h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*Runs over to Eleven*

Did you ever perfect my disarmaments? They were supposed to vapourize any weapons in the possession of whoever they were fired at, but leave the person/thing unharmed. Sorta like a reverse neutron bomb. Our early tests weren't too successful, although we had lots of dentists interested in our new filling removal service. And I still think that pocket change can be considered a weapon - have you ever been hit by a penny thrown really hard? But I must concede that it was a bit of overkill to remove the pants along with the pocket and its change.

Anyway, do those weapons include my weapoffs?

*The pun meter on the OmeGauntlet goes off*

Do you guys have some way that I can turn this thing off?

I want to take a look at these weapons also, this crossbow is effective but the reloading time is hell.

The nanogun is a brilliant and versatile weapon, Affi, but there are times when it requires me to think about what it will fire and dial the selection in accordingly. I need a blind reflex type of weapon as well, for those moments when you meet something coming round a corner unexpectedly.

I would be happy with a primitive projectile system.

*scratches head*

I seem to remember we once had an idea for a rapid-fire crossbow, kinda like a machine gun, but we got stalled trying to develop a reasonably compact arrow cartridge and then got distracted by other things. I think we were well on the way to developing expandable arrows that were bullet-sized in the cartridge, but which expanded to full arrow-size in the bow itself. Problem was, it took several minutes for them to expand, and then when they did, they were made of sponge. That got us sidetracked into working on other expandable sponge things, which eventually led to our development of inflatable squids, which so delighted us that we forgot about the crossbow project. Anyway, it sure would be cool if those bots found our development notes and finished it off for us.

Now that I think about unfinished weapon projects, I can remember a few more. Affy, do you remember the mini-fruitcake gun idea? It was a miniaturization of our fruitcake hurler that we had installed on the mini-UFO. That development was still on the drawing board, though, and we never really started on it. We had envisioned a hand-held gun that had a big elastic band on the top. When you pulled the trigger, a lever pulled back the elastic band, a mini-fruitcake droped in front, then the elastic band was released. We were going to use some of our mega-rubber for the elastic band so that the mini-fruitcake would fire at bullet speeds. We just had to develop the mega-rubber first.

Oh, and there was the locomotivator. Basically a gun that fired a locomotive. In the gun, the locomotive was suspended in an anti-grav field, but when it was fired, the field collapses and it charges on its own. Great for clearing hallways of whole troops of enemies. A bit unwieldy, though, and spare rounds a bit bulky to carry. And the expandable foam ones weren't nearly as effective.

Now, a really useful one would have been the Nudger. We had the technology for creating rifts to other dimensions, and had traversed those rifts ourselves, on occasion. But the rifts were static - you created them in one place and they stayed there. But with the Nudger, you could fire a rift at an enemy, and they would disappear through it to another dimension. The rift would then close up. We had that one almost working, but could only manage to send the enemy 30 seconds into the past, instead of to another dimension, which wasn't much use since 30 seconds later you had to do it all again to two of them. Anyway, if the bots got that one working, I'd be very interested.

That rapid fire crossbow would be great!

I like the sound of the Nudger, myself. But only if the 30 second feature has been avoided. It would be cool if you could send your enemy directly to that prison we encountered when we were searching for Affy.

I never had much succes with my rapid fire crossbow, when we were after the webjello gang I never seemed to hit anything with it . My carameliser has been more useful.

The button on my pda opens rifts, but I have no control over where the rifts open and it takes a while for it to recharge. Now if that could be modified to beam someone through a rift, with an option to select a destination, it would be really handy.

*Scratching his head*

I think that we used part of the technology we developed while working with the Nudger into the Digital Dungeon software. You know, where we could imprison people and things on CDs? We pretty much only used it on the really dangerous villains. Masque Of The Red Rejection eMail, I think....oh, and the evil me from that one parallel dimension had it used on him. A handfull of others....

Now, a handheld version of the Digital Dungeon....it'd be a bit large, you'd need something roughly the size of a miniature Tantalus Ray. But that's crazy talk. Who'd want to make that type of technology portable?


FACE-He really *HAS* been gone for 42000 years!

*Chesworth nods to Eleven, who leads the way to a side room. It turns out to be an armory*

We have a version 5 Omegauntlet that contains the technology you were speaking of, sir. It also has a wishful thinking component for which credit must go to Chesworth herself. She explained to me long ago that she had sat in on so many design sessions where the dominant phrase seemed to be "Wouldn't it be cool if..."

The problem is that not many of us robots are good at wishful thinking. We know what it is theoretically, but can't seem to get the knack of it. Only one of us, the Purple One, was able to develop it satisfactorily, but he disappeared millennia ago, after increasingly erratic behaviour.

Now, the fruitcake gun! The bot upstairs, Matina, provided us with a recipe, but ingredients became rarer than diamonds long ago. All that glacé fruit -- no place for it in the society we have now. Jungle vegetation now abounds, however, and so we have developed a version based on an confection called the Fig Newton. A core of mashed figs surrounded by a pastry shell, this makes a perfect bullet for the Fig Newgun, but the ammunition is a little cumbersome unless you have something like the young lady's pocket *indicating sea with a nod of his head*.

I remember the rift gun. The Purple One took the prototype and plans with him.

*holds up a tiny derringer-like weapon* Here's the locomotive gun. Works a treat in the lab, although we have been avoiding group confrontations so far.

Not long after the Diaspora, we found a nanogun upstairs and disassembled it. We discovered that we could breed the nanobots! And that led to our perfecting the automatic crossbow. It makes its own ammunition. We took it for field tests in The Olde Seweres ... you need to be careful if you go there ... and discovered that the weapon is good for nearly 1000 bolts before the nanobots need replenishment, which you accomplish by slapping a fistful of mud into the breech, here. *demonstrates*

Unfortunately, the nanotechnology refuses to make fruitcake.

*holds up a curious weapon, shaped not unlike an ancient blunderbuss with a funnel at the end, and shows how the muzzle can be telescoped own to about a foot* Mr Lupus, sir, this is your weapoff. Please make sure members of your own party are well behind it. The funnel, quaint though it seems, was the only way we could control its effect. It also requires about 24 hours to recharge, after about three uses.

I'm afraid the Digital Dungeon was stolen by STUMPED, who then typically botched it and accidentally turned it into a virus. Did you see all the abandoned computers upstairs? All infected. We may have the only working network on the Island, apart from that of the Guide itself.

We also have snowzars and polka guns as well as some conventional weapons. *looks at Lil* Perhaps the Hostess requires a Glock or a Beretta? There is also an assortment of lethal culinary devices. And the lab is through that door, if Mr. Affi and Lupus would care to examine some of our more experimental work.

*Heads for the door. Doesn't even realize it, his feet just start moving*

You know, Caer, I never paid proper attention to your rapid-fire crossbow back then. How did it solve the arrow feed problem? Maybe it never hit anything because the arrows were made of foam.

A hand-held Digital Dungeon! How diabolical!


I hope they never found those plans for the boomerangutan

That crossbow was well in advance of it's time, GL, I got it from the Celtic Fairy Ring, bit of a misnomer because they are a bunch of witches. It had infinite capacity cartridges, charged with various bolts: fire, armour piercing, etc, which allowed for rapid reloading.

Personally I think they hexed the laser sighting as the only thing I hit, as I recall, was a barn door.

It's still in one of my combat suit pockets, somewhere....

*starts ferckling round, brings out her pda, opens MobiMDb, selects 'Itinerary'...*

Ah, upper left thigh pocket....

*produces the crossbow*

*Jumps up and down with excitement*

I haven't felt like this since I was a kid in a candy store. The candy store, you see, was located between the hardware store and the electronic supply store.

*Takes the weapoff and looks at admiringly.*

Beautiful, just beautiful!

*Looks at the Fig Newgun*

Excellent! And you figured out how to make mega-rubber!

*rubs hands in glee*

And a Locomotivator! Why didn't WE think of using the nanobots to make the ammo as needed? I can't wait to see this one in action.

May I have a polka gun and the Beretta, please?

I remember well about the sewers. Bluebottle had discovered monsters well up inside the system. The rats contracted to build a bridge across the main pipe with a balcony for human tourists to watch in safety -- the rats needed the bridge for their own purposes. In exchange, they developed a system for feeding the sewer monsters from a spam mine they, the rats, had. With a dependable food supply, the monsters became quite spectacular!

*thinks, grows sober* I wonder if the rats kept feeding them?

What does a polka gun do?

I want to know that also. I will definitely take a rapis fire crossbow.

Ah, I can fill ya in. I invented the Polka Gun as a form of defense against people who were listening to music in cars with the bass up way too loud.

See, the polka gun blasts a soundwave that sounds a lot like a bar of polka music. However, I've tampered with it enough to make the sound blast tamper with the brainwaves of any sentient entity that it comes in contact with (and, as I later found, some non-sentient ones). This brainwave manipulation causes the target to hear a constantly playing polka tune, and forces them to dance to it. You can set the timer for any period of time from a minute to a perpetual "Dance Of Death" that'll eventually do in a dancer due to sheer exhaustion.

An excellent weapon that works to tire out an opponent. Now, they can still attack while dancing, still talk, everything. But after a while, the strain of constantly dancing gets to 'em, making them much easier to cope with.

Now, just so you know, glancing blows don't affect targets very much. In fact, if you shot it at the wall right now all the rest of us would hear would be a short accordian riff. In other words, this thing's still gotta be used like a normal gun. Otherwise, it'd affect everyone who heard it, and not just the intended target.

Man, it felt good when I invented that.

Who's the Purple One?

Well, the context is referring to CLI robots from millenia ago. The most prominent CLI bots that I know with the color purple in them are Ampton and that one worker bot that had the purple mustache drawn on his face with crayon. Both of those robots had the capacity for emotion. Really, most of our robots did. Chloe was designed with a built-in need to find outlets for her creativity, for instance (although we couldn't be talking about Chloe, as she's a translucent green color, not purple).

OOH! You guys've got Ahkmut Chompers!