Kelly Clarkson "Dark Side"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5ArpRWcGe0
There's a place that I know
It's not pretty there and few have ever gone
If I show it to you now
Will it make you run away
Or will you stay
Even if it hurts
Even if I try to push you out
Will you return?
And remind me who I really am
Please remind me who I really am
Everybody's got a dark side
Do you love me?
Can you love mine?
Nobody's a picture perfect
But we're worth it
You know that we're worth it
Will you love me?
Even with my dark side?
Like a diamond
From black dust
It's hard to know
It can become
A few give up
So don't give up on me
Please remind me who I really am
Everybody's got a dark side
Do you love me?
Can you love mine?
Nobody's a picture perfect
But we're worth it
You know that we're worth it
Will you love me?
Even with my dark side?
Don't run away
Don't run away
Just tell me that you will stay
Promise me you will stay
Don't run away
Don't run away
Just promise me you will stay
Promise me you will stay
Will you love me? ohh
Everybody's got a dark side
Do you love me?
Can you love mine?
Nobody's a picture perfect
But we're worth it
You know that we're worth it
Will you love me?
Even with my dark side?

'theme' music for a scene where somebody is being all angsty?  (Buffy or Shinji maybe?)
******************
Aqua 'Cartoon Heroes'

We are what we're supposed to be
 Illusions of your fantasy
 All dots and lines that speak and say
 What we do is what you wish to do
 
We are the color symphony
 We do the things you wanna see
 Frame by frame, to the extreme
 
Our friends are so unreasonable
 They do the unpredictable
 All dots and lines that speak and say
 What we do is what you wish to do
 
It's all an orchestra of strings
 Doin' unbelievable things
 Frame by frame, to the extreme
 One by one, we're makin' it fun
 
We are the Cartoon Heroes - oh-oh-oh
 We are the ones who're gonna last forever
 We came out of a crazy mind - oh-oh-oh
 And walked out on a piece of paper
 
Here comes Spiderman, arachnophobian
 Welcome to the toon town party
 Here comes Superman, from never-neverland
 Welcome to the toon town party
 
We learned to run at speed of light
 And to fall down from any height
 It's true, but just remember that
 What we do is what you just can't do
 
And all the worlds of craziness
 A bunch of stars that's chasing us
 Frame by frame, to the extreme
 One by one, we're makin' it fun
 
We are the Cartoon Heroes - oh-oh-oh
 We are the ones who're gonna last forever
 We came out of a crazy mind - oh-oh-oh
 And walked out on a piece of paper
 
Here comes Spiderman, arachnophobian
 Welcome to the toon town party
 Here comes Superman, from never-neverland
 Welcome to the toon town party
 
You think we're so mysterious
 Don't take us all too serious
 Be original, and remember that
 What we do is what you just can't do
 
What we do is what you just can't do
 What we do is what you just can't do
 What we do is what you just can't do
 What we do is what you just can't do
 
We are the Cartoon Heroes - oh-oh-oh
 We are the ones who're gonna last forever
 We came out of a crazy mind - oh-oh-oh
 And walked out on a piece of paper
 
There's still more to come
 And everyone will be
 Welcomed at the
 Toon - Toon
 Town - Town
 Party
Powers: 2 options occur to me
1) Simulcrums of Bugs Bunny and Co (since they are Doug's "cartoon heroes")
2) Everything/one in Doug's AoE is under the effects of Cartoon physics
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

Recently, me and vorticity decided we didn't like what TV Tropes was turning into, so we decided to archive as much as we could (within the bounds of their Creative Commons license), and even though it was perfectly legal, they got mad and used a shoddy pretext to ban us.
Regardless, we recently released some torrents, which you can get here:
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7359083
http://kat.ph/tv-tropes-...ip-2012-06-t6454367.html

Standard Asteroid Terraforming Kit - 17/Jun/2012
The creator of this thought everyone who wanted to homestead an asteroid would want one.  Everything you needed to land on an asteroid and get it transformed into just where you wanted to live.  In a box (well, several crates).
Unfortunately, there were problems...
The basic idea was that the whole kit would fall under the "life support equipment exception" of handwavium, and so be just about quirk-free.  This is, in fact, true.  This kit will ensure you can survive indefinitely on your new asteroid home, but, 'survive' and 'prosper' are two different things.
The kit takes the form of a set of crates, none weighing more than 25kg (55lb).  These contain the starter kit, hard tech and waved devices, and a set of skinny robots, all folded up to fit in small crates.  There are also three AIs, with their basic three avatar robots, that need to be customised to know what you plan to build.  That's one place the problems start...
The customisation process involves choosing different but related roles for each of the three AIs.  The idea is that they keep an eye on each other, and help correct each others errors.  There are three so they can vote, without a tie.  You need to define the final roles that the AIs will take after building has finished, their 'motivation' - they all share in controlling the robots and the terraforming, then environment maintenance, process.  One example might be Cook/Companion, Butler/Housekeeper, Gardener/Handyman.
Providing the AIs with lots of information about how to carry out their roles, and not just DVDs of your favourite 'maids' anime, would be wise - otherwise they will have to make it up as they are going along, which could be really bad.  Structuring it into a pattern of duties would be good, too, rather than just dumping the appropriate tree of Wikipedia entries into their config files.
The upper bodies, and just the upper bodies for some quirky reason, must be shaped, made-up, and dressed from the naked skinny robot avatar to suit each role.  Note that once things are running any spare robot could be converted by its AI into a proper-looking avatar if an original is trashed - but this will take a little time, unless there is a 'spare' already prepared.
The AIs are quite dedicated to their roles, and unless you think through everything very carefully there will be some quirky behavioral traits.  Arguably they are sub-human in their overall intellect, though in the terraforming and final role they are quite brilliant.  Putting Three Laws[1] constraints on them might be a good idea, but that doesn't mean they have the Zeroth Law ('consider the overall good of humanity'; they're probably not smart enough to be given this), and their Fourth Law ('fulfill your role and purpose') will over-shadow or at least colour all the rest.  The more constraints you put on them, the more weird and quirky they'll get, so working with a broad stroke design is probably best.  Consulting an author who's good at character design might give you livable results.
Unfortunately, it isn't possible to activate the AIs until just before they start the terraforming process, another quirk, so it's difficult to debug them.  They also don't come with an 'off' switch, as they are a critical part of a life support system.  Some of these kits have been customised and then not used, because their owners never got to an asteroid.  Rumours that owning one of these kits in a customised state brings bad luck on the owner (the kit somehow always survives) are of course superstitious nonsense.
Once you get to the asteroid there can be other problems.  First of all, the kit isn't 'magic', and can't give you anything that isn't there to convert.  So, an asteroid made of a mineral which can't be chemically converted into air and water can't provide you these.  Ditto carbon if you plan to grow things there.  The asteroid must have enough CHON[2] and trace element resources for what you want to do - old water-ice comets with plenty of organic material and some minerals are likely best.  Of course, there's no reason you can't truck these in yourself, but you'd better keep the terraforming process fed, or there will be problems.
This is also not an 'instant home' job, you're not dealing with magic nanotech that ignores the laws of thermodynamics, here.  Depending on the size of the job this will take at least a few months, if not years.
The AIs don't play well with others.  While you might get away with one human or equivalent engineer supervising, anyone trying to work with the robots is likely to have an industrial accident.  The AIs will be very sad about this, of course, particularly if they are Three Laws, but it is a blind spot, nothing malicious.
If you're interested in the process, it takes at least a month before the mining and reprocessing reaches the stage of making spare parts, for machinery, or to repair or build new robots.  If there is more than 25% damage to the robots and equipment before this point its likely the whole terraforming sequence will fail, though it may take some time to totally stall.  After this happens the AIs may be grudgingly willing to accept external assistance.  Note a similar problem will always occur if more than 25% of the original crates were missing - nothing will even start without all three AIs and their avatars, though.
Cunning people might try and let the AIs nearly finish the job, then 'deactivate' them.  Unfortunately, you'll find they are so embedded in the infrastructure, quite a bit of which wont work without them, that you'll probably need to redo at least a third of the work.  Deactivating one or two of the AIs and replacing them makes the remainder very upset, and inclined to mope.  You don't want a moping life support system - it could drip ice cold water down your neck in the middle of the night, and the sighing sounds from the ventilation system can annoy, as could bright blue milk on your morning cereals.
Finally, the instructions.  There aren't any.
Some joker keeps deleting any put up on the web, as well.  (Hackers are pretty sure this is somehow a handwavium quirk.)  Consulting someone whose used one of these kits, before, seems to work, though.  Though any notes you take tend to disappear...
The creator had worked on terraforming so much they considered things obvious that most people would need to carefully think through.  After all, you can always ask an AI.  One particular example is that the kit is missing the at least 150kg (330lb) of high quality refined organic materials needed to get things started, along with at least 25kg of refined metals and inorganics.  Fortunately, these can be recycled from human foodstuffs and common equipment.  But, this is the sort of thing you'd like to know, up front.
See!  It's easy!  Go track one of these down, and buy it, today! [grin]
Open Source:  Just to make it quite clear, anyone can mangle one of these, in any of their stories, any way they like.  Though, remember, it is supposed to produce a survivable environment!
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Lieutenant McAfee sighed as he examined the warehouse that the recent
shoot-out occurred in. The only thing approaching good news is that the
'target' of the various factions involved decided to run instead of
fighting back. This meant he was either caught off guard or didn't like
weapons. If it was the latter, arresting him would be relatively simple.
Assuming they could find him.

"Ell Tee, you might want to take a look at this," The voice of Reed, the
detective assigned to the scene broke into MacAfee's thoughts. "While
the suspect  took a lot of stuff with him, he didn't take all of it.
Looks like an external hard-drive."

The lieutenant quirked an eyebrow. "Oh? That is good news. Take it to the evidence room."

"Yes sir."

***

"Okay, Ell Tee, we've gone over the files on the hard-drive. Just a
bunch of CAD designs for powerplants and some audio files. We're going
to play the audio files now, and thought you might want to be present."

"You thought correctly."

"... *Kshhst*... Audio log of g~k:^*)f a@'%#l, July 16, 2008. Teosag has
wandered off somewhere, leaving me and Hera alone. While Hera's
wonderful company, she's just a cat. Even if I am beginning to suspect
she's smarter then I am. We still have no clue what to do with the
submarine now that the 'shiny factor' has worn off, which might be why
he left. If he is looking for things to do with it, I hope he lets me
know...  As long as it doesn't involve criminal activity. I'm pretty
sure my soul, if I have one, has it's fair share of stains, but those
are from just living life. No reason to actively seek out bad karma."

"Mrow."

"Hm?"

"Merrow!"

"Oh! Sure I can play with you. I need something to do other then sitting around moping anyway. End log."

"Well, unless things changed dramatically in the last few months, It's
unlikely that he was actually involved in anything we're investigating."

"It is entirely possible he is lying. Or things did change abruptly and dramatically. Play the next file."

"Mrow. Meer. Meeerow. Meeer..."

McAfee glared at the technician, who wilted. "... If this is a joke, I'm not laughing."

"No Sir! Not a joke."

"Eh?" The voice from the first recording broke in. "Hera? When did you learn to operate the computer?"

"Mew."

"Oh. That long ago? I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised. The miracle goop lives up to its name."

Reeds blinked. "So he is involved with Handwavium, whatever else he's done. At least he seems more stable then The Professor."

"That's NOT saying much. I don't think we're going to get anything else from this recording. Next."

"Audio log of j%!l $~(d}f, September Eighth, 2008. Hera, despite her
attempts to keep me from falling into a pit is beginning to show the
same signs of strain I've been under. If it wasn't for what it did to
granddad, I'd be tempted to take up drinking. Still no clue what to do
with the submarine. I guess we could refit it so it's more of an
exploration or research vessel then a combat one, but I have no clue how
to even begin to pull that off... and I rather suspect we lack the
funds. At least my talent with electricity is keeping food on the table
and net access available. Maybe I should take a look at some of the
online games to keep myself occupied and not thinking about how bad
things are... End log."

"Hmph. So we know things weren't going well for him then. Possible motive for what we're investigating him for."

"... You'll need a LOT more then a possible motive to say he was actually involved in drug running, Ell Tee."

"We'll find it. The idiot was mucking about with Handwavium, so he's gotta have something else hidden. Next."

"Of course, Sir. Just because one lunatic with the stuff is an
international criminal means that everyone else who even comes into
contact with the stuff needs to be shot for having a vague potential
motive. Sir."

McAfee shot Reeds a dark look, but was interrupted by the next audio
file beginning to play. "Oh, you know the routine by now. September
twenty first, 2008. Still nothing interesting. Been mucking around on
IRCs. Been hearing rumors of a decent gaming one, but haven't been able
to nail it down yet. At least looking for it is keeping me occupied. Now
I just need to find something for Hera to do. She's getting odd. End
log."

Reeds shrugged. "Still nothing useful. Next."

"September thirtieth. Found out why Hera's been acting so odd.
Apparently, she's befriended the local owl population. Not entirely
certain how she pulled that off, or why. She doesn't normally like other
animals... IRC hunt still not turning up much, but I got into contact
with Teosag again. Tossed him a couple of plans for re-working the
submarine. Let's see what he says, if anything. End log."

"So he's gathering his gang back together, eh? And 'the owl population'
is obviously a code phrase for something, probably the local talent..."

Reeds gave McAfee a disbelieving stare. "...Did you drink expresso
again? You don't NORMALLY indulge in conspiracy theories without a lot
more evidence then this. Next file, please."

"Audio log of... Oh heck. Just call me Ganti. That's all I seem to
answer to nowadays. Anyway, it's November Ninth, 2008. Still nothing
from Teosag. I've taken to designing power plants in my spare time. It's
actually pretty interesting. The owls that moved in are friendly and
easy to get along with. I do wish they'd stop leaving me dead rats, as
I'm not one of Pratchetts dwarves."

"So they've been killing spies in their ranks. If we can find and ID the
corpses we should be able to tack on murder charges as well..."

"Oh yes. Rats is slang for spies. It has nothing to do with the fact he
can apparently hold meaningful conversations with his cat and we found a
large pile of rodent corpses next to the doorway. Or the number of
actual owls roosting in the rafters. Absolutely nothing."

"Anyway, aside from the buildup of tiny little corpses, not much has
been happening. I'm tempted to toss some of the power plant designs to
one of the electric companies just to see what happens. End log."

"Sabotaging the power grid! Add that to the list of charges!"

A deep groan from the doorway brought the groups attention to an old man
who had just entered the room. "... What's McAfee on about this time?
Weren't you assigned to investigate a possible drug smuggler?"

"I think he got into the expresso again, Chief. Also, the only thing the
suspects involved that's even approaching illegal so far is Handwavium
possession. And that's pretty sketchy. It could just be a brush with it
that granted his cat increased intelligence."

"Ugh. Thank you, Reeds. McAfee, you're on break. And don't touch any more caffeine!"

***

"Okay Reeds. Now that McAfee is sleeping off the caffeine, what's the case look like so far?"

"So far it looks like the suspect is clean with the possible exception
of Handwavium possession. And I'm not entirely certain what our stance
is on that. As a US citizen it's illegal for him to possess it over
there, but..."

"Not really our department. If you know anyone with links to Fenspace,
give them with a heads up that they might be getting another citizen
soon."

"Why would we want to do that, Sir? They can look after themselves."

"He's got a mostly functional WW2 era submarine, Reeds. They hadn't even finished De-milling it, you know."

"Odds are good he's already up there, Chief."

"True. Finish up going through the evidence, and if you don't find
anything, I think we can officially declare this case closed."

"Can do Chief. Not much more to go through anyway."

"Dismissed."

***

"Audio log, November 19th. Teosag has returned, bearing gifts. I've got
no clue where he got these papers on electric theory, and I'm pretty
sure I don't WANT to know. What I do know is that this is cutting edge
stuff. Really cutting edge stuff. That scares me nearly as much as the
fact that I can see all sorts of errors in the theory does. I'm good,
but not that good. But I can still see the errors. And how to fix
them... It's more then a little disturbing. With just a few alterations I
can make... it... work... Yes, it WILL work. IT WILL WORK!
BWAHAHAHAHA!"

"MROW!"

"Och heel, nae thes again laddie!"

"KIWICK!"

As the recording devolved into chaos, Reeds switched it off. "... Well,
at least he's pretty sane by mad scientist standards. Not that that's
saying much. Still no evidence of any actual wrongdoing, except maybe to
the laws of physics. That's a bit... out of my jurisdiction. Thank
goodness."
AN: Yeah, this was from the point of view of a bunch of 'Danelaw police. Don't expect any of them to be showing up again, with the possible exception of Reeds. The snarky detective grew on me while I was writing this.

Working for another hour tonight

Staring at the wall and let the time just pass me by

You might think you know me, but it's all just a face

Trying to ignore when people screaming my name

(Screaming my name)

Walking by a house with colorful lights

There's a sign, an invitation from the woman inside

Talk about your boyfriend, talk about your wife

It's just a different way of living your life

When something's right, then something is worth to die for

When I feel that something is wrong, then something is worth to fight for

Don't say goodbye, just leave an open door

I wanna hear you say, you give me something to die for

Searching for another reason to stay

Slowly my regrets are fading away

You leave me on my own to find out what's real

You say you want your freedom, but it's not how I feel

When something's right, then something is worth to die for

When I feel that something is wrong, then something is worth to fight for

Don't say goodbye, just leave an open door

I wanna hear you say, you give me something to die for

When I feel that something is right You give me something to die for

When something's right, then something is worth to die for

When I feel that something is wrong, then something is worth to fight for

When something's right, then something is worth to die for

When I feel that something is wrong, then something is worth to fight for

Don't say goodbye, just leave an open door

I wanna hear you say, you give me something to die for

I wanna hear you say, you give me something to die for

I wanna hear you say, you give me something to die for
-- The Sounds, "Something to Die For"
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Man, Yuku doesn't like me today!
My sister and I were discussing why the EU is bad for Star Wars (amongst other things), and she mentioned one of the Encyclopedias that says Boba Fett is alive.  In her words, when reading the section to her husband, she reached the bit where he was eaten by the Sarlaac (where Lucas states he dies), “then the magic happens.”

This set me off on another “if you don’t like the story as is, you don’t have to believe it, but don’t tell me something that’s contradicted by the originator” rants.  (I’m not a fan of the EU by any stretch of the imagination.)

I commented something to the effect that, if they wanted Boba Fett around, why have a wizard do anything to save him (or violate canon), and not do something simple, instead?  Say, Boba, knowing he was in a dangerous line of work having seen his father die before his eyes, had the Kaminoans make a series of clones of him, and he would update their programming after every mission.  If he misses an update (or his death is announced), the next clone comes on line, figures out what happened and goes after the mark.

My sister was gob smacked.  Seriously, I didn’t think it was that hard of a logical leap to make.  It doesn’t violate canon, and, honestly, it would go a long way to indicate how Boba Fett was such a “spectacular” Bounty Hunter without the need for him to be a mix between Batman and Lou Costello.

She started asking me for more ideas, indicating that her husband’s character (from their Star Wars RPG game), Simon, was supposed to be a Republic Clone Trooper who didn’t succumb to Order 66, and wondered how he could have beaten the programming. 

At the same time, MonkeyFist was talking about Demolition Man in my other ear and the two ideas merged:

“Well, when they were getting programmed with Order 66, instead of ‘Kill all Jedi’ Simon got ‘crochet and needlepoint.’  So, when the Emperor gave the order, Simon was hit with the overwhelming urge to find yarn.”  Much laughter ensued.  

After several more minutes of bizarre conversation, my sister, somehow brought up catgirls as being a source for yarn.  I suggested that Simon have a catgirl companion (because, hey, catgirls are hawt), and my sister remembered that the first game they played together (a different Star Wars game), her husband was playing Simon (pre-Episode One’s release) and she was playing a catgirl scout.

So, I am strongly encouraging my sister to write said fan-fic about a clone trooper with faulty order 66 programming, an overwhelming urge to knit when faced with a Jedi, and a cute catgirl companion.

Any objections?

Harem Library – 16/Jun/2012
Harry wanted to be called 'Helmuth'.  It was a proper Boskone name, and no one else was using it at the moment.  But, they wouldn't, and, he thought they sniggered at him behind his back.
Harry was probably 'wet' Boskone.  He didn't like the idea of killing people.  But, he didn't like the having to follow silly laws.  Laws obviously made for Mundane Earth, before the bright new age of handwavium.  All those Fen were stupid – you've a chance for a completely new start, and you're dragging all that old morality and law with you.
The harem was probably the reason he broke with Fen in general.  He didn't plan to enslave people who already existed.  He was just going to make new ones, who'd obviously see his superior intellect.  Why were people upset about that?
Drugs.  He didn't do drugs himself, unless you counted the odd lager.  Tobacco smoke made him cough.  This 'thionite' stuff was pretty stupid – you wanted something more like Shatner's Tek[1] – cleaner, simpler, no messing around with Venus.  But, not really his field.
The Catgirling Machine had real possibilities.  Dr Asmodeus Grey was a genius, but he'd missed the point of the original Professor's 'Julian Friez' machine. Still, Grey really scared him, and he wasn't going to tell him that.  You started with just chemicals, you got a living, intelligent, human – brilliant!
Harry'd studied plans made from analysis of the Professor's machine.  He'd got on a project to duplicate the Catgirling Machine, one of several, he thought.  No, he didn't plan to finish that, but it gave him access to tools and materials.  It was the Friez plans that made things fizz in his head.
Shirow's 'Appleseed'[2].  The bioroids, made to order.  You just needed the information to make-up their minds.  Human, could even have children.  Maybe he'd better stock-up on birth control stuff?  Though, it'd be nice to have children, some day.  Particularly if the harem would look after them, and stop them getting underfoot.
As for information, he'd the complete set of "Love Hina" manga, the anime series, and the OVAs.  Even copies of the sort of school books they would have had.  Hmm.  Better see if he could make sure they were fluent and literate in English, as well as Japanese.  His Japanese wasn't very good, though he could understand it OK.
He'd gotten greedy.  While one 'Bioroid Mould' was in theory enough, he wanted to wake all the girls at once.  So, he needed six, and questions started to be asked about what he was using all the materials for.
Lucky he'd scouted out an unused 'acquired' vehicle.  The cover of the Patrol attack would give him chance to get away.  Particularly as he'd secretly informed them about the twice-weekly 'hole' in the scanner coverage, so he could be pretty sure when they were coming.  He'd got his freeze gun, for self defence.  The one he'd bought from that half-drunk weapons otaku, 'guaranteed non-lethal, and guaranteed unique'.
The 40' cargo container ship was crude, but ideal.  Ion jets were slow, but much less flashy than a lot of drives, so he hoped he could sneak away.  The terraforming kit was a real bonus, with robots folded away in packing crates, and supervisor AIs, all ready to go.  An asteroid would make a good place to live, with his harem.  He'd wait until the Patrol had cleaned-up the Boskone, and come back a hero.
The books...  There must be tens of thousands in the ship.  All second-hand scifi or fantasy; a few general stuff.  He'd always wanted his own library, and it'd be nice to have something to read.  Maybe he could send one of his girls out, to score him the latest manga and anime releases?
---

Why'd it have to end here?  This asteroid seemed ideal, so he'd woke one of the AIs, the one with an avatar that looked like a nice teacher.  She seemed very pleasant, apart from having a skinny robot as a lower body.  Good company.  She was particularly impressed by his linguistic talents, and his desire to bring more people with good English skills into existence.
Unfortunately, she'd said she needed the other two, and woken them.  The youngest-looking one with the businesswoman avatar, and the scary librarian one, who he privately thought of as 'Granny Weatherwax'.  Librarian had promptly gone to check the books were OK, the businesswoman constantly asked him about library membership, for some reason.
He'd wondered why Boskone hadn't used the container ship for anything.  The micro-meteorite that'd just smashed through the control room window, and was creeping towards his frozen face, might be why.  Yes, it was a nice window, maybe recycled from an old RV, but someone should have taken time to wave it into something tougher than glass.  He guessed time could slow down as you died.
Was someone standing behind him?  With a hint of dark wings?  He hoped his harem would be all right...

Postscript
The AIs had a clear job.  They needed to set-up 'Library Alpha'.  The asteroid, all the raw materials they needed, were right in front of them.  Pity 'Harry' died – it looked like he'd have joined the library.
Resources were tight, to start with.  There was a desperate need for good quality organics, to jump-start the mining process.  No point in wasting Harry's body, he wasn't using it any more.  His food, other supplies, clothes, etc.; it could all be recycled.  Librarian kept his freeze ray for study.
They argued about the Bioroid Moulds.  Containing the near-ready harem.  Useful materials, thought the Librarian.  Potential library members, remarked the Membership officer.  Literate, said Literacy officer.  So a divide between them opened.
To mollify the Librarian the others agreed to strict library discipline.  The freeze ray shared components with some of the terraforming equipment they were assembling.  So, once they could make their own spares, parts were diverted for 'security purposes'.
The finished harem later ended up 'on ice', in cryogenic suspension, as that avoided the need to feed them.  Librarian pointed-out a library without people wandering around, reading and borrowing the books, is so much easier to run.  The other two agreed they counted as literate library members, even while 'suspended', as they'd been 'born' in the library.
Maybe more would be a good idea?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

As I have said before, one of Oscar quirks is than every time the waves a plant, he keeps getting the galactic little cousins of Audrey; the Black Forest in Marduk is (in)famous befause it is full of moving, carnivorous trees, and if you wander off the path, you will never leave.
Since Mardukans are well known drama queens, this may be taken with a grain or salt... so, how salty should I make this?
On one hand, biomoded people do get lethal mods, like claws, and at least one of Noah's AI duaghters awakened and ran away to start a life of crime. But those are people; on the other hand, handwaviums wil not create lethal, mechanical weapons.
Should you be able to biomod an animal or plant so it can, and will, kill a human? Predators are perfectly natural; and let's remember than handwavium loves plotlines, and the traditional end for an evil Mad Biologist is to be killed by their aberrant creations.
Back to the Black Forest example, the trees do eat squirrels and rabbits. Where should I place the line: If some backpacker decides to sleep under that tree, will he awaken humorously covered in vines... or will he end inside the hollow trunk, Ucorn style, never to awaken until the (ridicously armed) Park Rangers find his bones?
My current, personal guidelines (pending the results of this thread) are than if you wave a "natural" critter, to cover some ecological niche -even if it is a weird critter, like a Owlbear or a sentient plant- it will be as dangerous as any normal animal -so your cool T-Rex can, and will, eat the tourists if it gets loose.
But if you purposely try to wave a living weapon -say, a Zerg swarm- you will, at best, get the disney version, wich will eat lettuce and play with cute little rabbits and birdies (and how they arrived to the Oort Cloud is a mistery never to be solved.

Oh, and the trees? They will eat the camper. Fortunately, they aren't that fast, and their pheromones are more approptiate for mammals weighting a few pounds, so you will probably be safe unless you go to sleep under the tree. Thoug you should avoid the center of the forest were the Old Trees live...
(that last part may be more Mardukan exageration. Almost certainly, in fact. You should avoid it anyway, just in case)

Potential spoilers for New Perspective

And so, I wonder, is this a villain explaining their motives to the hero trying to stop them, or the other way around? I'm not sure, but I turned it out a while back when I began to wonder what sort of person Noriko would become and thought it pretty interesting.

Quote:They selected me as a pilot, straight out of the hospital. I was still dazed and disorientated... still unsure of who I was, and I was being told that I would be the person standing between all humanity and annihilation. I would be the pointy end of a long spear made up of many millions of people giving their level best to ensure that humanity would prevail. There would be one more generation after this one. We would not just wink out into darkness.

It was the truth, and it fired me up. In the entry plug of a ten-thousand ton God-machine, I felt strong and confident. I felt that no matter what happened to the little toy tanks on the ground, I was safe and secure. And I could take the angels on face to face. It was my own personal giant robot animé and I revelled in it.

The saying at the time was that Science Division declared something impossible. Operations Division did it anyway. Really... it seemed like there was nothing we couldn't do. We wired all of Japan's electricity into one big cannon... in less than 12 hours. We held out for days against the tenth, staring right into the face of despair and still holding on.

Then Hikari died, and that changed everything. She was 14, just like me. She had a boyfriend. She had a plan for the future. She was my friend even at school. She was the sweetest person you'd ever meet, with a wonderful commanding streak that only came out in class. She could've been a teacher. She could've been anything. Instead, they called her to the principals office, and told her that she would be one of the heroes between humanity and extinction.

Of course she accepted.

Her Eva... 05... was invaded by the 13th Angel. It was corrupted and co-opted into a horrific, out of control monstrousity of a thing and she was trapped inside. The rest of us -we did everything to save her - everything. And we failed. The Angel-Eva kicked our asses and then some.

Then it exploded.

Hikari had been watching the whole battle unfold. She saw us try and fail. She knew what would happen if the Angel made it to Tokyo-3 alive. She pulled the self-destruct handle. A fourteen year old child chose to give her life to the world. It didn't hit me that she was really dead until her boyfriend called the apartment, asking if anything had happened to her.

All her hopes. All her dreams. All that future she had laid out before her. It was all gone and it wasn't coming back. She gave it all up, so that we could have ours.

Someone told me, after the 14th, that we inherit the will of the dead. Of all those who died so that we live today. All those in the Second Impact, drowned, incinerated, starved, sickened or just plain vanished in the chaos. All those soldiers who stood their ground, futilely firing at the Angels, hoping to delay the monster for that one critical second upon which the fate of the world might hinge.

We inherit their will, their hopes and their dreams, and mix them with ours. Their hopes for us to stay alive, for humanity to prevail. That's our duty as the survivors - to live enough for the dead.

I tried.

We beat the Angels. We lost Kaworu to the final Angel. We lost Rei to a JSSDF assault on the base, triggered by Seele. They told the Japanese government we were trying to trigger Third Impact. That was Seele's plan. They wanted Third Impact and they needed us out of the way to do it.

Tens of thousands died.

In my Eva I killed thousands to keep them from triggering Third Impact. I was fifteen when I rationalised it to myself. If they won, if they took down NERV, then everybody would die. They were doing no wrong, there were just people with families. Children. Their own future. Their only crime was that they'd been lied to by the real villains, and I killed them. Humanity had to survive.

Step. Crunch. Bang. Dead. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. God help me it felt like a videogame at the time

It was a tragedy and it wasn't our fault. If we'd let them win, we'd be all dead now. Instead they're dead and we're alive. We're the heroes who saved the world! Legends who'd go down history. The seven children who saved all mankind, and the three who didn't live to see it.

Now what? With the threat gone and mankind safe... the grand world alliances started to fall apart. With no common enemy to fight, they just got back to their old rivalries. Qusay invaded Kuwait again...anything my father can do, I can do better! Threatening to sweep into the surrounding Arabian kingdoms. Threatening to bring down the UN supply of oil.

They told us to get ready. That we were needed once more to save the world and humanity from the threat of an Iraqi dictator and his massed tank armies. We'd be heroes again, defending the freedom of the innocent from their malignant oppressors.

I was 16.

And I believed them. It was good. It was right. Freedom was the right of all human beings and the UN brought freedom.

They pointed me at the Republican Guard. We had a full combat load, including ammunition. Told me to go for a stroll when it all ran out. Hammurabi division was destroyed within five minutes. Over ten thousand men, squashed, stomped and blown out of existence. The news-people called it the highway of death.

The war lasted all of five minutes. The Iraqi army took one look at what we'd done and shat themselves a collective brick. They just gave up. No more fighting.

But. What threat where these men to humanity? What world-ending danger did they represent? They were nothing more than a spitting spark in a madman's brushfire war that should've been left to gutter and die on its own.

Except. Where does the world's oil come from?

They told us we were fighting for freedom. We were fighting for a twenty dollar barrel of oil. I murdered ten thousand men for cheap fucking fuel. But... I was 16. I was just following my bloody orders.

I only realised how wrong that was, after the fact. It's no excuse and I know it. I should've figured it out. I should've known. Instead I let them use me as a weapon of mass destruction just to solve their own petty arguments. Thousands dead.

And these same men who made me a mass murderer, now want their own Evangelion? These same people want me to turn over the Evangelion to them. Too much power for a private organisation! Only the Governments should have them! Only we are responsible! We can defend the world from within the United Nations of all people. No private company has need of such terrible weapons. Just take our hands and we'll take care of you.

They can spin on it.

Who was it that gave the order to use them in Iraq against tanks? Who was it that unleashed all that God-awful power? Who was it that pushed the button after Second Impact? The same Seven security council delegates who right now, are building their own Evangelion programs and who want us to turn over ours in to their loving care.

It's well that they're so expensive to build, and difficult to get right. Even the United States has only managed to build two.

It may be there's no God left in the world capable of forgiving me. It may be, I don't deserve to be forgiven. But the least I can do, is do my damnedest to make sure that it never happens again.

We inherit the will of the dead, the will to survive. the will for there to be a future. I'm fighting for that future. For Hikari, Rei and all those who died to get me here. For all those killed. I stand for them every day. I stand against those who would abuse Evangelion technology, wherever they may be and with whatever force is necessary to ensure that humanity continues on.

This is my duty to the dead.

--Major Nagato. Operations Director. NERV HQ. 2025.

Symposium – 15/Jun/2012
The microphone was tapped for the third time.  The man coughed.  The audience continued to look round, vaguely, with few exceptions.  Quite a few Symposium events started like this, but he'd been trying to get attention for nearly two minutes.
The nearest exception had a large badge "SCIENCE! Press", and wore a very elaborate-looking pair of goggles.  Over his head floated a small flashing sign, "Recording", that was the same no matter what direction you looked from.  He nudged his companion, who was cleaning his fingernails with what seemed to be a small light sabre.
"Huh?", said 'Old Republic News'.  "Who's the stiff in the wheelchair?", asked 'SCIENCE!'.  "Has the speaker got here yet?", came the reply.  A nicely printed booklet marked "Program for the Second Annual Symposium for Wavium Science" was consulted.  "It says 'Dr. Scure', 'Guest Speaker'.  Any idea who that is?"  "Not a BNF I've heard of."
On the stage frantic whispers came from an invisible source, "You're dying up there!  You're so dead you haven't even been born yet!  Wear the cos, Luke!" Unfortunately the excellent sound system relayed this clearly into the hall.
"I'm not wearing that stupid wig!", whispered the anonymous speaker out of the side of his mouth.  "OK, just the cape and mask?"  He sighed, "All right".
People looked up, with more interest at the stage.  There was a heavily-built man in a wheelchair, clean-shaven with greying red hair.  He was wearing trainers, jeans and denim shirt.  Most notable was a lab coat, with bulging pockets, a short black cape and a black domino mask.  "I'm Dr Scure, or rather I'm cos-playing him...", and people's attention started to drift away again.
"The voice!  You've got to do the voice!  Get into character!", came the frantic whisper.  "Hmph.  I'm Dr Scure!  You will listen to my fascinating presentation!", boomed out.  And, many people's attention was fixed on him.
Bobbing in the air next to him, in a horrible PPG-like way, was a one-metre tall figure.  "Hi! I'm Scure Girl, his cute girl assistant!"  This sudden arrival was in a pink ballet tutu, with pink and white leggings, pink shoes, and a short pink cape, floating in the air behind her.  Her short dark hair was done up in bunchies on each side, and her brown eyes looking terrifyingly large behind a pink domino mask.
"What're you doing here?", the man hissed, "and where did you get that costume?"  "I used my ninjitsu powers to henge it up!"  Some of the audience started paying more attention.  "You're supposed to be operating the slides."  "I can do that using my telekinesis!"  Even more audience became attentive.
"This is...", the man looked at the girl, "My spunky girl sidekick".  "You're no gentleman adventurer!" hissed the reply.  People in old-style clothes, with metal attachments screaming "Steam-punk!" were now watching.
"I'm not Mad, just occasionally a bit annoyed", and the man looked at the girl, who briefly stuck her tongue out at him.  "Now..."  He picked up a book, titled "Quantum Physicists Humour".  "I told you to get rid of that!" hissed.  "It was half price!" he hissed in reply.
A little laughter rolled round the crowd.  The man threw the book over his shoulder, winced, and glared at the girl.  "If my assistant here will select the first slide..."
...
"... and so pico and fermitech logic are inadequate.  The need for FTL communication between the god-like intelligence sub-elements implies something of the order of attotech.  For example computational rod-logic using wormholes.  You will see the light-cone effects mean we must map the operating phase space onto a Hilbert Space of at least seven dimensions, and twelve are required to solve some problems."
He stopped, put down his notes, and looked at the audience.  "I wont need to show you the math", and he waved his hands, getting some laughter and some puzzled looks.
"Now.  Questions?"  "No time for that!  We're already late for "Grill The Professor".  "Ditch the mask and cloak!" was hissed.
And he did.  And they left.
"Who was that masked man?"
Came a dazed question from someone not paying full attention.
"Not sure", came a reply.
"But, I think he was supposed to be someone pretty obscure".
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind