The Laws of the Handwave

[drakensis]

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Unless you work very, very hard at getting something specific, and even then it won't be exactly what you wanted.

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A good point. How about this:
Rule #1: Handwavium is like Cat. It does not go where you tell it to go. It goes where it wants to go. If you are trying to get A Cool Thing, then you will get A Cool Thing. If you are trying to get A Specific Cool Thing? You will get A Cool Thing which may or may not be what you want but might be what you really need.

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Except when "Not at all, not even a little, not under any circumstances" conflicts with Rule #0b - but you have to work for it.

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You're right, please forget that sentence of the rule. It doesn't need to be underlined like that.

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Oh, and I like your Rule #4. Your #4a makes Katz' coilguns useful again...

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A useful byproduct of justifying why Mr Morden was worried about getting shot down in the Jaime Retief - she ain't proof against military hardware. Destrier, OTOH, is very significantly tougher...

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And even then it'll only work once; once the handwavium realizes it's been used as a weapon, it'll stop acting that way.

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I'm not convinced of this. There's evidently an intelligence at work, but making every weapon a one-shot affair might be a tricky prospect.
My own thinking on the matter (going on the basis that this is Haruhi's whim at work) is that Haruhi disapproves of weapontech because breaking things is less interesting than building things. So handwavium is more concerned with increasing the net potential interest of anything and is skewed against things that destroy (because broken things are boring).
But if you can think of a way around this, then it's a fair cop. You've beaten the system and Handwavium is not going to change the rules on you. Because beating the system is cool and interesting enough to overrule the previous guideline. Of course, that doesn't mean that your trick will work for someone else (hence, coilguns are a Katz speciality, he has (or is) the 'patent' and no one else can duplicate it).
What does everyone else think?D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
D for Drakensis

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