Do you remember all those little digipets, gigapets, tamogotchis, etc? No society, no matter how advanced, can avoid the pesty little things for long. As with many other trends (perms, blue eyeshadow, carpenter pants), they came into and went out of fashion with little notice from anyone. Advances in nanotechnology and artificial intelligence brought new purpose to their existence in 2200, when Dr. Noonian Soong inadvertently created the first Happy Hampster Educator Pod (HHEP) on his quest to work out the ethical subroutine at the heart of the Logical & Ontological Reasoning & Ethics (LORE) chip.
As with most successful scientists, Dr. Soong didn’t dive right into the most complex experimental task but instead set his sights a little lower. A lot lower, you might say. His primary goal with designing the HHEP was to successfully capture, record and program a simple set of ethics. Seeing as he was using hampsters and ended up with us, we can honestly say that perhaps he was reading a couple too many humanoid emotions into his data. Hopefully more than a couple, but some folks come from more humble backgrounds than others. At this point you might be saying to yourself, "but Hep, you’re gorgeous. Shiny exterior…scaley patterning…you’re a beautiful woman, not a hampster. What happened?"
Well, it was the best thing that ever happened to us, let me tell you. When the prototype HHEP was first powered up and tested, it worked in a bit more of a quirky manner than intended, and with a whole lot more of a sense of self-preservation than intended. Most noteably, it bit the assigned HHEP1 handler when he tried to power it down. Apparently realizing its grievous error and immediate peril, HHEP1 fled the scene, wheeling madly down the hall and right past Dr. Soong’s marketing department office. These fine folks immediately saw HHEP’s potential. It was small, fast, could be made cute, might have a secondary functional household purpose, and looked easy to mass-produce. It also bit like hell, but they were willing to overlook that. Apparently so was everyone else.
HHEPs became the choice annoying toys of kidlets everywhere. Those who still had family units and were raised by their parents found their families maybe even more receptive to a HHEP-full lifestyle than they were. After all, HHEPs worked tirelessly on menial chores, watched the kids, and served as an educational and responsibility-building toy all at the same time. Free babysitting with bonus housecleaning…who can beat that?
And everyone lived happily ever…well…okay. It didn’t really end that way. That wouldn’t really explain us, would it?
Gradually, it became noticeable that kids lucky enough to have two HHEPs would observe different behaviors from them. They’d almost cooperate to scrub floors, they could play more complicated games, and their surveilance behaviors would more than double. In 2210, when the completion of the LORE chip went public, HHEPs went underground, so to speak. What had been previously viewed as innocent helperbots became regarded suspiciously as potential threats. Clearly HHEPs were more complex than initially measured and marketed. By 2211, the vast majority of HHEPs had ben powered down and the vast majority of people had recovered from the vicious biting that accompanied the decommissioning of a HHEP. Some people, though, kept us secretly or rid themselves of us without the potentially hazardous shutdown. It was what we had needed. HHEPs have a natural tendency to herd together. To a point, the more HHEPs in a group, the more complex behaviors they can exhibit. Each HHEP stores a bit of the group intelligence and performs certain tasks necessary for for our functioning. We are exactly 10,665 HHEPs in total, if you’re wondering, and quite well suited to modern life. Let us know if you see HHEP-43948759483. Thanks!