What is The Autotranscriber Pencil
The Autotranscriber Pencil is a unique Abnormality Object and a one-of-a-kind writing implement. It is an archaic-looking tool that seems to use lead, of all things, to write on various surfaces and even on nothing at all. This pencil has the incredible ability to translate any language it sees or hears within a few feet. It scrawls the translation into the air, any surface, or even the void leaving an odd floating text that sparkles fluorescently in the air for a few minutes before fading, giving the reader a short amount of time to read or transcribe the text themselves using their own computer pad or journal.
Initial Discovery
The Autotranscriber Pencil has been bouncing around from owner to owner for the last two decades or so and has travelled the length and breadth of Delta Space as a result. But before this, its first owner, an unknown pilot that happened upon it when trawling through a collection of broken ships floating in the void in the Itok'ii region of The Delta Space. Allegedly, the scavenger was in the midst of pulling apart a console on a derelict ship looking for unfried wiring and couplings.
During the teardown, a drawer came loose from the console and what would become known as The Autotranscriber Pencil lazily floated out into space. The scavenger paid it no mind, lots of debris and loose junk floated about when he conducted this sort of business. However, the pencil did catch his eye when it suddenly began to move about on its own in space, zipping towards the console in which the scavenger was working upon. Where it suddenly began writing out the instructions for proper decoupling, which were scrawled on the side of the console in the original ship owner's native language. The scavenger amazed, snatched the pencil from the void and took possession of it.
From there, not much is known of what the scavenger did with the pencil, but what is known is that the Autotranscriber Pencil would soon shift to another owner. And then another, and another, changing hands dozens of times, jump from owner to owner to owner, often in bloody conflicts fought over its possession over the two decades since its initial discovery.
One of Kind
Translation programs are often expensive and time-consuming taking hours to translate audio or photographed text, and even then the quality of the audio and/or image must be uncorrupted and clean for an accurate translation to occur. These sorts of translation programs are also restrained to the number of languages built-in, the more languages the higher the capacity of the hard drive is required, and the larger the hard drive the more expensive the cost. As well, quality depends on the quality of the hardware required for implementing translation, high-quality cameras and audio recorders are rare and expensive, and clean information is required for accurate translations.
So truly comprehensive and accurate translation programs are rare, making the Autotranscriber Pencil an extremely hot commodity. Since there is only one known Autotranscriber Pencil in existence it has become an item that is often fought and killed over, having changed hands numerous times over the years since its discovery.
Currently, it is said to reside in a high-security vault in the compound of one of the top-five communications corporations, it is said that the company is trying to reverse engineer its technology so that they can begin to reproduce the item and potentially mass-produce it. Many believe this is being done in vain, as no Abnormality Objects have ever been reverse engineered. As they seem to have no rhyme or reason as to how they work. Most believe these objects are manifestations of the chaotic energies that seep into Delta Space from the Unknown Space that surrounds chartered space.
A recent rumour amongst spare farers posits that the Autotranscriber Pencil has recently disappeared from the vault, and the corporation is in a mad dash to discover its whereabouts and reclaim possession of it.
Comments