Because an idea was too oddball to waste.....

And so, stuck for money after the FDF screw up, and struggling to sell off the hardware, it appeared as if the Friggans would not be able to afford a project for the 2023 convention. Jet was most dismayed at not getting in to the exhibition hall early, while for Mackie it was a point of pride to say he was involved in the whole thing. Kotono enjoyed showing off at the booth while Daryl wanted something new and exciting for the armoury. Searching for something to do to keep the Friggan name on people's lips and not fold like some many other small garage builders, they set down to work.



Out of the mess, fuelled by hours of tea, coffee and a low fat snacks. came the idea.



Nobody can quite remember where the it came from. The original sheet of paper has names such as Kzinti Cannon, Fusion Rifle, Plasma Gun and Orion Cannon written on it, but in such a tangled mass of handwriting that nobody can tell who originally wrote it. The basic concept was to take a standard slughtrower cannon, and replace the chemical propellant with a nuclear fusion reaction. Prime advantages were listed... ringed by a coffee stain... as being adjustable on the fly, and being less likely to explode if shot by an enemy.



The first prototype was built into one of the unsold Havocs, replacing the 30mm cannon. It was, ugly, overweight and unreliable. It was little more than a light fusion thruster with the remass injectors and drive field assemblies ripped out, and a new narrow-angle collimator added in to focus the energy from the fusion reaction into a tightly confined beam. The beam would strike the back of an aerogel pusher plate, turning it to plasma in an explosive reaction that would hopefully propel a projectile out of a barrel.



The first prototype fired at less than a hundred meters per second, but with a really cool light show as the still-glowing projectile sped through the atmosphere riding a column of dissipating blue plasma with a wet warbling sound described by Mackie Jaguar as liquid blue death'. The action jammed solid before it could fire a second shot. Another test firing managed to get two shots out of it, before the third round stovepiped.



Weeks of refinement followed, steadily increasing the muzzle velocity and firing rate to match the original cannons. Power consumption was a problem, firing the cannon also ate into the chopper's precious fuel reserves. Reliability was an even bigger issue, with the 'Fusion Cannon' struggling to fire through more than thirty rounds before malfunctioning. Problems with feeding and fusion beam collimation were never properly solved. The aerogel pusher often shed debris which would ultimately jam the action of the cannon. With the 2023 convention date looming, a backup plan was needed.



The first Fusion handgun was finished with a week to spare. Based on the same operating principal, it used a spark fusion initiator taken from a cutting torch mounted to a six-shooter-style revolver frame to propel a modified .45ACP round backed by an aerogel pusher. Power came from an integrated battery in the grip, alongside a small fuel flask containing He3 fuel for the initiator. An adjustable dial on the initiator itself allowed the shooter to select the muzzle velocity of the weapon, from 'safe', to less-lethal velocities, increasing to a rated maximum of just over 400m/s. It requires a chambered round to fire, for safety reasons.



The simpler, six-shooter based weapon proved itself to be much more reliable, limited only by battery life, fuel and the availability of the specialised ammunition. The Cosmo Dragoon name came from a Lejiite who noticed the unintentional similarity to Tetsuro Hoshino's weapon. Not wanting to miss out on a money-making méme, Ford happily announced she would build more, adding a note that 4, and only 4, replicas would ever be constructed.



Each one found its way into the hands of a private collector, individually serial-numbered from one to four. The original unnumbered prototype is kept on Frigga's public firing range for general hire. Daryl Haur uses it as her personal side-arm with her SAM dress uniform. It's rather stylish.

Plans to construct a whole series of Cosmo Guns were quietly shelved when someone actually looked at the costs involved. The five Dragoons and their fusion action would remain unique curiosities. Pursuing the technology in larger-scale was beyond Friggan reach.

Cosmo Dragoon #001 'Kohran' (A Gift to Kohran Li from Noah Scott)

Cosmo Dragoon #002 'Antilles' (Bought by Jeph Antilles, who called in a favour to own one.)

Cosmo Dragoon Sabre:

Cosmo Dragoon #004:

Meta: If anyone wants one of the four originals for whatever reason, they can have one, either by buying one outright or by being close enough to Ford that she'll build you one. There're only four and will only ever be four. Ford sees them more as a halo project to demonstrate what she's capable of achieving, to sell either more Caster replicas or plain-old custom modified handguns.

Anyone who wants to develop the technology further can do so.... Ford thinks it's too unreliable and complex to take further herself and will share details with someone she trusts. It's only real advantage over conventional chemical-propelled weaponry is that the ammunition when stored is effectively inert....and it can be turned down to lower powers. It's not that much faster in muzzle velocity, and is a lot less reliable, while also reliably giving the shooter's exact position away and firing very hot projectile. It's a wild idea....and like most of Friggan hardware... currently being born out of ideas generated by the Battletech Crossover, washed through a filter of 'what do these people know about'.

Anyone with appropriate skills can improve on it and make it work as originally intended, if they should wish to do so that is.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

I like reading history books like some people read novels. I read those too, but I can curl up in front of the fireplace with a college level history textbook or just a book dedicated to a historical topic and be having the time of my life, and geeky as it sounds, I'd like to get into a good history discussion.
My problem is that I don't know where to look to indulge my inner scholar, so does anyone know where I can find a good history forum where people just talk about historical topics all day?
If it's allowed, I wouldn't mind getting into a discussion about historical topics here.

Projecting Confidence - 14/Jul/2012
He'd mugged the HR man who'd stole his job.  Well.  More questioned him closely.  'Bob' by name.  Quite a nice chap.  And, Arthur'd never really wanted to run a recruitment agency.
There was a whole industry to do with recruitment and evaluation that Arthur had only touched on peripherally.  Most of it with little scientific basis, Bob told him cheerfully.  Only way of finding out, for sure, if someone could or couldn't do a job was to actually have them try and do it.  And, that wasn't certain, as, for example, their dog might have died that week.
So, no real help there.
Arthur couldn't even figure-out how to think about the problem, properly.  He couldn't ask Ms Jones what the hidden brief was - he didn't think there was one.
O'Neill Station was effectively a complete world.  You could rely on a planet to keep on doing much the same thing, with the addition of fun like storms, or the odd earthquake.  Someone had to do all that on a space habitat, actively, and if they forgot or made a mistake, everyone could die.
On the station they were currently doing it piecemeal.  They had people assigned to various tasks, areas of responsibility, but no one, except maybe Black Team, looked for the gaps.  And, there was just Kelly looking at the overall picture. Did she even have time to plan for contingencies?  Was anyone running disaster drills?
Arthur'd tried to patch that.  Provide AIs to run the infrastructure, so there was someone watching out, 24/7.  But, that wasn't planning, that was disaster management.  You needed to see the problems coming, not just react to them.
It was an engineering problem that included human elements.  Human expectations. Human instincts and reflexes that suited a planet with an atmosphere, under 1G. It was a bit like a combination of a sea-going vessel and a sky scraper.  You needed to think everything through.  Opening a door could kill.  And, you needed to bring all the resources to you.
Handwavium made space a more friendly place to live.  It seemed particularly forgiving when it came to life support systems.  But, that only took you so far.
Hmm.  Kevin Wright owed him one after that article.  The least he could have done was consult him before submitting it.  How about...
---

"Charlie?", said Kelly, when the older man introduced himself.  "Sorry.  It's 'Kevin'.  'Kevin Wright'."  He smiled.  "'Charlie' is my older brother.  Lives in Canada.  Not seen him for years."
"So.  I understand I'm to call you 'Kelly'.  All very mysterious.  And, you need advice on engineering.  I'm not an engineer, but I've got a lot of them started in business.  What sort of engineering are you interested in?"
Kelly looked at 'Kevin'.  He sounded a bit like Charlie, but the accent wasn't quite right.  And Charlie didn't have that very faint slur, she could just catch on a few words.  Still, she needed to be careful what she said to him.
"I'm very interested in going into space.  Environmental engineering.  Also, mechanical engineering, electronics, cybernetics, systems theory, the lot."  She could name them, but that was as far as it got.  She understood all the theory. But, once she started on the practical side, Steam Punk crowded it all out.  How could she get help without explaining that?
"A major syllabus.  Do you have a sponsor?  Or, do you plan to go it alone?"
"I have a... focus problem.  I can start to study, then my mind goes off in other directions.  I'm OK with the theory, it's the practical side, the nuts and bolts."  She finished in a rush "I'm just not explaining this well".
The old man looked at her.  She'd seen his nurse.  Gave her a nasty look, when he couldn't see.  Something off about her.  Dangerous.  That's it!  She reminded her of the station AI remotes.  That's where she'd seen her before.  She was the AI remote that 'Arthur' made when he tricked his way on-board.  Why was an AI looking after this old man?  Was he someone important to the case?
"So.  It's a concentration problem.  Have you tried relaxation techniques?  Self-hypnosis even?"
Now she thought of it, that sounded like something she knew as part of her martial arts.  Relaxed concentration.  Finding a balance point that allowed instant action without thought getting in the way.  Attacking the problem with the correct tools.
She looked at the old man.  He was sitting back, looking smug.  As if he'd done something.  All they'd done was talk.  She hoped they weren't paying him too much.  All he did was sit there and project confidence.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Project Engineering - 14/Jul/2012
Arthur sat down and shook.  After getting back from O'Neill Station.  He nearly cried, thinking about Del.  Then he nuked and ate something random from the deep freezer.  And went to bed.
He woke thirteen hours later.  Ideas buzzing in his head.  He needed to organise an office for Janet, and somewhere secure, but radio transparent, to keep her AI core.  The idea of an AI assistant was something he'd been playing with for weeks.  So, it wasn't that much of a push doing it in a hurry.  But, there went all his recordings and notes on his work for O'Neill.  Into her handwavium.  And, he hadn't had time to take copies of all of them.
Still, he'd have Janet, and he could pick her brains.  Maybe get her to construct a master wiki of anything they knew of, to do with O'Neill?  Security was an issue, but they should be able to manage it.  This assumed, of course, that he'd got her AI right.  Nurse Blake worried him, sometimes, being a bit too focused.  Dave Mathers still had a few things to teach him.
Had he been too cruel to Kelly?  She'd made quite a few mistakes.  He thought she was smarter than that, but, maybe she was just trying to do too much?  If he understood her, she was trying to be Chief Engineer for a place that used engineering she didn't have a feel for, understand, beyond the mechanical side, and electrical stuff pre-thermionic valve.  Yes, she was also a brilliant conventional scientist, but that didn't translate into engineering expertise.
She was supposed to substitute for all the Stellvia super-scientists and engineers.  He thought he'd failed, there.  If he'd been smart he'd have made her a conventional engineer, but no, he had to be clever and make her a steam-punk.  From what he'd been told, that might make her a 'Spark' - some day he'd have to read-up on what that meant.
Overnight, Janet had cleaned-up his workshop.  Done the reorganisation that he'd talked about doing for months.  What's more, everything was just where he expected it to be.  How had she done that?  Interesting that she couldn't explain.  "It just 'felt right'."
With an effort of will, he restrained himself from digging-in, and they went out clothes and household shopping.  She could have the second bedroom above the office, it was rarely used by visitors.  If needed, he could clear enough of the junk out of the third bedroom for emergencies.  He encouraged her to buy a wide range of foodstuffs, so she could experiment and figure-out what she liked.
He kept quiet while she bought stuff.  Was she reading his mind?  All the colours and patterns were ones he liked.  Could The Machine have got at her? Where would it get his preferences?  He'd never so much as sat under one of the helmets.  Even sleep walking - he'd checked the security logs.
It was getting a bit creepy, so he suggested they go back to the office and discuss what needed doing next.  A nasty thought.  Hadn't some of his blood got into her handwavium?  He'd cleaned and sealed the cut as quickly as he'd spotted it, and he tested clean from handwavium.  Your memory wasn't in your blood, but, he'd enough evidence handwavium was tricky stuff.  So, clone sister?
Her legal existence was a problem.  Cash would only get you so far.  She'd come back down as part of his luggage, which fortunately he'd thought of in advance. But, that was no way to travel.  Fake documentation was really going to mess you up, sooner or later.  He wondered what Kevin Wright had done for Nurse Blake?
While they made notes and drew diagrams, a message came in.  Direct from O'Neill Station.  Looked like his next project was working-out how to solve their engineering management problems.
Joy.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

...the time of year when I find myself sitting on a wooden deck overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, and saying to myself, "dear gods, it's hot out here, I'm going back inside where there's air conditioning."
Yes, Peg and I are back on Long Beach Island with the whole family.
When I get a chance I'll have to upload some pics.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Warning: This is done IC. It is meant to be read in a very chipper tone.
{Recording Start}
Why hello there, dear little chickadees! I do hope you've enjoyed the meal I've provided, and that the wine's to your liking.
Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Beck Gale, and I'm the reason you're all here. Or should I say, that the reason I'm here is because of all of you?
After all, it's because fine, upstanding businessmen such as yourselves have decided to expand your markets into the great beyond that humble men such as myself can make a profit on something a simple as a little information. Who's going to be where, why, what they'll be carrying, and in some cases, how heavily guarded they will be. It's simply amazing how people such as yourselves can take these tiny nuggets of knowledge and convert them into interesting deeds.
And, because there's nothing so interesting as a little fact of supposedly little consequence, let me share one with all you.
Do any of you have any idea what I did before I became the succesful broker that I am today? No? Ah, maybe the wine was a bit too strong, you all seem very tired. But stay awake a little longer, and you all might just learn something interesting.
I was a miner. One of the many small private operations, ripping apart asteroids in the belt for profit. It was out on Hungaria 434, when the thing happened that changed my life. A Boskone ship came by, and demanded all our valuables. Which turned out to just be an excuse for us to open up our doors, actually. Seems that they had experience with people making stupid decisions when it was discovered that they were after living people too. Especially once news of the cat-girl machine got around. Lots of suicides and fighting to the last stands. No, it was apparently simpler to just say you were after the shinies on the habitat, and that you'll be escorting everyone to the brig on your ship for the time being so you can search unimpeded. Sure, you'd still end up with a lot of people that were really upset, but they'd let go of their 'valuable' for the sake of their lives.
And then they just never let them off. They'd take the un-suspecting people they'd captured, and then... Well, I'm sure you all can guess how the story ends for them.
But, I can see the question in all of your eyes. How did I survive? How did I escape the horrible fate that befell all of the other miners of our small company? Quite simple, really. All I did was hide. I was on the outside of the asteroid, and the light in my helmet had just gone out. Sure, with the right sensors it was quite easy to tell I was there. But you had to look, first. And, being in a bit of a rush, they neglected to conduct a complete and thorough search of the asteroid. They simply collected everyone in the main habitat, and were on their merry way.
I had my radio on, you know? I could hear every word of the exchange. And I just stayed in my little hole for hours and hours, hoping they'd go away. Until they did.
And then I was alone. They took our computers, a great deal of our tools, all the haulers, and only just barely missed the emergency rations. It was just me, a habitat with greatly depleted resources, a drill, a little food, and the frailest of hopes that the old emergency beacon we had would actually work.
It was the longest four days of my life. I had a lot of time to think about the little things.
Like how we avoided being noticed normally by pirates. We picked a spot out in the middle of nowhere, and would quietly work, until we had filled up our hoppers. All the while, we'd communicate as little as possible with the outside world. The theory was, if we couldn't be detected, and no one knew where we were, nobody would find us. Then I thought about young Bill Gotti, about how he'd joined our crew, stayed with us all the way out into the deepest bits of the belt, and left three days after we got there, saying he couldn't handle the quiet life. I thought about how we got hit the day after he left, and how one of the black hats sounded just like him over the radio.
It was over those very quiet four days, that I realized just how powerful a little information really was.
Ah, I'm so sorry I dragged on so long. I'd say I must have bored you all, but you all seem very wide eyed and attentive! I suppose that means you're all very smart and have connected all the dots already! Although it appears Mr. Valesci still seems a little lost. If you sit tight just a little longer, I'm sure all the pieces will fall into place for you too, sir!
... And I see your assistant has chosen to reveal that she is actually an android, Mrs. Ballentyne. Well, quite unfortuntely for her, I am a cyborg. It's a shame that she only got the one shot off, too. Why, another five bullets of that caliber might just cause slightly more than cosmestic damage to my handsome face, and maybe won life for all of you. Of course she did only get the one shot off before I cut off her hands. No points for partial work, I'm afraid. If you want a passing grade in the game of life, you need to do you homework, just like me! It's how I knew about the weakspot in those wrists of yours. It makes it very quick and easy for you to change tools, but the place where the joints meet is slightly weaker than you might think.
At any rate, Mr. Valesci, it seems you have realized the truth of the situation.
So, without further ado, let me welcome you all to my revenge banquet! I do hope you all enjoyed yourselves so far, because from this point on, it will much less comfortable for you all.
{End Recording}
From Great Justice Criminal File 19087
Name: Beck Gale
Alias: Nightingale
Age: 26
Body-type: Combat Cyborg, Delta-type chassis
Occupation: Information Broker/Assassin
Charges: Multiple Accounts of first degree murder, espionage, property damage, and theft
Notes: Following Incident 237 on Hungaria 434, Beck had a mental breakdown before friendly forces could recover him. After being rescued, he joined Operation Great Justice, and served as an intelligence agent. During his term of service, a few of his fellow intelligence officers took note of his brutality towards his enemies, but most found his easygoing manner very disarming and ended up believing his darker moments merely to be that: Brief moments that would pass. After the end of the war, he began running a small, private information brokerage, selling data to a wide variety of clients. A short time later, he lured a number of people with suspected Boskone connections to a secluded location with the promise that he would be selling some very exclusive information.
Nine people were murdered.
Although further investigation has proven that all of the victims were, in fact, either former or current Boskone executives that had evaded capture, this does not excuse his actions. He has commited several similar crimes using similar methods, and is considered highly dangerous.
Mundane Quirks:
Let Me Just Say A Few Words: Very, very talkative. He has a tendency to talk and ramble for very long periods of time, even when alone. If left with a captive audience, he will talk more. Getting him to shut up is possible, but generally requires something along the lines of a fist to his face.
Why, I'm Just Happy To See You!: Going hand in hand with his inability to shut up, is his irrpressible lightheartedness. Beck is a very cheerful and happy indivdual, and will do everything with a smile. If anything, however, this makes his darker moments all the more eerie.
Handwavium Abilities:
Boost Boots: As part of his Cyborg conversion, Beck has micro-jets embedded in his feet. This allows for rapid bursts of speed, and for some very high jumps. However it is does not let him fly, and he only has a finite amount of fuel in his legs to fuels these boosts.
Author's Note:
This may be a wee bit dark for Fenspace. I know that doing psychotic criminals generally isn't the norm, but I've been watching Durarara, which for those of you who don't know about it, is basically a show where every cast member is interesting to say the least. Beck here is brought to you by Izaya Orihara, an info broker who's out to screw with everyone.
Well, if Izaya did a fusion dance with the Punisher, anyway.
Moving on, Beck's very clearly a villain character. A first for me, really, in that while he's not twirling a mustache, he's very much a bad guy. There is no redemption for him planned. He just wants to kill a lot of people that he sees as evil. If he dies in the process, then he's still leaving the universe a brighter place than he found it.
Just to let you all know, that is a very creepy thought process. Beck feels no remorse, and is basically a conveniently aimed psychopath. Not sure what all I'm going to write involving him. If I do anything else. About all I have even the vaguest idea for, is a fight between him and Hex.
And now I really need some sleep. G'night.

I generally stay way the heck away from political discussions, but I think this one doesn't have too much partisan baggage.  Short version:  last year, a federal appellate court ordered the DHS/TSA to open up their body-scanning policies for public comment, in order to address public concern about health, effectiveness, privacy, etc.  One year later, the TSA appears to be pretending the court order doesn't exist.  Now, personally, I think that regardless of where you fall on the Conservative/Liberal and/or Security/Liberty axes, we all want our government agencies to be accountable to the due process of law.  And the TSA doesn't seem to be fighting this court order via proper process, but merely ignoring it.  So, I signed this petition, for whatever good it may do.

Battlefront is a company that has for the past 15 years or so, had came out with a popular 15mm WWII ruleset. The game is popular in Europe, Canada and the U.S. One of the popular things about the tournament scene is that you can use figures from any manufacturer, not just from Battlefront.
The first rumbling came from the European Grand Tournament rules:

Quote:Only Flames of War models may be used in the •
tournament. If non Flames of War models are used
then they will be removed from the army and the player
will play the rest of the tournament with the balance of
his army

Quote:The final change we are making is that from the
new season all the events we run with will be only allowing Battlefront
miniatures to be used. This is bound to cause some debate, so let me be
clear as to why we have chosen to go down this path. Joe, Gareth and our
events cost a great deal
of money to run: a little over a quarter of a million American dollars
this year alone. And, although it seems childish to draw a line in the
sand and say, “If you want to play at our events and support the FOW
hobby, you should not be bringing other people’s models along,” it is
absolutely that simple. Our business is a business and we want Flames Of
War to grow; we intend to give it the best support we can, but this
support has a cost.

Quote:If I was a child and wanted to hold my breath I would not be letting
people run around on our forum spouting such utter nonsense but deleting
their posts and banning their accounts but that would be childish and
serve no real purpose as I prefer to read what is said and then comment
when I feel the need.

If Flames Of War is not creating our
own IP I dont know what is and I know that Pete, Phil, Wayne, Evan and
the guys would disagree as they have spent the last ten years of their
lives dedicated to creating a hobby that is the heart of our business
and completely unique. FOW is what drives the WWII 15mm gaming community
and has done for many years and despite other manufacturers of models
it was never any more than just another historical scale before FOW came
along. If supporting your hobby involves you changing sides every time a
business decision upsets you I would ask anybody who enjoyed their free
copy of 3rd edition to speak up and say that we behaved like GW. Stand
up and tell me that we are like any other company and I will give you
five exmaples where we have proven time and again we are not. We are
simply making a choice for our own events and even if you disagree you
should respect us for the right to do so as just like giving away the
rules free to over 50,000 people this year the same people made that
choice so we cant be as bad as some of you would make out.


The problem is that the vocal few with more opinion than understanding
would make it sound like this effects the entire hobby. You are wrong.
Competitive gaming is a part of our hobby and we support it becasue we
want to help that part grow but 90+% of all gamers are casual players
who play in stores and at friends houses and never particpate in a
tournament. These are the core of our business and despite some posters
in this thread claiming to "know" this is a small issue effecting a
gorup of players who however vocal are not the only gamers in the hobby.


Despite it being unwise to comment on this thread it is hard
to read personal attacks on yourself and your team without feeling a
little hurt and whilst I should not defend our choice more as it will
just give some of you more fuel to bleat I stand by what I say. Try and
look at the big picture, remember who we are, what we have done and how
FOW got here and then just decide if that is your hobby or not as you
shoud want to support your hobby and if this or any other decison we
make has you changing your mind then we wish you all the best and thank
you for your business but we will still be here doing our best and
behaving the way we always have.

In The Bluff - 13/Jul/2012
He felt a bit naked.  Standing there near the air lock.  Only second time 'up'.  And this time no adrenaline armour.  They were making him wait.
Eventually, a woman in a red-marked uniform came in.  Attractive, of course. Looked like they'd adopted that design the Hollywood Machine had put on the AI remotes.  A practical but stylish grey, with colour markings that would be visible from any angle.  Puckish, he wondered about the underwear.  Was that uniform, too?  He never did find out what The Machine had the AIs wearing.
She indicated he should follow.  No introduction.  No handshake.  Had she been carefully ordered what to do?  He'd noticed she'd checked a pad, presumably to, at least, see if he matched his photo.  It wasn't clear why she bothered, security cameras, at least linked to the AIs, covered this entire area.  But, he guessed it was good procedure.
She left him in a security office, not far down the corridor.  A long mirror on the wall, nice to see someone respected tradition, and multiple security cameras.  He politely nodded to the mirror, and took a seat.  As expected someone burst in, a woman in a blue-marked uniform, sat, then spent time reading papers before looking at him.
It was a waiting game.  He'd decided on this, early on.  They made him wait over night, so there wasn't anything immediately time-critical.  He made them wait until noon, as he slaved over the Body Builder and Mather's frustrating AI plans.  Making sure there was nothing he'd over-looked.
His transport had been efficient.  Dublin airport, into a waved Cessna, conventional flight to Shannon, then out over the Atlantic and a climb to space avoiding any airways.  Then a short hop to L5.  He must somehow find time to get a pilots license.
As predicted, they wanted him to sign a whole new set of paper work.  When he asked about consulting a lawyer she said he'd never used one before.  On the surface it was a non-disclosure agreement, and a restatement of his existing contractual arrangements, adding some provisions about repair and support - it would supposedly 'clarify the legal position', and, 'protect both him and them'.
He brought out his own copy of the previous NDA he'd signed, and his contract. The woman across from him got a little flustered.  Comparing the two he remarked that the NDA was unchanged, and that there were a considerable number of sub-clauses in the new contract.  The unintroduced woman appeared to be fighting hard to look calm and in control.
"I think we need to discuss this with your manager."  Hurriedly, the woman gathered her papers, and left.  As expected, Jane stepped in.  Arthur tried for a Zen state, and when he looked at her imagined seeing a spot an inch behind her forehead.  He'd read about it in a Sunday paper, while idly looking for something worth reading, and, it seemed to work.
Jane didn't look shaken, but he'd expected as much.  She was made of much stronger stuff.  He explained that the NDA covered the privacy and confidentiality issues, and he wasn't prepared to sign any new contracts without full disclosure of the situation.  He suspected Jane was quietly satisfied.
It was Del, the first AI in White Team.  Or, to be more precise, her humanoid remote.  The reports were contradictory, but there'd been an airlock problem, after Mr O'Neill's transport had arrived.  Possibly due to it being clipped by a poorly piloted visitor, the previous day.  She'd fought to hold the main airlock closed, so they could get O'Neill into the station, even though she was already injured, by flying debris.
She's succeeded, but collapsed with asphyxia, then bled-out.  There were hints that O'Neill had implied his health was more important than some robot.  He'd been treated by Kelly, Nurse Genny had tried to help Del, but failed.  By the time Kelly got to her there was nothing she could do.
The AI core that was Del's mind went into shock.  Defensively the other two White Team AIs, Epsi and Eta, had voted her off-line.  Then they had disagreed about what to do next.  That locked them off-line, and put Zeta, the Black Team AI, in control of their responsibilities.  "Nice to know all that logic worked", thought Arthur.
Jane was a little shocked to be told there hadn't been an AI logic cascade failure, it was a basic feature of the design.  She got Kelly in, and Arthur showed them on their copy of the AI operations manual, a detail Kelly admitted she'd overlooked.
Next, Arthur asked to see the actual White Team AI cores.  In person, this time, rather than by studying the system displays.  Then he followed up with the rest of the cores; the Black Team AI core was particularly difficult to get to.  Someone had added locked retaining straps, to hold the cores in place.
Kelly wasn't sure, but she thought it was an external technical inspection team, that went around after everything was installed.  She hadn't looked into it herself because none of the AIs commented.  Arthur pointed out that it explicitly broke the AI core installation specification.
Kelly got out the cutting tools.
After things were put to rights Arthur spoke to Epsi and Eta's remotes.  Epsi had been in a bio dome, working on her little garden patch, Eta in a kitchen, making pecan and chocolate chip cookies.  Neither were very happy.  He explained what he thought had happened, and they agreed that matched their experiences.  They said they were still in contact with Del, but she seemed in a semi-conscious state.
"I'll need use of your workshop" remarked Arthur to Kelly, and she led him there, with what looked like a numb expression.  Sweeping the contents of a workbench into a bin, she indicated it to him.  Two of White Team wheeled his luggage in, as he'd requested.
The Hollywood Machine responded in a positive but cautious way to Arthur.  Kelly explained she'd put Del's damaged remote through, but nothing happened.  Arthur shook his head, "It's not magic you know", though that was a bit of a cheap shot.  The new Del remote was processed in five minutes, after Arthur checked everything was OK with a test remote.
Back in Kelly's workshop the extracted Del AI core was open on the bench, and quickly had its new half-pair phone installed, the other half-pair having been processed into the new remote.  A quick AI core cycle, and Del leapt to her feet, and threw herself sobbing into the arms of Epsi and Eta.
Kelly was a bit bemused, and commented that she didn't think they worked like that.  Arthur gave her a sour look.  After a while they all calmed down, and thanked Arthur, who was a little embarrassed by the hugs.  Arthur pointed out Del was only dressed in a robe, seeing as he hadn't been able to match the original sports wear, and she'd need her spare clothes.  Then was shocked to find she didn't have any.
Jane was called in, and agreed there needed to be a re-think on the way the AIs were managed.  Arthur also asked her to witness him starting up another AI, using the test remote that he'd processed, and an AI core from his luggage.
"This is Consultant Engineer Janet.  She is an expert on the maintenance of the AIs, and knows as much as I do about the Hollywood Machine.  I think you need to get on with drawing-up a contract with her.  She nominally works for me, and she will not be resident on this station."
Jane and Kelly looked at each other.  He could almost feel them working the recent events into their story.  He held his breath, unsure what would happen, maybe even violence.  Kelly looked thoughtful.  Jane spoke.
"I suppose this means you wont be signing the revised contract terms with us."
"Yes, and I want all the AIs to read this."
He handed Jane a paperback copy of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Defective Work - 12/Jul/2012
Arthur didn't understand.  One of his AIs had failed.  Up on O'Neill Station. They said it was defective.  He'd messed-up the design.
They were threatening him with massive damages.  His incompetence was risking basic infrastructure.  The repair bill could be immense.
The message had come in last thing in the day.  He stayed late, sending requests for more details, confirmation.  Nothing.  That night, he hadn't slept much.  He'd read all the Asimov he'd been loaned.  'The Three Laws' wouldn't work, of course, but at least they were a start.
His secretary, Miss Lidzt, was in before him.  She was an ex-glamour addict, returned from O'Neill Station.  She'd worked there in a similar role, but the homesickness got too bad, so she broke her contact and came back to Dublin.  A good chunk of her pay went to pay-off the loan she'd needed so as to leave before her contract renewal date.  Arthur considered employing her a bit of a gesture of defiance.
The office was new, too.  The repair side of the business had expanded, and he was called in to fix things it was claimed were irreparable.  And, that wasn't just restricted to electronics.  Several times he'd had to turn-down requests, saying that was outside his field.  He seemed to have got a reputation for safe use of handwavium.  How?
Arthur had developed a a suite of waved tools.  Some analytic, some manipulative, some a mixture.  All were 'clean', and didn't contaminate with handwavium.  He guessed he was a 'Wave Consultant'.
He'd asked his aunt, seeing as she always seemed to know things, or knew someone who did.  "You didn't see the article, dear?  'Waving The Future'?  Came out a few months ago.  I'll see if I can find my clipping."  And, she had.  It was very flattering, if a bit inaccurate.
He wasn't really a 'medical researcher', he hadn't said 'careful use of handwavium can fix any problem', or 'used carefully handwavium is no more dangerous than gas'.  Wait a minute.  You could read 'gas' as either methane or gasoline.  This smelled a bit too much of the 'Wright Stuff'.
He'd never contacted Kevin Wright.  He'd been too busy.  Now he had another reason.  "OK.  Calm down, Arthur.  Analyse the situation.  Who sent the message?"  That's what he liked about Kevin.  Straight to the point.
He hadn't checked that.  'Admin & Legal Departments' it said.  Wouldn't that be Jane, and Sarah?  Maybe they'd found him out!
"Now, Arthur."  The voice was friendly but firm.  He'd fully recovered, that way, at least, from his stroke.  Nurse Blake sent him regular updates.  "Ask yourself, what do they want?  How do they expect you to react?"
Kevin waited while he thought.  Yes, he'd rather panicked.  Assumed it was all his fault.  They'd be able to tell that by the replies he sent.  The questions he asked.  Why hadn't they replied?  He asked Kevin that.
"Well, maybe they wanted to shake you up?  Get you in the right frame of mind for something?  You've become independent.  You don't jump when they say 'frog'. Think like a detective, but better than the ones in all those cheap books you used to read."
OK.  He had a road map.  Go up there.  Refuse to sign anything.  Until he knew exactly what happened.  Solve the case.  If he never worked for O'Neill again, he could live with that.  But, he owed them, if he could fix what was wrong.
"Thanks, Kevin.  I'll try and prove I'm still the 'Wright Stuff'."
"Now, before I go, about this article..."
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind