Real Genius/YMMV


 * Esoteric Happy Ending: Hathaway's weapon worked. Blowing up Hathaway's house still proved that it worked; and it's shown that the CIA knew it was a problem with targeting; not the laser function. Chris had given the schematics (the dynamite laser) to Hathaway before he decided against it. Even if the original Kill Sat was destroyed after destroying Hathaway's house due to the reflected laser; Hathaway and his military contacts would have made copies of this information.
 * That is, unless it was subject to added public and Congressional scrutiny--see Headscratchers.
 * Ho Yay: Between Chris and Mitch, so very much.
 * Straw Man Has a Point: At no point does any of the protagonists bother to exposit why it's so wrong to build a laser capable of vaporizing ground targets from space. They simply state that it is, and act on that basis.
 * Hathaway lied to them and used them to build what would be called a "weapon of mass destruction". It was their tech and work and he stole it from them to use to kill people. They had a moral connection to that work and could not stand the idea of their work used to kill people, like how Nobel hated how his "mining device" was used to kill people and so used the profits to work towards peace.
 * While having moral objections to the work, they apparently have no moral objections to still wanting the course credit and promised perks of doing the work. Profiting off of building a weapon is apparently fine as long as the weapon doesn't actually get used.
 * The Woobie: Mitch, deliberately.