It Slices! It Dices! It makes Julian Friez!
The professor heard of these things and swore that if Hardtech could do it, then dammit, so could wavetech. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he looked for Julianne Fries, he couldn't find the damned girl, so he settled for the next best thing.
This (rather large) machine has three buttons, three functions, an input hopper, and a retreival door. The retreival door is approximately refrigerator-sized, and opens into a holding compartment that is likewise about that of a refrigerator, but without the shelves. The guts of the machine look to take up about that much space again, once you've accounted for the relatively thick walls. Successfuly pushing any button down will pop the other buttons back up, and pushing it down again will pop *it* back up, turning the machine off. If "slice" is pushed down, anything put into the hopper will show up in the retreival area, sliced, with accompanying whirring noises. "Dice" acts in a similar fasion, but dices instead. ushing down the "Make Julian Friez" button causes a display to light up, indicating what sorts of things the hopper requires. It first requests a sample of handwavium, and the remaining requirements seem strongly dependant on the variety of handwavium provided. All requirements are organic, and none are *all* that rare, but the machine will accept no substitutes. From the moment the button is pushed, the machine locks down. If you want to use it for anything else, or even open the retreival door, you're going to have to give it what it wants. Once you *do* fulfil its requirements (which generally weigh out to about 200 pounds or so of biomass all told) the machine displays "Thank you, please hold" on the front screen, and starts making various strange whirring, churning, and other noises. This goes on for a while - anywhere from an hour or two to a little over a day - before the door opens up and produces a fresh clone of Julian Friez. Well, mostly a clone. It *is* handwavium after all, and Julian invariably comes out with a new and more interesting biomod, and a few interesting adjustements to his psyche. Still, it's pretty darn close. Close enough for the professor, anyway.
Sadly, Julian is about as dyed-in-the-wool 'Dane as they come. At the time he steps out of the machine, his last memories are of being grabbed from the back of his tour group and thoroughly experimented on, followed by shadowy memories of strange sensations, often including extreme pain, and then being decanted, naked and with a biomod, into the middle fo a Fen ship. He's a good plumber, a decent general handiman, and a talented amateur auto mechanic, but has no other particularly useful skills. The *real* Julian Friez (who was paid pretty well for his trauma before being returned to his tour group) has since changed jobs, states, and names, and uses an unlisted number, just to be sure.
The professor heard of these things and swore that if Hardtech could do it, then dammit, so could wavetech. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he looked for Julianne Fries, he couldn't find the damned girl, so he settled for the next best thing.
This (rather large) machine has three buttons, three functions, an input hopper, and a retreival door. The retreival door is approximately refrigerator-sized, and opens into a holding compartment that is likewise about that of a refrigerator, but without the shelves. The guts of the machine look to take up about that much space again, once you've accounted for the relatively thick walls. Successfuly pushing any button down will pop the other buttons back up, and pushing it down again will pop *it* back up, turning the machine off. If "slice" is pushed down, anything put into the hopper will show up in the retreival area, sliced, with accompanying whirring noises. "Dice" acts in a similar fasion, but dices instead. ushing down the "Make Julian Friez" button causes a display to light up, indicating what sorts of things the hopper requires. It first requests a sample of handwavium, and the remaining requirements seem strongly dependant on the variety of handwavium provided. All requirements are organic, and none are *all* that rare, but the machine will accept no substitutes. From the moment the button is pushed, the machine locks down. If you want to use it for anything else, or even open the retreival door, you're going to have to give it what it wants. Once you *do* fulfil its requirements (which generally weigh out to about 200 pounds or so of biomass all told) the machine displays "Thank you, please hold" on the front screen, and starts making various strange whirring, churning, and other noises. This goes on for a while - anywhere from an hour or two to a little over a day - before the door opens up and produces a fresh clone of Julian Friez. Well, mostly a clone. It *is* handwavium after all, and Julian invariably comes out with a new and more interesting biomod, and a few interesting adjustements to his psyche. Still, it's pretty darn close. Close enough for the professor, anyway.
Sadly, Julian is about as dyed-in-the-wool 'Dane as they come. At the time he steps out of the machine, his last memories are of being grabbed from the back of his tour group and thoroughly experimented on, followed by shadowy memories of strange sensations, often including extreme pain, and then being decanted, naked and with a biomod, into the middle fo a Fen ship. He's a good plumber, a decent general handiman, and a talented amateur auto mechanic, but has no other particularly useful skills. The *real* Julian Friez (who was paid pretty well for his trauma before being returned to his tour group) has since changed jobs, states, and names, and uses an unlisted number, just to be sure.