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Handwavium question
Handwavium question
#1
I've been offline for a bit, hence my silence.  I have a question on Handwavium:  If it's used to create massive amounts of electricity, does it care what's done with it?
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#2
My impression is that it only cares if the person who built the power generating object cares strongly enough. Handwavium tends to be very, very impressionable. Typically, it will be quirks about not doing particular things, or actually being extra-efficient (preferring) to do one thing or another.
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
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Railgun?
#3
In that case, could it be used to power a whopping big hardtech railgun?  Or 'waved supercapacitors to fire a hardtech laser cannon?
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#4
I don't think a 'wavium power plant would care what it was attached to, unless that was one of its quirks.  You can't 'wave a weapon and get a super tech weapon out of it, IE no Nerf gun to blaster conversion, but as per the fenwiki page, you can 'wave individual parts to get say, a gun that has to be cleaned less often or a knife that doesn't dull.  If you're willing to put up with the quirks that result anyway.
I've put a 'wave powered coil-gun on screen in the Mystery so it isn't without precedence.  The power pack was a 'waved battery, and there were probably a few hastily 'waved components in the ammo feed mechanism.  Of course as a result of the 'wave (and its hasty, shoddy construction) it fell apart after one use and (amusingly) electrocuted the character who built it while doing so.
--
There are mushrooms that can survive weeks, months without air or
food. They just dry out and when water comes back, they wake up
again. And call the helldesk about their password expiring.
        -- after Jens Benecke and Tanuki the Raccoon-dog, in ASR:
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#5
The challenge with the railgun is just getting one without handwavium... the US navy expects they finalize their design in 2020 to 2025 (in the real world, not Fenspace).

A waved energy source does not care where its energy is going to.
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#6
New Hampshire Battleship Lover Wrote:I've been offline for a bit, hence my silence.  I have a question on Handwavium:  If it's used to create massive amounts of electricity, does it care what's done with it?

One data point: The handwavium power supply in a Scott-series android doesn't care if that android attacks someone. (Noah Scott is not completely sure of that, but Noah is unsure or wrong about a lot of things.)

HRogge Wrote:The challenge with the railgun is just getting one without handwavium... the US navy expects they finalize their design in 2020 to 2025 (in the real world, not Fenspace).

Katz Schroedinger sells coilguns - anybody in Fenspace with a mass-driver weapon either built it himself or bought it from Hermes Universal.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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#7
It's my understanding that 'wavium used to directly generate weapons follows the "Nerf Effect", which is to say that the most you'll get out of it is either a stun ray, or the equivalent of bashing somebody over the head with a foam hammer. So, yeah, you could 'wave a nerf gun into a stun-ray gun, but you couldn't 'wave it into a death-ray.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
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