Actually, I'd been taking it quite literally. Handwavium cannot be used to make explosions. Period. It also can't be used to make explosions bigger. If you introduce handwavium into a sufficiently complex system that naturally makes explosions (like a nuclear bomb) it will turn it into system that does not (like a nuclear reactor). If you introduce it into a system that could be induced to blow up under the right circumstances (like a nuclear reactor) and then induce the result to blow up - well, making it blow up will be harder, you might not succeed at all, and if you do succeed it doesn't blow up as powerfully.
Entirely independant of that, it's Really Not Easy to turn handwavium-effects into weapons. At the very least, no one's yet managed to come up with a bach that will do it readily. Making weaons out of handwavium basically requires designing peaceful Tools With Sharp Edges, with the primary intent that they be peaceful, and then using them as improvised weaponry when neccessary. You can't build a sword, but you can whale on them with a plowshare if you have to.
I'd like to stay away from the idea of weapons that know what they're aiming at. *that* one takes us streaming right back into the "it works because the handwavium likes us" territory that we'd decided to avoid at the beginning.
Entirely independant of that, it's Really Not Easy to turn handwavium-effects into weapons. At the very least, no one's yet managed to come up with a bach that will do it readily. Making weaons out of handwavium basically requires designing peaceful Tools With Sharp Edges, with the primary intent that they be peaceful, and then using them as improvised weaponry when neccessary. You can't build a sword, but you can whale on them with a plowshare if you have to.
I'd like to stay away from the idea of weapons that know what they're aiming at. *that* one takes us streaming right back into the "it works because the handwavium likes us" territory that we'd decided to avoid at the beginning.