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Jennis Colmar resigned himself early on to a life
of constant letdowns, setbacks, failures and minor disasters. He just accepts
that the line he waits in will be the longest and slowest, the show he likes
will be canceled, and his favorite cereal will be discontinued. After losing
17 jobs to cutbacks, fires, meteor showers, quakes, floods and one case
of inter-dimensional slippage, Jennis found steady employment for the past
40 years at the Buildall Corp. Metal Plant. Buildall is the only source
of metal parts for three systems. They had quietly monopolized the raw mineral
rights years ago in the pioneering days of the system, thus eliminating
any real future competition. Jennis has the longest employment record in
the company's scarred history, and has been cross-trained in every department
(this was of necessity rather than ability, as one disaster after another
befell various departments, seemingly randomly over the past four decades).
Jennis has stuck with the company through it all, and to show their appreciation
of his devotion, inspiration and work ethic, they have promised to keep
Jennis employed somewhere in the company for as long as he so desires. |
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While this is good news for Jennis (and Thorppe), it creates an ever
and ongoing problem for anyone in possession of metal from the Buildall
Corp. Any metal produced by the department Jennis was in at the time is
cursed with what is known as “The Jennis Effect”. The Jennis
Effect results in a random malfunction or breakdown of metal parts. As
Buildall provides metal for everything (from rivets and nails all the
way to girders and hull sections, and everything in-between, like robotics,
instrument casings, and so forth) anything can break at any time. Depending
on how close Jennis was to the material, and how much of it is used in
any single piece of equipment, the severity of the malfunction varies
from minor annoyance to outright meltdown.
Because of the random and widespread nature of the effect, no one (not
even the other Eutowe gods) has been able to pinpoint the cause, or realize
there is a common denominator, to all the mysterious malfunctions that
have occurred over the years.
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