Memory Alpha
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While Memory Alpha is in fact a planet, it is most significant — and named for — its single major feature: The tremendous Memory Alpha computer facility, the home of all information catalogued by the Federation. On the verge of completion in 2269, the entire archive was drained and construction had to begin again. By the 24th century, the facility is back up and operating at full capacity.
The sole satellite of a red giant star 1100 light-years from Earth in the Alpha Quadrant, Memory Alpha’s electromagnetically-sensitive atmosphere reflects the ruddy light of its primary. Although located off the major space-lanes and relatively far from most of the core Federation worlds, it remains a primary destination for scholars and scientists of all species and cultures. Memory Alpha’s academic mission of peaceful research means that it has no defenses; given the importance of its computer core and databanks to Federation science, this is not always a popular posture with more aggressive Starfleet planners.
Climate and Geography
Starfleet selected the small, cold Class K planet (a large planetoid by mass) as the home of the Memory Alpha complex due to its almost totally sterile planetary chemistry. The surface is entirely sheer rock, and inert argon makes up the atmosphere. No life is possible on this planet outside the Memory Alpha facilities, and the actual data cores reside in completely “clean” sterile caverns several miles away from the site. Although the planetary core has been dead for billions of years, all Memory Alpha facilities rest in the center of a geological “hard spot” dug into solid bedrock. Only the glowing red sky adds a note of color to the black rock of the planet and the gray rodinium walls of the complex’s few above-ground buildings.
Civilization
Memory Alpha has a purely academic culture under the general control of a Director appointed by the Federation Science Council. Starfleet attempts to maintain at least a token presence on Memory Alpha, usually by rewarding a promising science officer (or punishing a maverick command officer) with a research tour here. The more-than-usually isolated, parochial, and pacifistic scholars on Memory Alpha often resent (and occasionally protest) this “watchdog,” which doesn’t add to the joys of the assignment. The Romulan Astrophysical Academy usually has several researchers on Memory Alpha, who openly report to the Exploration Command of the Romulan Star Navy and, in many cases, have been proven to report to the Tal Shiar. The Director has the authority to expel spies or undercover military personnel from any planet, including Federation members. Between prickly academic dignity, interstellar tensions, and the isolation of Memory Alpha, personalities can and do clash dramatically here.
History
Starfleet mapped this planet and selected it as the home of Memory Alpha during the Centennial Survey of 2261. Over the next eight years, world after world deposited archives of its cultural and scientific knowledge here while Starfleet engineers constructed a multiply-redundant storage facility to keep all the data safe from damage, degradation, and loss. Then, just as the complex neared formal completion in 2269 it was attacked by incorporeal gestalt entities from the doomed world Zetar. Zetar had been stripped of organic life around A.D. 1200 by a massive cataclysm, and these solipsistic beings sought material form again, in their quest killing numerous sentient beings by neural disruption. The Zetarian attack damaged the Memory Alpha central brain and burnt out the main memory core, causing a catastrophic loss of data. It took almost forty years for the complex to return to full operation in 2303, and some of the information wrecked by the Zetarians is still lost and unrecoverable even to this day.
Places of Interest
The only place of interest on the Memory Alpha planetoid is the complex itself, which is a steadily increasing bank of computers, terminals, and holotanks connected with a dizzying array of ODN cable, EDS circuitry, and other linkups. The academic facilities have artificial gravity set to 0.8 G in common rooms, although individual quarters can be adjusted for almost any known species.
Reference(s)
- Burns, Eric, Kenneth A. Hite & Doug Sun. Star Trek Roleplaying Game Book 7: Worlds, Decipher, 2005. ISBN: 1582369097.