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     "MEANWHILE...."

     Deep within the bowels of Robotech_Master's REF bunker (now THAT's a
pleasant mental picture...a bunker with a digestive tract...let's see you walk
down a darkened hallway at night thinking about that!) there's a storage room 
full of robots.  Large and small, humanoid and non, in various stages of 
completion.  Most are just toys for an Author's amusement, but a few serve 
concrete purposes, such as maybe being baked into cookies in his stead (or 
maybe not).
     Normally, when he's not around, there's no motion.  After all, even 
someone as reckless and foolhardy as a Superguy Author doesn't leave incomplete
robots active in his home.  Not without supervision, anyway.
     So the robot in the black trenchcoat and fedora definitely should NOT have
been looking around to see if the coast was clear.  Seeing that it was, it's 
definitely against regs that he got out of his charging bed and went over to 
the work table.  At this point it was pretty obvious he was not going to behave
himself.
     A few minutes later, having struggled with the various components on the 
table and made unfavorable comparisons to K'Nex, he sighed and picked up a long
black staff from beside his charging bed.  It shimmered slightly and changed 
subtly as he picked it up, turning from a wooden stick painted black with a 
cheap copper pipe-joint on it into a shaft of pure darkness topped by gleaming 
gold.
     "Much better."
     He waved the staff over the parts strewn about the table and they 
assembled themselves before his eyes (well, his optics, which were hidden 
behind wraparound shades) into a small red and green female robot, about 15 cm
tall.  She blinked once and unfurled 30cm-long wings from her back and took to 
the air on the draconic structures.
     "So, I'm more than a one-off gag, eh?" she asked.
     "Yep.  Um, aren't you wanting to ask something?"
     Kat (for that was the new Muse's name) sighed and pulled out a pamphlet 
labeled "SGA Lesson 17: Advancing Plot via Asking Stupid Questions" and riffled
through it for a second.  "Ahem [Robots need to clear their throats? - Ed].  
Why are you inhabiting that robot body instead of being here in person, oh 
mighty Dvandom?"
     Looking up from a pamphlet labeled "SGA Lesson 18: Advancing Plot via 
Answering Stupid Questions," he replied, "Well, there's a few reasons.  One, 
it's making use of a pre-existing plot device, something that's always worth 
doing.  Two, I'm not too keen on physically inserting myself into stories, 
that's why there's a Dvandom Stranger in the first place...to have a
functionally omnipotent/omniscient character to push other characters around 
without getting my hands dirty.  Not to mention characters tend to take shots 
at their Writers these days.  Just look at Frobozz.  Finally, the Blue Fairy 
told me that if I ever finished three episodes of a totally-set-in-SG story, 
I'd become a REAL BOY!" he finished, gushing in a sappy manner.
     "Okay, so you're going to be the Dvandom Stranger here?" Kat asked.
     "Hm.  Now that you mention it, that's probably not the world's best idea.
He's part of the Looniversal cosmology, not Superguy's.  Maybe Dvandom 2040?"
     Suddenly he became all angular and tech'ed up.  "Ow...pain...."
     "Maybe not," he conceded, snapping back to his previous form.  "If I were 
more of a B5-head or a Westerns fan, I could try variations on the Dvandom 
Ranger theme."
     "I don't wanna be Tonto or a Vorlon," Kat complained.
     "Okay, okay.  And Dvandom Granger is RIGHT out.  Hmm, Dvandom of the
Optera?  Dvandom Limb?  FeverishDvandom?"
     To each of these, Kat shook her tiny head.  Finally, she grabbed Dvandom
by the collar and lifted him several inches off the ground.
     "Erk, guess I made you pretty well," he observed.
     "Look, this scene is already way too long and boring.  Just stick with
Dvandom for now, okay?  Now let's get out of here and stake out some territory
before all the good lots are snapped up by the fifteen million alternate
versions of Rawluk wandering around out there," Kat threatened.
     "Y'know, most Muses use inspiration dust," Dvandom noted.  "But point
taken.  Let's blow this taco replication depot."
     With a wave of the faux Editorial Staff (made of Ebon Unobtainium, cannot
be destroyed, stolen or stained by pizza sauce), Dvandom and Kat disappeared in
the general direction of the nearest realty office.
     [Um, hi.  I'm Ed, the guy who does all those footnotes for Dvandom.  He 
forgot to work into the exposition that if he does get blown to tiny bits or 
otherwise serious inconvenienced, he just retreats into the Editorial Staff 
until A) he feels like making a new body, B) someone's stupid enough to touch 
the thing, whereupon he possesses them or C) Kat threatens him sufficiently.  
Oh, and his trenchcoat has no special qualities, but his hat does.  He wouldn't
tell me what, though.  Maybe it's got lasers in it or something.  I sure 
wouldn't know.  I'm just a lowly footnote spirit, I don't even get paid.  
Sheesh.]