[RAR] You get a jar of Handwavium

[Khaat]

So I saw this thread and had to go digging.

What I find is a list of fiction (granted, I should read more), but the wiki for Fenspace doesn't bother going into some specifics Spoiler

0) What are the actual, functional limits of handwavium?
1) What are the limits for Supers? Are they biomods, mostly? What's the catalyst? Are there tons of near-photocopy "DC Big Threes" and "Marvel Avengers", or can it be fine-tuned to result in a custom-intent super? Can I handwavium-paint my foam Iron Man cosplay armor into a functional flying, armor suit? (no, I don't actually have cosplay Iron Man armor)
2) What's the deal with Potterites? Is it more biomod that allows them to cast spells, provided they also have a handwavium-dipped wand? Are they mostly "magic'd" (handwavium) gadgets they play-off as magic? Is it a frame-of-mind thing; they simply decide to not be Muggles around some handwavium (plus the fore-mentioned dipped sticks)?
3) How can Trekkie/Trekker and Warsie Factions even approach making their fandom iconic craft? ("Well, you start by making a bunch of droid-making droids...") Do they take their 501st vaccu-formed cosplay armor/X-wing pilot flight suit costume and handwavium-dip it into the "real thing"? What about that part about "handwavium makes no weapons"? Handwavium-paint their prop guns into real blasters? (I'm thinking "no") Or do they buy/machine themselves some actual guns the props were built on and use those instead? (Stormtroopers without guns? Are you insane?)
4) If handwavium bends physics this hard, how (other than "for continuity purposes") can anything be nixed?
5) Do you have to know how a thing really, actually (fictionally) works for it to work? Does an engineer have a better product than a determined (and untrained) dreamer with otherwise the exact same idea?
6) Can't I just write "transmogrifier" in marker on the side of a handwavium-dipped/painted box and get just about anything out of it?

So what I'm left with is a blank canvas, and rules that say "anything goes, unless mumblemumble (that we may or may not break on occasion ourselves)"
I like an open menu as much as the next enthusiastic eater, but this is big.

Otherwise, I get a bigger container and share some hot chicken soup with the handwavium in its new home, while I do some heavy thinking.

Yeah, I get it "not this forum".

[Simon_Jester]

So I saw this thread and had to go digging.

What I find is a list of fiction (granted, I should read more), but the wiki for Fenspace doesn't bother going into some specifics...

What are the actual, functional limits of handwavium?

You can't use it as a weapon or to make weapons, which is why in Fenspace you don't see everyone using ray guns. The FTL drives it makes have some fairly significant limitations like not working inside the orbit of Pluto. Its effects on actual living creatures are dangerous, highly unpredictable, and impossible to replicate. It's legally restricted on Earth (not without reason, as it's very destabilizing). It's not something you can do engineering with, as opposed to tinkering; aside from 'waving materials and using those to make something else, the odds are that a 'waved piece of machinery won't do exactly what you predict.

There are probably some others, too.

[InsaneTD]

From what I've read, if you know something about the subject of what you're working on, say a motor, you can get a better working motor (more efficient, power, or etc), within the limits of the setting. Or if it's not better, you might be able to see HOW it works and be able to build one without Handwavium.

As the setting progresses, some of the factions start making some of the more iconic smaller ships.

The Supers, pretty much, though it can't really give transformative powers, at least, nothing like the hulk. This faction is mostly based I the GURPs super hero source book. And yeah, biomods, pretty powerful ones though.

Weapons is a weird thing, mostly, anything handwaved will become nonlethal. Anything that is lethal, might explode the first time it's used, or it might destroy your power handling (wiring/capacitors) or generation. So if you wave a M16, it'll fire Nerf darts. A grenade will leave the victim looking like a cartoon character from loony tunes. There is a couple mentions of actual working handwaved weapons though, most of those explode the first time it's used.

A handwaved weapon might still damage non-living materials and equipment. Not as common as fancy Nerf guns though.

Another thing with weapons, you can make parts for a weapon using the wave, so they can survive vacuum/cold, but other then that, it won't be any better then a standard one.

The biggest thing the collective writers use to limit anything, is "(Really) Cool Stuff" anything that is really cool, better have some major drawback, a quirk, fail after its first use, Or the whole point of your story is the eventual attainment of the Really Cool Thing.


One thing it can't do is multidimensional spaces... Those poor whovians.

[SpottedKitty]

One thing it can't do is multidimensional spaces... Those poor whovians.

I dunno, that lego-block station the emancipated catgirls put together (and took apart, and put together) sounds effectively pretty similar. I wonder if any of them ever get tempted to Build A Crooked House...?

Have to get back to reading the archives, I got distracted by other RL stuff somewhere in the middle of Season 2.

[InsaneTD]

That's not actually multidimensional, the bricks are just huge. More like shipping containers with connectors.

Funny thing, they have to pull it apart and put it back together, it's a quirk.

[Khaat]

So I go 'scure (obscure source), and handwavium a circuit from Explorers, that covers containment/shielding and propulsion for my ... motorcycle? Or maybe I cobble together a Rogue Trader-era land speeder (open frame) . I don't have the shop space for much bigger. Whichever, it gets 'waved for durability (and performance). Smaller is faster, but there's a speed limit.

Then I handwavium-paint my costume (Iron Man or Corvus Space Marine? decisions, decisions!) for some personal durability. Does it include life support, comms, sensors (and flight)?

Whip-up a STO-flavor "personal shield generator" belt/pin (a backup Explorers circuit?). It seems to be a little dangerous out there.

A belt full of tools with bottomless batteries, and an Industrial Automation astromech droid to cobble together the things I can't.

For those of you thinking "but you don't want to sit in your speeder for the four whole days it'll take to hit the asteroid belt (and then camp while you are out there)", the Explorers field could be resized, and went as fast as power allowed, had zero inertia inside, and seemed to be a handy excavation tool (neat holes through things). Beowulf Schaffer flew a blown General Products Hull ship back from that anti-matter planetoid (Niven-verse), I can camp in a giant sphere forcefield until I have a door on my asteroid.

And a cardboard box with "transmogrifier" written on the side in magic marker.

[SpottedKitty]

And a cardboard box with "transmogrifier" written on the side in magic marker.

Wouldn't that carry the risk of leaning any biomod you might go through towards something tall, fluffy and stripey...?

[Khaat]

Ah, but if the box is what gets 'waved, it isn't a once-only biomod. Much like the catgirl machines, the transmogrifier does the actual thing-changing! Of course, there is the very real quirk risk of it breaking down....
Perhaps a telepathic transmogrifier gun would be handier, anyway; not a bunch of space for a big cardboard box on my land speeder.

[Zaune]

Weapons is a weird thing, mostly, anything handwaved will become nonlethal. Anything that is lethal, might explode the first time it's used, or it might destroy your power handling (wiring/capacitors) or generation. So if you wave a M16, it'll fire Nerf darts. A grenade will leave the victim looking like a cartoon character from loony tunes. There is a couple mentions of actual working handwaved weapons though, most of those explode the first time it's used.

A handwaved weapon might still damage non-living materials and equipment. Not as common as fancy Nerf guns though.

Another thing with weapons, you can make parts for a weapon using the wave, so they can survive vacuum/cold, but other then that, it won't be any better then a standard one.

What you can also do is connect a handwavium-enhanced power source up to a perfectly hardtech piece of engineering like a solid-state laser or a coilgun. That probably scales down to the point where you could buy a small laser cutter and a bunch of lithium-handwavium batteries and develop your own man-portable death ray, but there wouldn't be a lot of point as the result wouldn't be any more reliably lethal than a 3D-printed Kalashnikov. And lots of places in Fenspace have a very relaxed atitude to who can buy that kind of predator-defence hardware.

The biggest thing the collective writers use to limit anything, is "(Really) Cool Stuff" anything that is really cool, better have some major drawback, a quirk, fail after its first use, Or the whole point of your story is the eventual attainment of the Really Cool Thing.

That and how good the story is. You can get away with bending the existing rules a bit -though not to the point of flatly contradicting established canon- if you sufficiently impress a majority of the long-time regulars.