Quote:I've had the vague thought - this goes especially for most of the vehicle mods - that handwavium is at least sort of sentient, and that it responds to will and intent.
So....thoughts? Discussion?
This is part of the reason why I've held it's difficult-to-impossible to make weapons out of pure handwavium - the intent behind building weapons for a lot of fen isn't self-defense, it's more a glee at RAW DESTRUCTIVE POWER than anything else. The handwavium senses this intent and finds it lacking. Somebody with enough will can override this "safety lock" feature (the Professor being the canonical example) but it's almost always an uphill battle.
When it comes to intent, I see the handwavium as reading three things in order: Conscious intent, subconscious intent, and background context. Conscious intent is what the user tells himself he wants ("I want a this series of technical specifications for my car!"), subsoncious intent is what the user really wants ("I want a car that could fly to Alpha Centauri and back!") and background context is... well, everything else (the car's German in make, the user is a big Eva fan, the car's paint is red, there's a Kraftwerk CD in the stereo...) and then uses this information to change the user's Jetta into a space-capable roadster piloted by a computer simulation of Auska Langley.
I have no idea why any sane person would want an AI based on Auska, but there you go.---
Mr. Fnord
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Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
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