#ibistock

A broad and ancient clade, Juggernauts are some of the oldest and most diverse dagnyds found across the Jacantese world. From the well-rounded workhorse Appletop (pictured), to the highly specialized Funeralworm, from the gentle utility of the Waterbearer to the fearsome showmanship of the Antlerjaw, Juggernauts take many forms and are employed to many ends. As a clade, Juggernauts are unified by a strange species of symbiosis, and the modifications such entails. Without the ability to accept a Sister-pilot, a dagnyd cannot be rightly considered a Juggernaut.

The skull of a Juggernaut is heavily modified to accomodate the presence of a Sister-clade “Pilot”, to facilitate her comfort and safety, and to allow her direct access to the central nervous system, which she may control and modify at will. While a Juggernaut is, on its own, an intelligent, autonomous entity, the control of a Sister-pilot is necessary to realize full potential. Some say the intelligence of the Sister is required to supplement the dull-minded Juggernaut’s brawn, and give to it direction which need cross no gulf of ambiguity to be understood. They say Sisters are more pliable, more given to following direction, and by allowing the Sister to impart her will upon the Juggernaut, she transfers to it her own native docility. Some say it is an allusion made manifest, a living institution enshrining the parable of the cricket who learned to drive oxen with her song, who’s cleverness elevated her station beyond the fragility of her body. Whether any of these reasons explain the origins of the relationship, or simply seek to find some retroactive justification, is a topic of long debate. However it came to be, that it is entrenched is irrefutable.

In modern Juggernauts, the modifications which facilitate the housing of Sister-pilots are extensive and extreme. In lieu of a flexible neck, the massive, bulbous skull is attatched rigidly to the spine, supported by a muscular hump. Many, though not all, Juggernauts posses stalked eyes to compensate for a head which cannot be turned. Sisters enter the skull by way of the operculum, a mask-like plate situated beneath the eyestalks. The operculum can be retracted to prevent damage.

In Juggernauts, the nasal cavity forms a very large, hollow space, occasionally encorperating the eyesockets in cases when they are not otherwise necessary, where the Sister-pilot is secured for connection by a pocketlike rampart. Mucus remains an essential adaptation for the collection and removal of foreign matter, considering the ease with which dirt, dust and pollen may be introduced into the relatively open space.

The twin pairs of ‘antennae’ sported by Sisters serve very different roles than the structures for which they are named. While the ‘key-antennae’ do have some chemosensory function, they are primarily designed as a male component, slotting into a complementary pair of orifices. The unique shape of each Sister’s key-antennae comes to be recognized by the juggernaut during the initial process of imprinting, the ‘first ride’. Once established, the unique pressure-print established by the key-antennae is required to relax the muscular orifices which secure the basal apertures, through which the Sister-pilot connects her own nervous system to the Juggernaut’s cerebellum via her smaller pair of ‘lock-antennae”. While secured, the key antennae secrete hormones to be absorbed by the membranous tissue of the pressure-lock. In this way the Sister’s body is able to more effectively communicates her physical and psychological state through the induction of mirror responses.

To accommodate this mode of connection, the Juggernaut brain is often modified into strange shapes. In the Appletop, the brain is twisted upside down, with the cerebellum - the joining-point - lying on top, and the brainstem running down through the center.

Sister-pilots can, in theory, remain connected to their Juggernauts for several days at a time, but in practice control-sessions generally last several hours. A modified salivary gland provides coupled Sister-pilots with a temporary source of nutrition in the form of a thick, sweet fluid which is almost entirely sugar. What liquid waste is passed by Pilots while coupled is drained alongside excess or fouled mucus.