Datacard

This article describes an entity in the Star Wars Combine universe from in IC perspective. This may be more appropriate on the Star Wars Combine Holocron. You can help by either moving its current content there and replace this page with a more OOC description or mark this page for deletion.

Datacard

The datacard is a small, portable memory device used to transfer data from one computer to another. Wrapped in a durable polymer shell to protect the data within from corruption and physical damage, the interior of a datacard is a liquid crystal compound. When stimulated by the high frequency signal of a data transfer, the compound hardens into a rigid matrix.

Each datacard is single use and once "written," it cannot be encoded with new information. Due to the nature of its internal memory structure, a single datacard will only hold a single batch of information. However, when in its blank state, the datacard's capacitance is fluid and a single device has the potential to hold the total sum of knowledge needed to produce an entity as simple as a whip or as complex as Star Destroyer. To encompass the scope of such a vast entity as a capital ship, the datacard includes vast amounts of metallurgical, schematic, manufacturing, and engineering data all in a single, diminutive package.

An added benefit to a datacard, beyond its portability, is the ability to copy data from a written datacard to a blank one using a datapad. There are downsides to such ease of information sharing, however. Anyone with a datapad can copy the information from a datacard they have access to in short order, which leaves few non-physical safeguards against technological espionage.

The mode of transfer between a datacard and a read/write device can vary, depending on the conditions under which it must be deployed. However, most datacards transmit through a short-wave radio signal that conforms to a standardized data pattern and is triggered by very close proximity.

See also

• Production