Panjandrum's Eye

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Panjandrum is the exclusive manufacturer of General Operations Device (G-O-D) Modules. These Modules are the "red eye" special weapons mounted in the forward housing on Quetzal-class Rapid Intervention Vehicles. Panjandrum is Thingmaker-class Intelligence at the hub of several R.U.R. factory wheels orbiting a gas giant on the coreward rim of R.U.R. space - quite a long way away from the Empire and its Quetzals.

The Quetzal's G-O-D Modules are single use devices. One might easily imagine that the distances involved in resupplying the Quetzals would pose severe logistical issues. But that is not the case. Panjandrum has found a way to close the distance and deliver the Modules that Omega House needs to resupply its expeditionary striker vehicles.

Quetzals needing a new G-O-D Module travel to the Sol system, the backward and largely abandoned point of origin of the vast human diaspora. Sol's first planet remains a cinder; its second has become a wet jungular realm for saurian megafauna; its, third a barely habitable iceball, with a surface trammeled by hunting bands of Neothanderals, and subterranean depths tunneled and trawled for relics and gates by the Morlocks; and its fourth, a desert world of decadent warring city-states.

Cold, featureless, and grey, the fifth planet of Nibiru coasts in its silent orbit, casting strange ripples in hyperspace that pose a navigational hazard for vessels in the shallow enumerations. Ships entering the Sol system should heed the hyperspace beacons warning ships to enter normal space before they reach Nibiru's orbit.

Sol's mighty sixth planet is the bleary-eyed gas giant Jupiter: that glowering world is Panjandrum's. Eyeless Quetzals travel here, arriving either as singletons or in small flotillas. The Quetzals stay their orbits above the Panjandrim's Eye, anchored to await the moment when a small black void appears in the center of the Great Red Spot.

As soon as that black iris opens, each ship hurries to transmit its request.  When the eye closes seconds later, the Quetzals begin their wait. Sometimes they wait for hours, sometimes for days.

Eventually Panjandrum's Eye becomes a fountain. A spray of white particles geysers up from the center of the Eye, and one or more replacement modules ride right up that column, spinning off it to become small, temporary red moons of great Jupiter. Each little red eye has its own cyphered song. A Quetzal will be drawn to one specific eyesong, and move in collect its new Module.

The fountain quickly recedes. Once again, Panjandrum's Eye glowers on in silence.

Panjandrum's Eye Aspects

• Stay clear of Nibiru's wake
• Were you followed to this ancient place where Quetzals gather?
• Approach Panjandrum's Eye and wait for an audience
• Panjandrum takes special requests
• Patience is its own reward
• The White Fountain is Panjandrum's Answer