Plotbunny for sale - cheap

[CattyNebulart]

---

That is, of course, an invitation for anyone else at or near the Costume Competition to cross subplots with me. I don't have an IM account, so if you're interested, we'll have to do this by e-mail (robkelk -at- gmail -dot- com). If nobody's interested, I'll go with Plan B...

---

Well I have had finally time to glance over what you have written and I would volunteer but for 2 reasons. The Proffessor doesn't strike me as the sort of person you go to for detective work, and to be honest I don't like your character all that much, since in many ways he represents a severe break in continuity, and he doesn't seem to fit well with the established fenspace. Not that you are the only one but you are the worst so far.
Please don't take this as an attack on you Rob, I respect you, it's just that in this case you are not fitting in. Play the concept a little and see what you get.

---

(Also, I'd prefer that whoever the SOS-dan send to Stellvia not be established Haruhi characters - the midway base is somewhat important, but not that important (unless Haruhi decides she wants to vacation there, in which case the entire top echelon will show up). Any suggestions for who they'd send after the Con?)

---

It is my understanding that the SOS-dan are only the original characters, so I don't think they are going to station anyone anywhere but with Haruni. I think other people who try to join the SOS-dan fail for one reason or another. (Nagato sabotages them, Haruhi doesn't like them, whatever.)
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[ECSNorway]

---

... which is boring. Now, boarding actions? Not boring. That's ignoring the societal implications of a bunch of us having weapons which (by dint of the fact that they can hole handwavium hulls) are capable of annihilating anything the mundanes can field. Which might be a fun story, but I don't think that's what *this* story is about.

---

Random note: Boarding actions provide several things.
Number one, of course, is prisoners (who can be interrogated) and loot (which can be sold and/or kept/guzzled/dumped/whatever).
Number two, of course, is the opportunity to look cool while swinging an electro-cutlass, lightsaber, or 'wavium/chakra fist, as per your fannish pleasure.
After all, what's the point of being a Space Pirate/Ninja/Whatever if you can't board the enemy ship, hold their captain at swordpoint, and make him Walk The Plank?
(Exactly what 'walking the plank' constitutes in fenspace is left as an excercise for the reader.)--
"I give you the beautiful... the talented... the tirelessly atomic-powered...
R!
DOROTHY!
WAYNERIGHT!
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

[firvulag]

Re: Dogfighting
Don't forget there's got to be more than few fen or groups of fen out there attempting to build Gundams or the equivalent (*cough*). And, really, what's the point of a giant robot if you can't dogfight with it?
F
--
"Can you do anything about that? *Hell* no. So what's the
solution? Violence! No hold on, that was Plan A."
-- Frossie

[CattyNebulart]

---

Don't forget there's got to be more than few fen or groups of fen out there attempting to build Gundams or the equivalent (*cough*). And, really, what's the point of a giant robot if you can't dogfight with it?

---

Dude it's a f-ing giant robot, it doesn't need a point.Besides you can dogfight,and in fenspace giant robots are probably among the beter ones, being good at grapling and all that (since ranged weapons are pretty much out). You just need the computer to zoom in on the enemy, becuase the speed is high, but if the usual standof range is something on the order of a lightsecond you still have plenty of time to react. You will lack effective long range weapons (but so will your opponent, unless they are reavers), true, but you are looking at this from the wrong angle.
You are boarding an enemy ship, would you like to have a giant robot backing you up?
also I imagine giant robots would be quite good at cathing the other ship, being small (and therefore fast) and able to grab the other ship. I bet the reavers use a large amount of giant robots.
Of course now I expect the arms race to shift to mech carriers. *sigh* As a caveat lets say that all non-reaver mechs are unique and there is a limit to how cool your mech can be. Handwavium shouldn't lend itself well to mass production.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[KJ]

Mecha... well, I mean people are welcome to try anything they want, and they may well work but... speed drives really really do make everything too fast for human reactions to do well. And beam weapons are pretty much right out.
OTOH, I can sorta picture a bunch of people intentionally limiting themselves to reaction drives for the sake of fun. Veritech vs. Gundam oversized paintball tourney?

[CattyNebulart]

---

Also, Haruhi question... there *is* a Haruhi manga/show in this universe, right? If there is, how would you justify that the writers got so much correct, given that Kyon and co seem to Really Want to keep some of this stuff under wraps?

---

At the moment I'm leaning towards that the show didn't exist in this universe, but it might have existed in the last iteration of the universe, before god got bored.
The only hint we have that the show might have existed is Ryoko and I have thought of a few ways around that.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Feinan]

---

Of course now I expect the arms race to shift to mech carriers. *sigh* As a caveat lets say that all non-reaver mechs are unique and there is a limit to how cool your mech can be. Handwavium shouldn't lend itself well to mass production.

---

I agree with the mass production bit. At least, for BIG items. If you have items small enough that you can coat them all with handwavium within a short period of time, you probably have a decent chance of making small batches of items that are mostly consistent within that batch. Mostly.

[Anpwhotep]

---

SS Salvage I

---

Ladies and gentlemen, the Vulture has landed.
(I really REALLY loved that series.)--
Homepage: http://www.macmanusnet.net
Sailor Moon Fanfiction: http://crystal.macmanusnet.net
--
Homepage: http://www.macmanusnet.net

Sailor Moon Fanfiction: http://crystal.macmanusnet.net

[Feinan]

I wanted to reply to a couple of things here. The quotes are from CattyNebulart (first) and KJ (second).

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Reaver probably attack from either ambush or boarding action I agree. Or considering how much of the tech relies on handwavium they have something that neutralizes handwavium for a bit. Losing pressure, communication (seriously, hardtech comminicators that can reach over light seconds are big and expensive), lifesupport, engines and a bunch of other things in an instant got to suck.

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I'm not sure I like the idea of something that can neutralize handwavium. At least, not en masse. Now, perhaps something that would allow limited interference, that could work. You could have something that would nullify engines just long enough for the Reaver ship to grapple/lock onto the target ship, and perhaps they have a handwaved jammer to prevent communications. It would still let people do those swashbuckling boarding actions without being quite so overpowering.

---

*nod* Some might even have hardtech weapons bolted to their vehicles (*cough*Heinleiners*cough*) which may or may not be legal on Earth but... well, up in the black, who cares? But at this stage in the evolution of things, nipping the whole "effective ship-ship weapons" armsrace in the bud seems advisable.
Part of that is just interest. Given the velocities involved, the manuverability of speedrives and whatnot, anything that's not an outright surprise/desperation attack is just going to be a matter of telling your AI (if, as handwavium constructs, they'll commit violence; another debate p'raps) or computer to engage, watching the stars whirl around crazily as your ship manuvers far faster than human reflexes can comprehend, then either dying or waiting for a message that the target got destroyed.

---

I'm guilty of a bit of this. As far as AIs being willing to commit violence, I'm on the plus side for this. The handwavium may have formed the initial AI matrix, but after that, it's up to the AI. My take on this is probably not surprising, since I have an AI that acts as an emergency weapons officer on my ship.
As far as effective weaponstech goes, I still go with the idea of handwavium to power things. The only tech I've used to create a weapon is the basic speed drive, and even that was toned down because of size considerations (yes, smaller things go faster, but my drones are too small to hold a truly effective engine). And there are some devices that could be created in space by fen who really want weapons - all of them hardtech. Railguns are not a new technology - maglev trains run on the same principle and we've had those for years. All you need is the power. The same for strong lasers. There are fractions (And yes, I noted the misspelling, Bob. When everyone started using it, I took it as something that might've happened when the groups were first settling - a typo that got picked up to distinguish our groups from regular factions.) that will want weaponry, even hardtech. Perhaps especially hardtech (Heinleiners, yay! Libertarians as well, I'd say). Some of us are paranoid, some of us are Guardian/Defender personalities...but at least a few of us will have planned for an emergency.
My drones are a primary example. Their MAIN function is exploration/workbots, and names generally indicate function. Poor Spare was a general bot - his function changed, depending on what needed done, such as the grow lights. Spool and Spindle are two types of grappler/winch bots. Succor has the best manipulators, Spotter the best cameras, and so on. They only become Swords at need (or sometimes Shields, depending). And even there, the attacks are either surprise attacks where the target is stationary (Hello, Mr. Zwilnik!), or defense, where the target is approaching you. My drones are too slow to CATCH a ship that's running full out away from me on its drive. I agree that the whirling stars bit under AI control isn't the most interesting of stories....but that doesn't have to be the way that an AI-controlled weapon goes.
All in all, I don't want to see a vast proliferation of weaponry. But if it makes sense for the character, and if it's doable with hardtech or such things as ramming speed, I don't think it should be too actively discouraged, either. While fen tend to be an amiable group as a whole, we're not exactly the most weapon-phobic either (says the man who took the name of his ship from a friggin' BATTLE HYMN). *scratches the back of his head* OK...I'll stop rambling now.

[Anpwhotep]

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I agree with the mass production bit. At least, for BIG items. If you have items small enough that you can coat them all with handwavium within a short period of time, you probably have a decent chance of making small batches of items that are mostly consistent within that batch. Mostly.

---

Which makes handwavium the perfect finishing touch for an old-fashioned craftsman, the kind who still assembles and tunes his mechanisms by hand, who knows his creations so intimately that he can tell just by the way one feels if it's out of balance, and who would be appalled by even the suggestion that his work could be as easily done by a machine.
Hmmm...I feel the need for brass and mahogany and STEAM!--
Homepage: http://www.macmanusnet.net
Sailor Moon Fanfiction: http://crystal.macmanusnet.net
--
Homepage: http://www.macmanusnet.net

Sailor Moon Fanfiction: http://crystal.macmanusnet.net

[CattyNebulart]

---

I'm not sure I like the idea of something that can neutralize handwavium. At least, not en masse. Now, perhaps something that would allow limited interference, that could work. You could have something that would nullify engines just long enough for the Reaver ship to grapple/lock onto the target ship, and perhaps they have a handwaved jammer to prevent communications. It would still let people do those swashbuckling boarding actions without being quite so overpowering.

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I don't like this idea either, but I'd figure I put it out there for discussion, and it does turn the handwavium into a bit more of a liability at times, that way the characters without a biomod get a chance to really shine. Then again, which of the PC's doesn't have a biomod?
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Feinan]

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I don't like this idea either, but I'd figure I put it out there for discussion, and it does turn the handwavium into a bit more of a liability at times, that way the characters without a biomod get a chance to really shine. Then again, which of the PC's doesn't have a biomod?

---

*laughs* Don't look at me. I just got one. It's so new it still squeaks if I turn around too quickly. *grin*
And Tep? I like the handcrafted bit for the limited production runs, too. *snicker* Remind me to post about the memory storage I made for my ladies at some point (and how the Garden was crafted, for that matter). My crafting tends towards half-tech/half-pagan, and I went all out in making crystal memory for them. I'm tempted to have one of their current hobbies be 'downloading the Internet.'

[drakensis]

> Then again, which of the PC's doesn't have a biomod?
The General Lee.
D for Drakensis

You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.

[KJ]

Well, AIs and their stances on things was just something that popped into my head. Wondered, thought I'd throw it out there for other people to wonder about too.
As for weapons... well, yes, I full well expect that there'll be people making hardtech stuff thanks to 'wavium materials or powersources. I know damned well *I'm* doing so; hell, my fenspace alter-ego's job/hobby could be said to consist of using wavetech related techniques to make well-engineered one-off hardtech things, some of which may just happen to be sharp or capable of dispensing pieces of metal. And god knows that I've brought up all sorts of truly abominable abuses for the stuff to the thread creator on IRC (hey, he knew what'd happen when he linked this in-channel!)
The way I see it though, is that the handwavium-enhanced hulls of anything truly spaceworthy are going to be beyond most hardtech methods of cracking. F'rex, yeah, with effectively unlimited power provided by wavetech means one of the big problems with railguns is solved... which leaves questions of switching, projectile welding to rails, armature design, and a thousand and one other big problems remaining. As of a couple years ago, the speed record for state of the art, DoD funded railguns is 16km/sec for a .1 gram projectile... which sounds impressively fast until you consider that it's only twice as fast as the average orbital velocity of the space shuttle, and it's been established that even average ships have micrometeorite protection. Considering that none of us have the resources to come up with something like that in hardtech, and wavetech won't work... well, see the first sentence of this paragraph. Nukes would likely work, but... I shouldn't have to go into this so I won't.
Speeddrive things repurposed as hittiles obviously do work, and it gives me the willies. I'm almost tempted to propose something along the lines of it just not working without the terminal guidance of something sentient; the wavetech uses collision avoidance unless there's someting to force it not to, so you can use the ramming speed technique if you're willing to sacrifice an AI that you went and created. Arbitrary rationale, but you get the idea.
Feinan's last statement I agree with wholeheartedly, and I think that drives to the heart of the whole thing. A lot of us, myself included, think that highly advanced weaponry is nifty for its own sake; others of us are paranoid to some degree or another, or whatever other reason. No problem with that. But once we move onto the realm of people thinking of cleverer roundabout ways to use wavetech to crack open ships and cause mass destruction in a premeditated fashion, the whole thing sorta moves from "fen in a new frontier with the freedom to create nifty things and thumbing their noses at authority who misguidedly fear them" to "fen getting on an out and out war footing to the extent that the normals are *justified* in worrying". Which doesn't seem nearly as fun.
Anyhoo, just my... well, I'm past two cents by now, aren't I.

[KJ]

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Which makes handwavium the perfect finishing touch for an old-fashioned craftsman, the kind who still assembles and tunes his mechanisms by hand, who knows his creations so intimately that he can tell just by the way one feels if it's out of balance, and who would be appalled by even the suggestion that his work could be as easily done by a machine.
Hmmm...I feel the need for brass and mahogany and STEAM!

---

YES! I was wondering how long before someone else would think of that! Large kudos to whoever comes up with the first all-wooden spaceship.

[Rieverre]

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YES! I was wondering how long before someone else would think of that! Large kudos to whoever comes up with the first all-wooden spaceship.

---

You mean, other than the ones Tenchi-Fen were pretty much growing in their back-yards since 'wavium hit the net?
There's not a lot of them, I expect, given the botanical challenges involved in replanting a tree inside a wooden hull, but one or two are bound to be about. Also as likely is that they're not in-system, but rather trying to establish Jurai somewhere.
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm

[Bob Schroeck]

Sirrocco said:

---

Oh, and Bob, love the concept, but... How? If you've got that much land to hide it in, I guess I can see having plenty of time and space to grow handwavium without anyone really bothering you. Sure. It's your land, you can take it with you, sure. Given the right style of goop, you could even goop the dome segments before you set it up, and let them fuse after, sure...and use some other kind of goop that did the permeate and saturate thing with the ground, even, to bring along your little chunk of topsoil... but how you you set up a geodisic dome that big in the first place? What kind of building materials would you use? What would you do for labor? The thing's enormous!

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The way I envisioned it, it was a two-step process -- the dome is itself a handwavium artifact. It is, in fact, a collapsable dome, grown in place collapsed (and looking like a circular wall around the property), then unfolded and sealed before activating the rest of the systems.
As for the how of the ground beneath, my entire justification was "whatever The Island did", but if I really need to justify it more than that, then the dome isn't a dome, it's a sphere, and only the top half is collapsible. Raw materials were environmental carbon and silicon -- it converted the ground it was growing through/on into itself.
The whole explanation is moot, though, if the handwavium can generate a genuine spindizzy. If you're not familiar with the term, it's a antigravity drive from James Blish's Cities in Flight series -- a spindizzy can turn an entire city into a starship, lifting it in one piece off a planet. (In fact, it was more efficient to use on a city than it was to use on something the size of a spaceship.) If handwavium can manage even a tiny spindizzy, I don't need to permeate the soil with handwavium, or hold it in with a geodesic sphere. I just need to turn on the drive.
Hell, now that I think of it, I should have stuck with my orignal plan, which was 250 acres -- that would have been a diameter of approximately 3900 feet, if I remember the numbers I crunched yesterday. I thought that was too big and scaled back, but maybe I should have just gone for it.
Anpwhotep said:

---

(I really REALLY loved that series.)

---

Thanks, me too. And it just struck me that with all the other kludged spacecraft showing up in this setting, the great grand-daddy of them all had to make an appearance.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[classicdrogn]

While my access is too irregular to really take much part in this, I do kind of feel like putting the brim of my hat in the ring - and with the talk of mechafen, this is possibly the time to do it, though it kind of ends up being similar to the wheelchair guy, if less extreme. Well, extreme in a different way, at least.
See, I figure my guy was obne of the fuirst-wavers who just unexpectedly happened onto a batch of the stuff, and didn't really INTEND to do the space thing at all. He kist kind of went a little insane after a couple of hours staring at the pretty shiny when the Autobot Matrix display peice he'd bought on Ebay arrived, and was in fact not the same as every other example of themmm... being about the size of a person instead of at human scale, with a big crystalline chunk of handwavium as the core instead of a lump of acrylic lit by LEDs, a base that could float the thing and double as a heavy duty optical computer core, and a Key to Vector Suigma that actually turned other materials inhto an unidentifiable bright metal. He spent the next few years working with solid insulation foam (the kind that's a single chunk, not little beads) to make a (non canon) transformer mockup in scale to it and changing the foam into what he'd dubbed Cybertronium, only realising the Matrix core was probabkly Handwavium after it started getting into the news.... and was done with that and hooking up things that at loeast looked like actuators just a bit too late to avoid the anti0-handwavium laws. Undeterred, he started it up anyway, the rather limited internal vulome allowed by the transformation mechanics making for a very cramped cockpit space... and was detected, becoming one of the famous fugitives of the Damelaw until he could get a functioning aerospace engine in place for its (triplechanger) flight capable form. Somewhere along the way, there was a SWAT team whose sniper managed to put a .50 cal round through the cockpit... and the autorepair systems any good transtector (as the no-intelligence-of-thier-own Japanese Headmasters were called) needs did its thing on the biological component of the system. Eventually managing to escape the greedy clutches of ground and atmosphere, he became one of the more irragular gearhead fraction members - the Macross and TF and Brave Series fans love him because, well, giant sentient robot, the Gundam fans are not so enthused because he pretends not to understand what they want when they ask for some of his Gundanium sheets. None of the three original artifacts can be reproduced, though the Matrix can awaken AIs in any sufficiently advanced computer core, and the Key's metalization is more a "spray no goop and wait" process than the intsant transforming ray from the cartoon. He goes by Mainspring, now, and is mostly green and gold - the character is one I came up with as a fanfic musing on what if Springer had been faster than Roddy when the Matrix got fumbled, and turns into a tech-truck (natch) and a large-winged aircraft, the wings folding into the truck box or hanging of the robot back ala Sweeps or angelic wings. The truck box is kind of small relative to the overall size because the 'wave doesn't allow for budianskyization to shrink and expand parts, but has room for the usual car-mod or a hab module and can fly that way in space ala Star Convoy. He's one of the ones who's Just That Paranoid to have traded a good sized supply of Cybertronium to the Gearhead team working on coilguns andget one configured as an approriately sized rifle with some heavy duty smartgun enhancements so it's actually useful in the depths of space, and has a human partner (quite possibly a biomod so Shuko the Cat-Girl can pop up - nekomimi have got to be the most popular bio-mod, like, ever...) to deal weith things in places too small for a giant intellignet robot. Oddly enough, lots of places are in fact large enoguh if he bends down and moves carefully, as in TF source material - then again, this in fenspace, who says some of them weren't figuring on catering to giant robots to begin with? I(f not a partner, some kind of human-sized telepresence thing, in order to be part of the story with other, human-scale characters.
Although, I suppose it would be an IC exceuse for not seeing much of him. ANyway, my time at the library is about to run out, so I'd best get to steppin'. If response is not too negative I'll work up a proper prose intrro and tie ins as time permits.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[CattyNebulart]

well classicDrogn, fopr what it's wirth, I would like to see you onboard.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Cobalt Greywalker]

Edit: Removed due to masive plot holes.

[Sirrocco]

ClassicDrogn: The character fits reasonably well for power, and just needs a few tweaks to stay in canon. Much of wha tyou want to do is certainly doable, though you'ld have to muck the backstory a little. Suggestion: instead of some bizarre human-sized mockup of the Autobot Matrix, he stumbles across a significant chunk of handwavium just lying there. He's hiking through the woods maybe, or it shows up on his lawn. No explanation given. It wouldn't look like anything in particular, but could quite reasonably be having strange effects on the world around it. He takes it out of curiousity and starts tweaking with it - discovering that it grows when treated properly, and so forth. It's certainly reasonable for him to discover that, say, forming a few layers of tinfoil into shape over a piece of cardboard and then painting the lot with some of the more liquid parts of his batch leads to a strange sort of alteration that winds up with something thin, light, and very strong. He will also discover that it makes things work better. Oddly - but better. His household appliances are likely to become infected, with various results. He decides to build a full-scale model of a transformer with it - he's an obsessive fan like that, and he actually has enough mechanical skill to put something that vaguely resembles motors in all of the places that need motors, along with a rudemintary wiring system to control it to a degree via an internal setup that his laptop plugs into (enough to make it move in funny ways and impress any friends he might have.) About the time he's done building the thing, he starts hearing about handwavium, and how it Makes Things Better and Can Fly, puts two and two together, and pretty much pours the rest of his stash into his machine. It works better than he possibly could have imagined - it's a vehicle, it's a robot, it transforms. There are quirks, but he's riding the wave, and he deals with them happily. He takes the thing out for a spin or two, and it takes him a while to realize that he's upsetting people, with that whole walking around town as a giant robot thing. He's not damaging anything, but it's still bothering people. In the throes of wave-phobia, the norms call out the SWAT team. He turns to flee, one of the snipers gets twitchy, and a bullet slams into his vitals. That's bad. He makes good his escape, but it's a gut wound, and he's bleeding out. Fortunately, the entire structure he's in is so impregnated by handwavium that it's pretty much everywhere. A fair bit of it integrates in through the injury, staring up a change that takes him from Dying to Not Dying, performs Various Amusing Alterations on him, and knocks him into (blessed) unconsciousness for the duration.
You may feel free to have an AI if you wish - if you do have one, make sure to give it at least one personality quirk that is funny. Regardless, having a biomod with (Benefit - jacks directly into ship, perfectly comfortable staying in ship indefinately, given adequate supplies) (Penalty - becomes Very Unhappy Indeed when away from ship for longer than about a day) is entirely reasonable. A biomod to become One With The Ship is... plausible, given the inherent spaces you have to work with. It's on the unusual side, but it's certainly plausible. Finding a catgirl somewhere is certainly reasonable for the world we've got going - especially if you give him a bit of time on the run on the surface without a star drive. She's some poor soul who was fooled by the guacamole, fleeing on foot from frenzied 'Danes, and he shows up at the most dramatically appropriate moment for the save. It's a classic. There are no 'wave coilguns available to the general public - or even any that the general public knows about the *existence* of, but wave-reinforced ships are pretty impervious to hardtech attacks, and it would be entirely reasonable to have "especially tough armor" as a Cool Thing. From there, well, you have exceptionally tough armor, you have actual articulated limbs with usable hands at vehicle scale, with 'wavium-reinforced mechanical strength - make yourself relatively small and speedy, and you won't need any ship-to-ship weapons. You'll be plenty powerful in the local battlespace already, with a bit of creativity.
A triplechanger is probably a bit excessive, but the 'wave doesn't need jet engines to fly anyway. Stick with the basics. "Transformation with fully functional vehicle and robot forms" is a Cool Thing, and ought to have an appropriate quirk or two - again, the best quirks fall into the "funny/annoying" spectrum, with the annoyance likely pretty minimal in this case because the character just finds the whole situation So Damn Cool.
Suggested quirk: runs partially on the awe/approval of others: if he doesn't have at least a few random people either look at him and think he's cool or focus attention on him for a notable period of time every week or so, his top speed starts dropping (down to about a half or a third), his strength wanes and he starts feeling lethargic. This can be anything from terrifying badguys to impressing small children. In a pich, karaoke will do.
You'ld want another quirk or two after that, under the suggested build, but this one would certainly work.
------------
And remember.... There Is No 'Wave Motion Cannon.
well... unless the professor builds one.
in which case it would just cause handwavium-saturated obtects to move in funny but nondangerous ways (line dancing, for example) within the area of effect.
The collective facefault from all of the people who misunderstood him right up until the instant he fired it would be *priceless*.

[Sirrocco]

Bob: interesting. I suppose it's well within the bounds for someone to have come up with a sort of superplant that generated its own geodisics, once planted along the ground edge. It's the sort of thing you'ld want to have first and then think "Oh, neat! That means we can do Foo!" rather than try to focus-research for, but it's certainly plausible. You could even have it set up to turn into a nice ship-sealed hull when evenly watered with sufficient quantities of liquid handwavium - and the ground below could be covered by a similar effect with the root system. That explanation won't work well if you want to be the One And Only, but it works just fine for "and person X expressed interest, so I gave them a few cuttings."
Mind you, it'd be tougher for others to follow after once the 'Danes know what to look for - especially the really *big* domes. Fen heading into space with their cars is *mostly* acceptable to the local government types. They get away and under treaty protection, another one of the disruptive elements is out of the picture, and no one really gets blamed. Fen heading into space with large chunks of real estate is not so much. That's tax dollars, right there.
If you're really attached to the idea of a traditional spindizzy drive, *I'm* not going to stop you, but I'd *ask* that you not. We've pretty much avoided persistent force shields thus far, especially at the "preserves atmosphere" level, and I'd personally prefer to keep it that way.

[CattyNebulart]

---

And remember.... There Is No 'Wave Motion Cannon.
well... unless the professor builds one.
in which case it would just cause handwavium-saturated obtects to move in funny but nondangerous ways (line dancing, for example) within the area of effect.
The collective facefault from all of the people who misunderstood him right up until the instant he fired it would be *priceless*.

---

Oh that's realy priceless. *cackels maddly* I am going to have to use that somewhere.
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[M Fnord]

---

My guy, due to the creation of seven independent AI androids who could kill him with a look, is downright terrified of working with any Handwavium bigger than about five kilos.

---

I know I'd be skittish about the stuff if I'd done that without planning it, to be sure.
Interesting concept; I like the idea of a 'daneside trader, just for the novelty factor if nothing else. Personally, I'm a little put off by the whole Osama capture thing - feels a little too over-the-top for my tastes - but I suppose we can put it to debate if needs be.---
Mr. Fnord
http://fnord.sandwich.net/
http://www.jihad.net/
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

[Cobalt Greywalker]

The Osama capture thing is there for several reasons.
1) It allows the first four ladies to demonstrate just what 'wavium can do, for good or ill.
2) It gets me money to set up Universal Exports (via rewards).
3) With all the wave paranoia, I needed a way to allow Fen to stay on planet and set up the Freezones.
4) Do you really WANT someone like him to get their hands on Handwavium?
5) Putting him and his colegues out of the way has the (useful to the story) downside of allowing the 'Danes to deal with wave-tech more easily.
6) It hints to organised crime and terrorists that the future lays in space (another useful to the story affect).
That any good as reasons?