by Cole Porter:

Times have changed

And we've often rewound the clock

Since the Puritans got a shock

When they landed on Plymouth Rock.

If today

Any shock they should try to stem

'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,

Plymouth Rock would land on them.

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking

Was looked on as something shocking.

But now, God knows,

Anything goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words

Now only use four-letter words

Writing prose.

Anything goes.

If driving fast cars you like,

If low bars you like,

If old hymns you like,

If bare limbs you like,

If Mae West you like,

Or me undressed you like,

Why, nobody will oppose.

When ev'ry night the set that's smart is in-

Truding in nudist parties in

Studios.

Anything goes.

When Missus Ned McLean (God bless her)

Can get Russian reds to "yes" her,

Then I suppose

Anything goes.

When Rockefeller still can hoard en-

Ough money to let Max Gordon

Produce his shows,

Anything goes.

The world has gone mad today

And good's bad today,

And black's white today,

And day's night today,

And that gent today

You gave a cent today

Once had several chateaux.

When folks who still can ride in jitneys

Find out Vanderbilts and Whitneys

Lack baby clo'es,

Anything goes.

If Sam Goldwyn can with great conviction

Instruct Anna Sten in diction,

Then Anna shows

Anything goes.

When you hear that Lady Mendl standing up

Now turns a handspring landing up-

On her toes,

Anything goes.

Just think of those shocks you've got

And those knocks you've got

And those blues you've got

From that news you've got

And those pains you've got

(If any brains you've got)

From those little radios.

So Missus R., with all her trimmin's,

Can broadcast a bed from Simmons

'Cause Franklin knows

Anything goes.

--

power: any social behaviour, as long as sincere, will be accepted for the duration of the song. So while it plays it is ok to walk up to the Japanese emperor in nothing but shorts and greet him with "Hi dude". It would be rude to stay around after it finishes, though. ... could be useful if one doesn't know the social conventions of a group one gets to interact with.

Edit: line breaks.

A series of Handwavium Androids created by Whovians, each one is based on specific incarnations of the title character from the TV show Doctor Who. So far, there are only eleven of them, though there are plans to eventually add the 12th Doctor to their ranks. To the (mild) dissapointment of the Whovians, they aren't very good at figuring out how Time Lord technology works, much less how to build it in Fenspace. They insist they'd need an actual TARDIS to have any chance of that working. For now, they frequently do contract work for Great Justice and Space Patrol as Science Advisors.
Quirks:
I'm not an animatronic - Handwavium AI Androids.
Actor Allusion - Each version typically goes by the first name of their respective actor when they're all together to limit confusion (1. Bill, 2. Patrick, 3. John, 4. Tom, 5. Peter, 6. Colin, 7. Sylvester, 8. Paul, 9. Christopher, 10. David, 11. Matt).
Body Doubling - Each one looks and acts like a specific version of a fictional character, allowing people to predict their reactions if they are familiar with the source material.
What is this fashion sense you speak of? - Some of the Doctors have odd fashion choices lifted wholesale from the show (such as Tom's scarf, Peter's stick of celery, Colin's rainbow coat, or Sylvester's question mark-covered sweater vest).
Macguyver wishes he was as good as me - All of the Doctors are quite adept at jury-rigging solutions to problems.

Longevity - 23/Jun/2012
"It's not easy talking about it."  The reporter waited.  The man was obviously overwrought.  "Go on.  If you like, we can do the interview later."
"Sorry.  I'd like to get it over with.  My dad was getting on.  He'd been in the home for ten years.  And, his mind was starting to wander.  We'd never been rich, and, he was needing more medical treatment.  Just to keep going."
"Our insurance ran out years ago.  We'd had to re-mortgage the house.  If I could afford it I'd have quite liked to 'go up', myself.  But, like a lot of people, I've got responsibilities."
The man paused.  And the interviewer let him gather himself.
"I scrapped together every penny I could.  Asked around.  Studied the web.  The only firm that I could find, that guaranteed they could help him, that we could afford..."
He gulped.
"'Prometheus Industries'.  'We can rebuild you', was their slogan.  I looked up 'Prometheus', they'd got a really good reputation.  Turned out later, totally different company."
"We got Dad back.  Eventually.  Remembers everything.  Fit as a horse.  But..."
The man looked across the room.  The third person there looked up.
"Dad?"
"Yes?  Has the nice lady some questions, nyo?"
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

FULL FORCE!
Coming soon (No joke!) - http://gunhil.com/filmandtv/space-stallions/
And for those not quite familiar with the Space Stallions:

So.. I'm getting ready to write my own timeline for my pbp game set in 2012.
While I've got several ideas, and I've read through the various posts here about possibilities (Especially useful are Bob's views on the what/why of 9/11), I thought I would ask if anyone would like to share what they have done for their own timeline post-1999.
What was the cause of "The Wall"? Where did you go from there?
Even if I don't use what you did, I'd like to see for the sake of enjoyment.
Of course, if Bob has a semi-official list in the back of his head....

GENOM Home Deliveries (GHD) – 23/Jun/2012
No one is quite sure who is responsible but someone (it's rumoured a BNF) set-up "GENOM Home Deliveries" (GHD).  This appears to be a store-and-forward delivery firm, which allegedly has multiple immense warehouses of strange devices.  Some of which Man Was Not Meant To Know.  (Or, Woman, small children, household pets, rabid fans, unfortunate alien visitors, either).
One or two of these warehouses have been tracked-down, but in all but one case they seem to have had enough warning to evacuate, and take all their stock with them.  In the one full warehouse raided, there was a neat note saying "The GENOM AI running this warehouse was not acting in accord with GHD Company Policy", and someone had used thermite on the supervisor AI processors and back-up storage.
A Patrol officer who'd raided the place remarked "What do we do with all this junk?", and after safety-checks some was sold in support of the Patrol "Widows & Orphans" charity fund.
Company policy is that they don't deal in currently or previously living beings, or significant parts thereof (or bits with ransom notes).  The escape clause on this is this doesn't stop potentially future living beings, or things like biological scans or samples.  They also don't deal in actually lethal devices, such as primed explosives, or loaded weapons.  Or systems which will be assembled into these without the knowing physical actions of the recipient (i.e. no DNA or bioscan activated bombs).  Their scanning procedures seem to be pretty good...
All delivery of goods is done by anonymous male humanoid GENOM delivery boomer[1] (robots), of sub-human intellect (about as smart as a crow), and quite lacking in combat capability.  You need to get reasonably close to be sure they're non-human, but they wear a recognisable delivery man full-body uniform, gloves, and a baseball cap over their stylised hair.  Few deliveries require more than one boomer.
These don't fight so much as cower, and an annoyed householder with a baseball bat could readily demolish one, in a minute or so.  The delivery boomer have a small resale value as they typically fuse their circuits when wrecked, dismantled, or when prevented from going about their duties.  There is some argument as to whether they should be entitled to any form of legal protection, except as property.  GHD doesn't seem to get too upset about loosing them.
The goods get to the delivery staff via temporary collection and delivery nodes, and there are quite a few (small) secret delivery staff storage and maintenance facilities scattered around.  The staff that take stuff from collection points to collection nodes, are different from the staff that move things between nodes, nodes and a warehouses (or between warehouses), and also not the same staff as do actual deliveries.  They all seem to be the same sort of self-destructing boomer.  There doesn't seem to be any central coordinating AI, just cooperating AIs at the warehouses.
Quite a number of people make use of GHD facilities.  They've proved reasonably priced, very reliable and discrete.  The only quirk seems to be there is anonymous stuff in the warehouses, that is irregularly delivered, pre-paid, to appropriate people, for a rather twisted value of 'appropriate'.  Are there Mad's who provide this for 'fun'?
There's a faint rumour that some BNF use GHD to delivery 'fun' birthday or festive holiday presents to each other.  Most of them just grin widely when asked this, and say they cannot "confirm or deny".
Open Source: This may be freely used as a plot device by anyone.  You can even have someone trying to track down and destroy this entire system.  Best if it takes them a really long time to do so, though, so others might have fun with it.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Mortality Deferred - 23/Jun/2012
Quite a lot of Fen are from the 'baby boomer' generation.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer )
By 2007 these are about 45-60 years old.  There is a big general population bulge in a lot of the Western world about this age.
Longevity will be a serious issue for these, not just "life extension", but more critically "health extension".
How will the availability of biomodding in Fenspace affect this?  Will people get a "Biomod" stamp on their passport if they visit much of Terra, and need a "Certified Biomod" stamp to pass the border of some places?
[['Certified Biomod' would be an approved certification agency confirming that the biomod would not be "a danger to general public safety".  Or, maybe you'd need "Biomod Insurance" to pay for consequences?  Some places are very twitchy about weapons, or even people with senior martial arts qualifications (see urban myth "My hands are registered as deadly weapons").]
Would all the borders agencies be buying "Biomod Detector" scanners to check people arriving from Fenspace?
Anyone who has a biomod process with livable quicks that delivers "health extension" (minus 25 years, or reduced to equivalent health age of 25, would be a good start) might have a lot of 'health tourists' on visits from Terra.
That would give enough time for you to hope hard tech health extension could play catch-up.
Then there are the people with the back-street (Fenspace) clinics running scams...
Boskone running "immortality treatment" scams?  ('Immortalisers'?)
Would such scams be against the style of story that suites Fenspace?
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

In case you haven't noticed the status report at the top of most forum pages, I've gone ahead and split chapter 1 into two separate chapters.  After I complete a final pass on the new chapter 1, I will be sending it to preread.  In the mean time, chapter 2 progresses, and I've set up the file for chapter 3.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

Day Trip - 09/Jun/2012
Before Spring, 2008, UK/Moon.
The rain had been bad, this late Winter[1].  Brains remembered when even the UK's erratic climate could be pretty confident of a cold Winter.  Global warming, he guessed.
While the rain was annoying, it did have the advantage of putting-off people who might visit the disused airfield, over which he'd moored his invisible spaceship.  He'd spent quite a bit of time, on the ground, in his personally invisible wheelchair, protected from wind and weather by forcefield.  Looking, with both naked eye and binoculars, to see if his ship might might be spotted, say by bird watchers.
Eventually he'd moved it higher, a compromise between not leaving a rain shadow, and his fear of low-flying aircraft.  Fortunately no kite flyers, or model aircraft enthusiasts, had run into it.  Though, he'd had to tweak the forcefields to dissuade birds from perching there.
At nearly 20 feet in diameter and more than 65 feet long it, he supposed he should say 'she', couldn't be left just anywhere, even with invisibility.  He'd come up with a fancy Japanese name, for the launch christening, but been using "SS Champ" (for 'champion') as 'work boat' just didn't seem enough.
Fighting quirks all Winter.  Twice he'd ripped-out several days work on major subsystems, had a re-think, and started again.  He knew there'd be some quirks, it was the nature of handwavium, but he wanted to be sure they were ones he could easily live with.  Certainly nothing involving prayers to Murphy[2], or loud music to distract Eris, just to ensure things kept functioned.
Yesterday he'd finished Uran[3][4], then spent several hours getting to know her.  He guessed she was the little sister he'd never had, wrapped-up in a 1m tall robot body.  Today was final checks on the ship, finishing those little jobs that always got put off till the last minute.  Uran being distracted by his manga and graphic novel collection; had he hid all the 'adult' ones?
He'd learned a lot building 'Champ', far more than throwing-together the 20-foot 'work horse', the "SS Gee Gee", Uran called her.  As planned, enough room to put one in the hold of the other.
---

The launch party.  A fortunately clear morning, though rain looked likely, later.  He'd put a temporary railed platform, around the central top airlock hatch, cloaked by a portable invisibility screen.
"You mean I can really launch the ship?", Uran was almost beside herself. Brainless mumbled something, probably impolite, from where he'd wedged himself in the corner of the platform.  He'd only come under protest, but Brains thought it a good test run for taking him to the upcoming Eastercon.
"Yes", and Brains handed her a piece of paper.  She squinted at it, briefly, then stepped forwards, clutching the miniature champagne bottle, all 200ml of it.  "I name this ship the 'SS Shuroyoku', and may Murphy bless all who sail in her!", and she broke the bottle, first time, on the invisible hull.
Then, she knelt-down, and kissed it.  "But, you'll always be the 'SS Champ' to me!"  Brains gently slapped himself on the forehead.  "Just a load of over-ritualized nonsense", muttered Brainless, loud enough to get a glare from Brains.
"Right, tidy up, then back home to pack some lunch, for me."  Brains handed a dustpan and brush to Uran, and she carefully swept-up the debris of the bottle, before wind and rain did its own sweeping.  "Can I keep these?"  "OK", replied Brains, "But let me make them up into some sort of display, for you.  I know you can't cut yourself on them, but others might."
---

They'd taken it slow out of the atmosphere, a full half-hour, but once in space they'd flashed straight to the Moon, then around to the Far Side.  The lack of view-ports made Uran impatient, even though she was connected, by her built-in comms suite, to the ship's scanners, and saw far more than Brains did on the wrap-around view-screen.  "I bet I could modify these to use some sort of fibre-optic semi-direct feed, for emergencies", thought Brains.
They weren't doing any real navigation, just point-and-fly, but the ship was fast enough, with enough safety features, that Brains thought this wouldn't be a problem.  Even Brainless seemed quiet, which Brains chose to take in a positive way.
The landing on the Moon, after following Brains map to the crater he owned, was almost an anticlimax.  Brains flew out and down in his wheelchair, followed by Uran, who carried an unprotected Brainless in his wheelchair.  Brains generously paused, to let Uran put her foot to ground first, for which he was repaid with a wide smile.
They looked around, at the crisp blackness, the untwinkling stars, the sharp shadows.  Brains very faintly tasted gunpowder.  "Maybe my forcefield isn't as impermeable as I thought?", he mused.
Uran experimented with some bounce walking, then turned to Brains, and her lips moved.  "Hmph", thought Brains, "Obviously no sound, as no air.  But, I've nothing to talk to her built-in communicator.  Clever".
Brainless sat back, arms folded, but every so often looked around, when he thought the others weren't looking at him.
After maybe half-an-hour, Brains went back into the airlock, and brought out his surveying tools.  A combination of traditional hard tech, and a waved toy science tricoder, told him what he thought he needed to finish the house plans.
Back in the ship they just sat for a while.  Brainless read "Explorers on the Moon"[5], the Tintin book published in 1954, the year before Brains was born.  But, Brains didn't think his heart was in it.  Even Uran was a bit quiet.
After a while she remarked, "So, we'll be living here, full-time, by the end of the Spring?  Just a few months?  I was only born the day before yesterday, but that seems a big change.  Are you sure?"
"Yes."  And even Brainless looked up at his strong statement.
"If we don't go now they'll make it illegal.  I promised Dad, before he died, that I wouldn't break the law without a really good reason."
"If you want to take a trip back to Earth, I'm sure we'll figure out a way. But, I, we, need to be here."
He grinned.  "After all, my friends always tell me I'm a lunatic."
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind

Self Model - 06/Jun/2012
Before Spring, 2008, UK.
Leaving home.  For the Moon.  But, Brains didn't want to loose his cottage, the dower house.  If things went really badly wrong he wanted to have somewhere to come back to.
The place would have to be credible.  It would have to look as if he was still living here.  He guessed it would be possible to rig a radio link to the Moon, maybe routed through at least a couple of satellites, in Earth and Lunar orbits. But, the light-speed delay would mean that using the telephone wouldn't work. Though the Internet would.  Fortunately, he did most things through asynchronous communications, like e-mails and forums.
He wondered...  Searching under his workbench he dug out the old joke 2mm diorama he'd made.  It showed this very workshop, with him in his wheelchair, working on a diorama of his workshop.  Some of the detail in the diorama-within-a-diorama he'd done with a microscope.  With a bit of work he could extend the diorama to include the rest of the cottage, even the garden.  Then, use this as the basis to make a stand-in for himself.  "As Above, So Below."
If he corrected, then waved the diorama, maybe something else would be possible. The version of himself within the diorama could wave the sub-version within his 2um diorama, after he'd checked all the detail was right.  Then, that would give him a version of himself who could do work at a 2um level, a million times smaller than working at the human-scaled two metre level.  Micro scale, not nano scale, but still...  Possibilities...
But, first priority was his stand-in.  He'd better look like him, feel like him, to things like handshakes, but bad breath and medical exams seemed a bit excessive.  Needing to eat and drink, defecate, seemed best avoided, as that would increase his food bill, if he was shipping food to the Moon, to eat himself.  Rest and sleep, he'd better match that to his own pattern.  And, similar hobbies and interests.
Brains looked at his double, sitting in an identical-looking copy of his wheel chair, though Brains was pretty sure it didn't have all the waved 'special functions'.  "I suppose I should tell you about the pain in all the diodes, down my left side"[1], said the double, in gloomy voice.  "Don't worry.  I'm probably not sentient.  So I wont have any human rights."
Brain was struck dumb.  What had he done?  Half an hour later he was a lot happier.  The golem, as he guessed it was, didn't seem to be actually sentient, though he was highly responsive in a way that matched Brain's personality, particularly in his darker moments.  Around Brains he answered to the name "Brainless", though 'Brian' seemed to be what he used to others.  He didn't think he'd created a crime against humanity, though he guessed that was for the future to decide.
Brainless didn't seem to do any planning, he just followed existing patterns, and dealt with any problems in ways Brains had dealt with them previously.  Brains did admit he wasn't too good at planning, himself, unless prodded into it.  Brainless did seem to be able to deal with new situations, such as being faced with a double in the form of Brains, but his approaches lacked originality.  Though, Brains guessed, they often seemed to show a streak of dark humour, which he had to admit he recognised.
Basic model making and painting seemed to be within his abilities, and he worked with a attention to detail, that Brain didn't feel he could always manage himself.  He also seemed to be a workable engineer and programmer, though lacking 'flare'.
"Yes", he said out loud.  "I think this is workable."
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind