Scratch construct

The Beat Mesa is an feature of The Game provided by The Medium. The first one seen is initially found in the Land of Heat and Clockwork, the planet belonging to the B1 human session's Time player. HS 005528 (According to), a similar object arises in all sessions as a sort of "panic button", used to hard reset the universe in a process known as The Scratch.

If the object is activated by damaging (or "scratching") it in a certain way using an object potent enough to damage it, like the Quills of Echidna, the players' universe and incipisphere will start over from some point before their entry with some changes, providing the players with different initial conditions that ideally lead to a better outcome in the game. Once the object is sufficiently scratched, it begins rising into Skaia; once there, it released a large amount of temporal energy which acts as a "request" to Skaia to change everything at a fundamental level. However, HS 6606 (Skaia has control over exactly one thing) - the defense portals it uses in the Reckoning - and so resulting in Skaia retroactively changing the destination portals of the Paradox Clones. This typically changes which group of Paradox Clones serve as the players in the reset session, and accordingly consigns the pre-Scratch session to oblivion.

The object always appears on the planet of the session's Hero of Time. The scratch object looks different in each session and derives its design from its home planet's environment. Whether or not all Beat Mesas relate to a time player's control object (such as Aradia's music box) is unknown, although it has been the case twice so far. If it does, it is likely called something different in other sessions, possibly with a different method of activation, although the troll's version still was activated with the Quills of Echidna.

Pre-Scratch human session (B1)
Shortly after the beginning of his rampage through the B1 session, Jack Noir encountered Dave's Bro at the Beat Mesa and engaged him in a short duel, which was brought to an end when Bro plunged his sword into the Mesa; this caused it to crack and release some of the temporal energy stored within, beginning the Scratch process. Although Bro and Jack quickly absconded afterward, Jack later HS 4747 (returned to collect Bro's sword) and HS 4776 (return it to him) in order to finish their duel.

Later, in accordance with Jade and Karkat's plan, John Egbert travelled to the Beat Mesa HS 006009 (finish the Scratch), equipped with the necessary Quills of Echidna. The Scratch was accomplished by fitting the giant Quills into a machine resembling a record player's needle, which then cut a "Z" pattern across the disk of the Beat Mesa; during this process, John defended the Beat Mesa from aggressing Underlings. Once the Scratch was completed, John was collected and taken out of the session by Jade, along with the four planets and the Battlefield, thus ensuring their survival.

It is not currently known if any of the planets of the post-Scratch session feature a Beat Mesa; it is however unlikely, as the session has no Time player of its own with that role predestined to be filled by Dave. It is also unknown if the post-scratch troll session had a Beat Mesa, since they could not scratch in the alpha timeline when they had already used their version of Skaia to make a universe. It is unlikely they ever scratched in any of the doomed timelines the army of aradiabots came from. Paradox space often provides things at certain times because they will be important.

Trolls' sessions (A1 and A2)
The trolls' version of the Beat Mesa was housed on the Land of Quartz and Melody's pre-Scratch counterpart; it looks very similar to Aradia's music box time machines and the structures in the Land of Quartz and Melody.

In their pre-Scratch session, it was activated by Damara on the advice of Aranea Serket and Echidna, using what appear to be the Quills of Echidna; the cylinder of the music box has a scratch scored around it helically, indicating that the process of activation is highly analogous to that of the kids' scratch. In order to ensure that the pre-Scratch trolls were not completely obliterated by the Scratch, Meenah Peixes killed the team moments before the Scratch took effect and wiped their session.

Trivia

 * The original image was created and named by AbortedSlunk.