the smiley mote

In a world filled with silicon and copper resides a community of motes. First things first, it is mote, pronounced like the water around a castle –moat, but never capitalized. They try to remain humble and keep a subordinate outlook on life, one to serve. These strange creatures have observed the coming and going of many humans and until recently had no way of being physically seen by mankind. The dawn of electronics connected their world to ours which could be a dangerous bridge if certain layers of protection were not put into place. The early pioneers of electronics knew this, have you ever wondered why old computer monitors had several layers of glass. Until they were better understood, we did not want their world to completely saturate ours.


One mote in particular, Namco, really wanted to serve as an ambassador to the human race. He tried to come up with different ways to be able to bring the two worlds together. His kind had been studying humans for years and he could see that there was much potential that could be achieved with the two worlds working together. He started his quest to make himself known to the humans.
This took place during the late 70s when video games were capturing the heart and dreams of many younger folk. Namco thought this would be a good start since these youth would soon be setting the stage for the future. He went to many developers in hopes of being the face of the next coming arcade game. Pong was his first audition though the idea of bouncing across the screen would only make Namco nauseous. Vomiting wasn’t his idea of good relations between two races. The next candidate for his ambassadorship was Space Invaders. Now, he admits that this might send the wrong message but a foot in the industry was needed. However, he didn’t make the cut; they said he was too upbeat to be shot at so once again he was walking the unemployment lines.


Namco floated the streets noticing teens popping in quarters to challenge their bottle glassed friends at another high score on the black arcade screen. He could only dream of what it would be like to be loved by so many teenagers. Then he ran into a Japanese man who was drawing mazes on a blank sheet of paper. He noticed that the individual was trying to create a new game to be played with numerous ghosts. This was it! A chance to battle ghosts would surely be the hand shake between the two worlds.
Pac-Man became his new identity. Namco spent his days eating in a maze while fighting ghosts with the names of Blinky, Pinky, Inky and even Clyde. For years, teenagers from all over where seeing the large smiled Namco navigate the mazes and eating his fruit, he was teaching so many kids what a smile could do. Time went on but Pac-Man kept on, kids of these teenagers would play this game now in their own homes on devices called Nintendo. Namco was being seen by almost any young kid and the motes were never so proud of one of their own.


Life was great and the two worlds were learning the power that could come from each other. People would come together in stores and arcades to enjoy in each other’s accomplishments. Motes started to help out Namco in the gaming business and eat all the power bites they could fee on. Nothing could go wrong. But it did. Some time went by and the graphics of a circled face was too boring to many of the teenagers. A new face took the world by surprise, an Italian plumber jumping through pipes.
This new character, Mario, was invading homes across the globe. This was horrible for the motes, they were forgotten about. Not even for the humans was this good. Arcades soon were forgotten, creativity lost with the new better graphics and friends played alone.


Namco tried multiple times to make a comeback. He pleaded with developers to give him another shot, even to redraw him with fancy graphics. Games were rereleased but nothing caught hold. The mote world was starting to lose any hold they had in man’s world. All hope at the two worlds coming together were failing.


The growth of the internet started pushing everything faster and from time to time, Pac-Man was played but only to show the difference from the past to the present. No longer were men interested in chasing ghosts and chasing after the cherries.


Namco was in a chat room sharing his woes to the poor listeners in the room. Telling about his ‘has beens’ as that is why one talks to a perfect stranger, the whole purpose of chat rooms. Then one individual while trying to cheer up Namco through a tag on the end of a comment, a simple :) was inputted. Namco was confused staring at two punctuations that had nothing to do with each other. He looked it up and down, then from side to side . . . it was a smile. Then it happened, a photon went off and he saw another door appear.


This was going to be bigger than Sonic himself! He ran back to the old Japanese programmer and requested one last shot. For him to call in all of his connections in the geek world, he was going to find his way into the homes of every computer in the world. He requested to associate himself with every :) posted on any chat over the internet. It started slow but soon the graphics appeared. He then even got some work for his buddies as :( , :/ , :S and even his silly younger brother as :P
Nothing could have been better for the mote world. Even to honor their input, they were called emoticons. They made their way in to MSN Messenger, Yahoo, Facebook, Skype, Microsoft word, even cell phones.


Namco achieved his dream, he bridged the two worlds and found a way to carry emotions from a human, through the mote world of electrons and back to the human world as an emoticon. The future is still uncertain as Namco rides the current wave. He knows that soon even text will disappear but have you know the motes will always find a way to share their smile in their fellow human world.


Meet Namco, official ambassador from the mote world: