Snooker
The Hustling Hardware
Snooker is a perfect-shot-making Machina who adores the imperfect existence of humanity… so much so that he believes he is, in fact, a real human being. It’s quite obvious Snooker is not human, but nobody in Sparkadia reminds him of this fact because, well, attempting to be human brings him so much joy, and he puts quite a lot of effort into creating his own identity. Despite his quirks, Snooker has never, ever missed a shot—which, aside from his appearance, is the only nagging evidence that he was born a Machina.
Hailing from an alternate universe where machines evolved to be the solitary form of sentient life, Snooker is a Freecoded being, programmed into existence from a vast sea of endless data and allowed to develop on his own. In his reality, Snooker took part in numerous games of skill and precision, becoming somewhat of a celebrity athlete. His calculation speed verged on ultra-instantaneous. His trans-dimensional trigonometric trick shots were feats to behold, like the time he knocked an entirely lifeless (and rather depressed) galaxy into a supermassive black hole using nothing but a simple FENTI* rocket, a protractor, and a single matchstick. The resulting gravitational anomalies caused lots of data-confusion in the Machina network, and resulted in the only known instance of a super-swole singularity. Naturally, this put Snooker on the map and catapulted him to equal parts fame and notoriety. A mysterious sect of Machina leadership known as the Parsectors took great interest in Snooker and followed him around, even ordering several agents to apprehend him. In Machina culture, the Parsectors are both terrifying and glorified—and they never fail. Snooker, however, was oblivious to their interest in him, and with unwitting precision always evaded capture.
Eventually, Snooker decided to use himself as a projectile to see if he could use the super-swole singularity’s event horizon to attain a great speed and slingshot himself through the fabric of space and time. It worked! He punched a hole straight through the very essence of his universe and crash-landed straight on Avonova. When he came to, he felt like he had a headache. The background noise of the Machina’s infosphere that permeated his home universe was gone. But he found he wasn’t alone in this strange new world… That’s when he saw his first human and fell deeply in love. A great change washed over him, and he felt as if he didn’t belong in his metallic container. In fact, he felt he couldn’t be contained by any shape whatsoever! It was a glorious feeling. He entertained the population of Sparkadia with trickshots because it was all he knew… and soon he became disenchanted by never being able to miss. To miss, he determined, was human. And Snooker, deep in his being, felt human.
Now, Snooker works as a waiter at Steve’s Sprockethouse in downtown Sparkadia. It’s the hottest restaurant on Avonova, with an eons-long waiting list. But maybe, just maybe, Snooker will sneak you in for a meal, or at least entertain you by building a perfectly balanced Eiffel Tower of champagne glasses, but only for his human friends.
*For our human readers, this stands for: Five-Engine Nova Thermal Igniter; a fairly common Machina toy, especially beloved by awkward pre-alpha phase of maturation (ie: robot puberty) where blowing up small stars is preferable to social interactions, like middle-school dances. Yes, Machina have middle schools, and dances.
**For our Fabled readers: it was a miracle shot! Snooker must be a wizard!
Hero Quotes:
Ouch—my human pride!
Last modified 2mo ago