Part of the idea is that bootstrapping up the asteroid as somewhere to live lets you use the 'life support' exception on handwavium.
I think the personalities of the AIs who built and maintain the place count as a pretty major quirk - it might stop working if you tried to replace them with saner ones.
BTW: did you spot they are an avatar of the Triple Goddess, Maiden/Hunter, Mother/Teacher, Crone/Wise Woman? [grin]
(I only spotted/worked that out, quite a while after the first story was written...)
You could reasonably say that there is a unique set of handwavium devices involved in this bootstrap process. And, it isn't repeatable, without some really major research and reverse engineering, no matter what the creator of the "Standard Asteroid Terraforming Kit" might like to think.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind
I think the personalities of the AIs who built and maintain the place count as a pretty major quirk - it might stop working if you tried to replace them with saner ones.
BTW: did you spot they are an avatar of the Triple Goddess, Maiden/Hunter, Mother/Teacher, Crone/Wise Woman? [grin]
(I only spotted/worked that out, quite a while after the first story was written...)
You could reasonably say that there is a unique set of handwavium devices involved in this bootstrap process. And, it isn't repeatable, without some really major research and reverse engineering, no matter what the creator of the "Standard Asteroid Terraforming Kit" might like to think.
--
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" - Hawkwind