DataNet and I.D.E.A

A soothing, monotone female voice cascades from the compact databook in front of you as you tap the Power icon.

"Welcome to DataNet. How can we help you today?"

You reach towards the interface that is displayed before your eyes. A simple homescreen, with a responsive hi-def projection. Your finger hovers close to the Search icon, and then you respond, "Show me local freight jobs."

"Searching 'local freight jobs' - I've found three tasks suitable for your freight class in this system."

"Sort by credits earned," you say decisively as you watch the UI shift seamlessly into a data chart.

"Searching. Best match found. Fifty credits offered for shipment of one-hundred mid-class textile shipping crates from current planet, Deysha-III, to System HK49 - Planet Gydeon's Kydria Shipping Facility in twenty-four hours. Accept this job?"

"Yeah," you grumble, "cuz I've gotta find some way to pay for you, you damn expensive databook."

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Information

The DataNet (also known as DN, HoloNet, or simply the Net) is an intergalactic communications network. It is similar in concept to Earth's Internet, yet far more efficient and stream-lined in design. The DataNet contains vast amounts of information and is constantly being updated. It is the most extensive library of data in the known world, and it exists at the fingertips of almost every human being who has the capacity to access it. Databooks, which are comparable to small, slim laptops that have a holo-projection screen, are the most common device used for the DataNet. However, the DataNet is accessible from almost every electronic device, and most equipment has integrated access. Most everything from comm devices and media players to massive battleships features a synchronization with the DataNet. The DataNet has been as seamlessly integrated into daily life as it can be.

The DataNet framework is maintained by I.D.E.A, the Intergalactic DataNet Efficacy Association. This organization is made up of representatives from many different colonies and organizations, including independent and freelance technicians and lobbyists. I.D.E.A strongly supports free, peaceful, and cooperational use of the DataNet. It was cautiously founded upon the ashes of the Earth's internet, with its moral values being an opposite reflection of the privatization and commercialization of Earth's corrupted Internet. Free speech is not only highly valued, but strictly mandated. Censorship is criminalized, and all open-source information has been made utterly free and available. Most of the network is comprised of shared information across devices which creates a user-powered web of linked data, even across star systems.

This has unwittingly created a "black market" of sorts amongst hackers that have the capability to tap certain information to charge a fee or shut DataNet services down entirely across regions - maybe a few hundred square miles, or a planet, or an entire system. To counter this, I.D.E.A employs security to guard their communication towers, but this isn't always enough to keep hackers and data-pirates at bay.

A few I.D.E.A communication towers usually dot the surfaces of any relatively hospitable planet or moon, which rapidly carry signals throughout most of the known universe.