The Microwocky

The microwocky
The standard phase one microwocky is a product of advanced Mortian microplasma and nanomanufacturing technology, striking not only for its bewildering shape-shifting appearance but also for its ability to facilitate holographic telepresence. It provides real-time translations of nearly all languages and dialects (the one known exception being the strange phraseology adopted by chilloks – a myrmecam is required to communicate with this species). Boasting a myriad of sophisticated tools and applications such as insect zapping, muting all sound within a specific radius and calculating the time to your next bowel movement, the microwocky can even be configured to act as a tunnel node for the purpose of wormhole communication and travel. Users can swipe, rub, prod, poke, flick and push the surface screen to initiate the desired functions.

According to the developers, the latest beta version can emulate the brains of other Mortian (and some non-Mortian) organisms, but pre-sales have plummeted amid mounting rumours that the new functionality is nothing more than a scam. According to some reports, the developers can only get the software to compile if they comment out every line of code. On one occasion, they tried to get a microwocky to emulate an earthling dog – everything went well until it detected incoming mail, whereupon it leaped at the developer and fastened itself to his leg.

Nevertheless, the standard phase one is an indispensable piece of Mortian time-travelling kit. Having been programmed with emotional responses for basic humanoid feelings, it exhibits an uncanny level of true artificial intelligence – it complains when it gets lonely, enjoys conversations and loves to share jokes.

Sophisticated as they assuredly are, microwockys are not necessarily universally appreciated by their owners. On one particular visit to Earth, for example, polkingbeal67 stood on a mountain looking for approaching storms and the conversation between him and his ‘wocky went something like this:

polkingbeal67: How far away is that storm?
microwocky: Which storm?
polkingbeal67: The huge one there in the distance.
microwocky: Oh, that one.
polkingbeal67: Well? How far can we see?
microwocky: 150 million earthling kilometres.

Assuming that the device was malfunctioning, polkingbeal67 tossed it from the mountain and borrowed smolin9’s ‘wocky for the rest of the trip. The hapless contraption had in fact correctly calculated the distance from the mountain to the sun, where a solar storm had indeed been raging furiously.

Inframortian is the encyclopedia project covering all aspects of life on (and beyond) Morys Minor in the constellation of Cygnus.