  In addition to spectacular signatures such as black hole superradiance and
the rotation of CMB polarization, the plenitude of axions appearing in the
string axiverse may have potentially dangerous implications. An example is the
cosmological overproduction of relic axions and moduli by the misalignment
mechanism, more pronounced in regions where the signals mentioned above may be
observable, that is for large axion decay constant. In this work, we study the
minimal requirements to soften this problem and show that the fundamental
requirement is a long period of low-scale inflation. However, in this case, if
the inflationary Hubble scale is lower than around $O(100)$ eV, no relic DM
axion is produced in the early Universe. Cosmological production of some axions
may be activated, via the misalignment mechanism, if their potential minimum
changes between inflation and today. As a particular example, we study in
detail how the maximal-misalignment mechanism dilutes the effect of dangerous
axions and allows the production of axion DM in a controlled way. In this case,
the potential of the axion that realises the mechanism shifts by a factor
$\Delta\theta=\pi$ between the inflationary epoch and today, and the axion
starts to oscillate from the top of its potential. We also show that axions
with masses $m_a\sim O(1-100)\, H_0$ realising the maximal-misalignment
mechanism generically behave as dark energy with a decay constant that can take
values well below the Planck scale, avoiding problems associated to
super-Planckian scales. Finally, we briefly study the basic phenomenological
implications of the mechanism and comment on the compatibility of this type of
maximally-misaligned quintessence with the swampland criteria.
