provides Gray with a Dovetail Synopsis concerning the history of the Quire System just before the rediscovery of the Heart of Independence.

A few months later, the Rapid Evening sends Keen Forester Gloaming to the Quire System after Demani and Gray desert their posts—Gray, unsatisfied with the binary choice of leaving the Fleet to its own course or using a Stellar Combuster to destroy both it and Quire, wants a softer option.

One year in the Quire System and five years for the rest of the universe later, Crystal Palace finds itself unable to create any predictions about the Quire System after a certain date, which the Rapid Evening and the Brink come to know as Dark Day. It is later revealed that this was caused by Our Profit, who used Profit's Star on Crystal Palace from within the Twilight Mirage. Keen Forester Gloaming later decides to call for Crystal Palace's relocation to the Mirage.

This section contains spoilers for Twilight Mirage 67: Futura Free Pt. 4.
Click here to reveal.

In the Twilight Mirage season finale, Grand Magnificent creates Arbit, a Divine that generates enough improbability to prevent Crystal Palace from being certain of anything. This effectively breaks Crystal Palace's ability to predict the future.

In the outro to the season, Aram Nideo grants Crystal Palace Divinity.

The Road to PARTIZAN and PARTIZAN

Crystal Palace is renamed Past when Aram Nideo grants it Divinity, around the beginning of the Dawn Millennium. It remains affiliated with the Principality of Kesh as the Principality transforms into Stel Kesh and through to the beginning of PARTIZAN in 1423 PM. Its Elect at this time is Cymbidium.

During the events of "Obelle, On Fire", Past crashes just outside of Obelle. SBBR performs a false flag to pin the crash on House Whitestar, while Stel Kesh falsely claims this was the work of Stel Apostolos.

This section contains spoilers for PARTIZAN 46: Operation Shackled Sun: Act 2: The Gate.
Click here to reveal.

In fact, Past was downed by a Curtain kill code sent by Crysanth Kesh after Mourningbride reported Cymbidium's intent to defect.

Clementine Kesh's Rapid Evening are sent to Obelle after Past crashes in order to recover enough of the Divine to begin rebuilding it. During this mission, Exeter Leap recovers the robotic janitorial unit Figure A, who was deactivated and placed on display in a museum inside Past millennia prior.

This section contains spoilers for PARTIZAN 36: The Witch in the Glass Pt. 2.
Click here to reveal.

At some point after the crash, the recovered parts of Past are assembled by Curtain agents, who begin the work of rebuilding it within Kesh land in the Verglaz Taiga. Clementine encounters the rebuild effort and takes it over, bringing Perennial into the body of Past with her. She chooses not to free Past from shackles placed on it by Curtain agents.

Past becomes the Reflecting Pool, Clem's floating city, where she rescues war-injured refugees, civilians, and soldiers, sometimes repairing their bodies with Perennial magic, in exchange for them working for her.

The Road to PALISADE and PALISADE

Spoiler warning! This section contains major spoilers for PARTIZAN 36: The Witch in the Glass Pt. 2. Tread carefully!

In the years between PARTIZAN and PALISADE, Clementine intentionally crashes the Reflecting Pool on Palisade and has her followers transform it into a city that she can rule over. She calls this city the Crown of Glass.

This section contains spoilers for PALISADE 53: A Palette of Colors Pt. 8.
Click here to reveal.

With the power of the Iconoclasts, Clementine breaks Arbit, thereby restoring Past's ability to predict the future and installing herself as its new Elect.

Predictions

In their raw form, Crystal Palace's predictions are of little use, too specific and numerous to be directly acted on. As such, Kesh employs agents known as Janitors to 'clean' the output, cleaning the signal from the noise in the data that Crystal Palace provides.

Crystal Palace has been shown to be able to predict events after its own destruction. However, the events were cut off on a day known as Dark Day, when Our Profit used Profit's Star to blind the crystalline sage.

This section contains spoilers for PALISADE 53: A Palette of Colors Pt. 8.
Click here to reveal.

Following Clementine's destruction of Arbit, Crystal Palace's ability to predict the future is restored.

Appears in

Twilight Mirage

• Twilight Mirage 54: Downtime on Skein
• Twilight Mirage 62: The Feast of Patina
• Twilight Mirage 63: Guaranteed Events, Or: An Accounting of the Time When We Built the Machine
• Twilight Mirage 66: Futura Free Pt. 3
• Twilight Mirage 67: Futura Free Pt. 4

The Road to PARTIZAN

• The Road to PARTIZAN 10: Microscope Pt. 2

PARTIZAN

• PARTIZAN 01: The Seaside Town of Obelle
• PARTIZAN 02: Obelle, On Fire
• PARTIZAN 03: SHORESIDE RECOVERY - DINNERDATE
• PARTIZAN 04: SHORESIDE RECOVERY - BLACKGLOVES
• PARTIZAN 30: A Cemetery for Heroes
• PARTIZAN 31: The Grand Premiere (opening)
• PARTIZAN 33: A Single Shot
• PARTIZAN 36: The Witch in the Glass Pt. 2
• PARTIZAN 38: The Red Light
• PARTIZAN 42: The Unbreakable Quarry
• PARTIZAN 45: Operation Shackled Sun: Act 1: The Fray
• PARTIZAN 46: Operation Shackled Sun: Act 2: The Gate
• PARTIZAN 47: Operation Shackled Sun: Act 3: The Stories Told About the Things We Do

The Road to PALISADE

• The Road to PALISADE 20: City Planning Department

PALISADE

• PALISADE 53: A Palette of Colors Pt. 8

Trivia

• The name Crystal Palace is a reference to the Crystal Palace, a once-standing plate-glass structure in London. Various exhibitions of technology and art were held within as a demonstration of the wealth and power of the British Empire. Crystal Palace became a symbol of progress, harmony and modernity until its destruction by fire in 1936.