From carats to kilobytes.
Rather than use magnetic, optical, flash drive or solid-state drive
based information storage mediums, in the future there will be ways to read and write data onto transparent crystaline solids. This jump in technology usually makes each Data Crystal a veritable Bag of Holding for information, uploading and downloading entire planetary databases in seconds. The crystals may be shaped like quartz, techno Crystal Balls or as diamond or gem cut jewelry.
Data Crystals often double as video recorders and Hologram emitters, allowing owners to record, store and project their home movies. Because Power Glows, these Data Crystal hologram projectors can often do so without an external power source.
Truth in Television with the fact that deep inside all of the plastic cladding, all solid-state electronic devices are based on crystalline semiconductors. Also, a three-dimensional storage matrix should work in theory, and once the engineering problems around heat dissipation and signal routing can be solved, offer orders of magnitude greater information density for a given volume than any possible refinement of the essentially two-dimensional storage methods in use today.
Sub-Trope of Power Crystal and Mineral MacGuffin, often used by Higher-Tech Species or residents of Crystal Spires and Togas. See also Transparent Tech.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Battle Angel Alita: Last Order: A major plot point revolves around an ancient computer program encoded on a crystal.
- Digimon Adventure: (2020): Moon=Milleniumon is a sentient dark crystal used by the forces of darkness to evolve Digimon to higher levels.
- The portable data storage units shown to be used in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is a narrow rectangular crystalline structure with a small strap attached. Its exact specifics are never elaborated on but seems to be the de facto standard form for portable information.
Comic Books
- Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire has info points, crystals used to store information, though they're considered quaint.
- Superman:
- Kryptonian Sunstones, based on the data crystals from Superman (1978), are introduced in Superman: Up, Up and Away!. They are capable of storing more data than any computer on Earth.
- In Superman: Brainiac, Superman studies information about Brainiac recorded in Sunstones left by his father.
- In Good-Looking Corpse, the Big Bad's villain drones have a data-feed system powered by diamond-like Kryptonian Sunstones.
- In Last Daughter of Krypton, Zor-El records his testament in a sunstone so his daughter can listen to his last words when she arrives in Earth.
- A plot point in The Killers of Krypton has Supergirl gather differently-shaped data stones scattered all across the galaxy to discover the truth about the destruction of Krypton.
Fan Works
- Astral Disaster: Quivering's magic orb is a very big crystal ball that can hold lots of information and even act as a GPS. Once Quivering reveals his true colors and unlocks the orb's (or rather, the Star of Sylas) full power, he shows that it even has millenia-old recordings of the Stellmare Clan, as well as the three tribes.
- In Doctor Whooves – The Series, the Quilin have crystal-based tech, including memory diamonds that work as both camera and data card.
- In Empath: The Luckiest Smurf, all memory of Smurf history that was transferred into Empath's mind from his great-grandson in the future has been transferred into a magical memory crystal, which in-universe will be given to Peyo so that he can create The Smurfs.
- In Maverick Hunter Quest, these are a common feature of Reploids.
Film
- In 2001: A Space Odyssey, the hard drives of the HAL 9000 computer are shown as blocks of clear crystal/glass. Astronaut David Bowman manually ejects them from their drive bays in order to disable HAL.
- Star Wars has holocron crystals.
- Mocked in Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning when the parody of Lt. Keffer of Babylon 5 is shot down by the P-Fleet and his flight data recorder is recovered. Being based on Babylon 5 tech, it's in the form of a data crystal, and the Sheridan-analogue briefly thinks that Keffer was turned into a crystal by aliens before being corrected.
- Superman Film Series: In Superman (1978) and Superman II, Superman's Fortress of Solitude at the North Pole has a system that stores information on crystals. In Superman Returns, it is mentioned that the crystal impressively holds 95% of Krypton's entire knowledge. The remaining 5% is never mentioned again.
Literature
- Book of the New Sun: Visiting a vast and decaying library, Severian is told that it contains a cube of crystal the size of the ball of one's thumb, which contains more books than the entire world. The blind librarian is no longer sure where it is, and it is questionable whether he would have a reader anyway.
- In Christopher Anvil's Colonization setting, computers appear to have 'master crystals' where today's computers would have a CPU.
- In Courtship Rite, one of the Kaiel's most sacred relics is a large crystal disc they call "the Frozen Voice of God". No one had any idea it contained data, though, until Kathein developed a machine to read it, showing that it mostly contained gene sequences. Oelita turns out to have another one that she has no idea of what it is. When read it turns out to be a history book on warfare from ancient Earth.
- The Gosroth's log in Crest of the Stars takes the form of a data crystal, which is passed on to Lafiel and Jinto when they're ordered to flee an impending battle.
- In the Darwath trilogy, the earlier human civilization that built the Keep of Dare used Magitek data crystals to store information.
- The Master Computer in Andy Weir's short story "Digitocracy" is essentially this.
- Used ubiquitously in The History of the Galaxy, mostly by humans. Some aliens use them as well. The ones that bear special attention are the logrs, small jewel-like crystals invented by the Logrians that are, actually, self-contained computers powerful enough to be able to store a sentient being's mind and allow the individual to live on in a virtual world. The functionality of logrs can be expanded by connecting several logrs together in a particular configuration. The largest collection of the logrs is the Logris, a gigantic supercomputer visually similar to the Crystalline Entity from Star Trek. Many of the logrs that compose the Logris actually contain personalities of dead Logrians, and more and more human logrs are being added to it.
- Overlord (2012) mentions data crystals as the basis for just about anything that can be modded in-game, including weapon effects or even books uploaded to share with other users.
- Sholan Alliance: Sholan computers make extensive use of removable data crystals. When the lead characters are preparing to return from their trip to the past, one of the ancient locals points out the location where they've hidden an important data crystal that is later recovered in the present.
- The Stormlight Archive: Certain types of gemstone can be infused with Stormlight, with the quality of the cut determining how long it can hold the charge. One Secret Room in the lost Knight Radiant stronghold Urithiru has an archive of gemstones cut so that when they're infused, encoded messages form in the patterns of the leaking stormlight.
- The Tough Guide to Fantasyland has ORBS, which are so multi-purpose and possibly intelligent that the guide says "it seems likely that they are in reality the positronic brains of dismembered robots, imported from the SF Tour".
- One of the characters in the Wild Cards series is Jube the Walrus. As an agent of the interstellar trading consortium known as the Network, he has advance technological devices such as recording crystals that can store information.
Live-Action TV
- One episode of Alphas features a necklace made from some strange crystals; the heroes figure out that it stores information on specially arranged molecule structures.
- Babylon 5: Data Crystals are used by virtually every race, in much the same way we use USB sticks.
- In the Blake's 7 episode "Killer", data blocks (in the form of transparent cubes) are given to the protagonist. However, they are by no means ubiquitous, as ordinary tapes are also mentioned.
- One episode of Eureka introduces Data Diamonds, capable of storing utterly massive amounts of information on the molecular level. They need proper hardware, though, as lesser computers combust from the extreme processing.
- Farscape has data crystals in several episodes, most notably the navigation crystal in "DNA Mad Scientist".
- The glass disks in the first season of Fringe are data storage devices which Massive Dynamic is able to read information from.
- Hyperdrive features this trope being replaced by even more effective crystals (as a DVD to Blu-Ray analogue).
- An episode of Sliders has the team slide into a world where most of the world is run by bandits. Most of civilized knowledge has been destroyed, except for a small island where the entirety of human knowledge is kept by secretive monks. When it looks like the bandits have discovered the island and are invading, Diana sets up a system to record the entire database onto a large crystal (unlike most examples, this particular crystal is uncut) that spins while a laser shines into it. In the end, the library is destroyed, and two of the monks manage to make it out alive along with the crystal. It's not clear how's they're supposed to figure out the extraction process, though, as the knowledge for that is inside the crystal.
- In Smallville, like in the Superman Film Series, data crystals grow in the Fortress of Solitude. The Fortress quickly becomes the resident Deus ex Machina, for good or for worse. It has since displayed the ability to (sometimes with added crystals) clone kryptonians, remove or restore kryptonian powers and/or memories, imprison kryptonian-grade beings, open a portal to the Phantom Zone, create an eclipse, and holding information as stated above.
- Space Cases: The Android Thelma exhibits odd behavior throughout the show due to a memory crystal that Harlan accidentally damages in the first episode. The main ship in the series, the Crysta, also uses similar technology.
- In the Stargate-verse, most space-faring species use crystals extensively in their computers. In one case, a storage crystal from an old Goa'uld research base is dismissed as a simple decoration by archaeologists until the invaders hanging overhead start looking for it.
- Shows up occasionally in Star Trek, primarily in later TNG, DS9, and Voyager. The Isolinear Optical Chips◊ from TNG may represent a "missing link" between data crystals and more traditional electronics.
- Tracker (2001) has maps (of the Lake Michigan area to show the way to the Doomsday Device hidden under the Watchfire bar) stored on crystals. The first one is left behind at an alien-theme restaurant after a fight, but Cole finds the second one hidden in a stored museum piece.
Tabletop Games
- Eberron:
- Dragonshards, among many other magical uses, can be used by a Wizard as Spell Book equivalents, recording the spells they know.
- In Sarlona, the Inspired use crystals implanted with thoughts or emotions to spread information. Because of this, most Riedrans are illiterate, which makes them easier for the Inspired to control.
- In Eclipse Phase, cortical stacks are almost solid diamond, though mostly for its durability.
- In Rocket Age, the Erisians appear to have used crystals as computers. In the modern era their Venusian descendants are able to store psychic energy in shards and make other powerful artefacts from native Venusian Crystals, such as the speaker's staff and the Venusian wood axe.
- Shadowrun: Information can stored on optical crystals ("chips"). This includes cyberdeck components.
- In Starblazer Adventures, based on the 1980s British comic-book, the Random Key Items/Target of Objective random table lists Data Crystals as a possible target for an Item Mission.
Toys
- BIONICLE has Memory Crystals.
Video Games
- Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated: The warning against overwriting saves when activating a Healing Checkpoint and asked to confirm or deny wanting to save, mentions "compact data crystals", unlike the original non-Reanimated version:
Reanimated: Warning! Don't remove drives, memory units, or compact data crystals while saving!
Original: Warning - do not remove the hard drive or memory unit while saving, loading, or viewing save files! - Core: In "Tower Core", you'll find crystal data discs in the Tower of Spirit that only become usable if you align them in just the right way.
- If the Inquisitor sides with the Templars in Dragon Age: Inquisition, part of one quest will have them find and assemble such a crystal, which is then used to spy on the enemy. Later in the same quest chain, they will have the opportunity to review a number of crystal recordings made by the Big Bad.
- Ecco the Dolphin has Glyphs, Atlantean data crystals that store all manner of things such as messages, historical records, songs, and even temporary invincibility.
- EXA_PICO has Hymn Crystals, which allows for songs (which are used as "magic" in the games) to be stored and later downloaded into Reyvateils.
- Fate/EXTRA: The Moon Cell supercomputer uses photonic crystals as a data storage medium. Where in real life only very small photonic crystals have been developed (and even those had hundreds of TB of storage), the Moon Cell is a mass of photonic crystals the size of... well, the Moon.
- Final Fantasy:
- Final Fantasy X has Spheres, which hold holographic recordings.
- Final Fantasy X-2 expands upon this with the invention of the Garment Grid, which allows the party to use the skills and abilities of the person whose memories are captured on the sphere — translating into a Job or Class. This (of all things) actually becomes a major plot point when Yuna's usage of the Songstress Sphere actually awakens Lenne's dormant memories.
- A Final Unity: Picard receives a Chodak data crystal maybe halfway through the game, and tries to decipher its data with the Enterprise's computer. Being nearly a million years old, there's been a lot of data corruption.
- In the Halo series, these are used for storing artificial intelligences. Less complex data is simply transmitted.
- The Mega Man Battle Network series has these... kinda. Unknown data takes the form of an 8-sided crystal, in three colors, green, blue, and purple. It's unknown whether or not this is actually crystalline though.
- In Might and Magic VI, one plot stage is retrieving and installing four Memory Crystals for an ancient planetary computer. As a possible joke from developers, after you've knocked yourself out hunting for the crystals, there's a crate in the control center chock-full of the same crystals, lying around like trash.
- In StarCraft, the Protoss are an almost literal Crystal Spires and Togas society and use crystals as power sources and to store their thoughts and knowledge on. The Warp Prism transport in StarCraft II is actually described as a crystal computer, able to scan lifeforms and machines, convert them to energy and store the data in its databanks, then reconfigure them from energy back into matter.
- Star Wars Legends:
- Star Wars: DroidWorks features crystals that display messages when a laser is shined on them. A few show video clips from the movies.
- In addition to the holocrons mentioned in the Film folder above, Star Wars: The Old Republic has Common, Glowing, and Radiant data crystals as a secondary in-game currency for buying high-level gear.
Webcomics
- 8-Bit Theater has Dataspheres, which look like cubes. According to Red Mage, one has enough information to overflow the entire universe and possibly drive anyone who looks into it mad.
- In Our Shadow: Shortly before their extinction, humans started storing data in nigh-indestructible diamond-and-gold circuit boards.
Websites
- In Orion's Arm, the "ultimate chip" was originally intended for use as a processor for very advanced distributed computing, can also store massive amounts of data, and is made of diamondoid, which is a crystal (though the chip itself doesn't look like a single crystal).
Western Animation
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In "The Crystal Empire - Part 1", Celestia displays a crystal to Twilight that, when powered by magic, shows a hologram of the Crystal Empire and of Celestia and Luna's fight against King Sombra, the antagonist of the two-part episode.
- Shadow Raiders has the alliance control their Battle Moons (and all of their fleet) with crystal keys with the security codes.
Real Life
- The reason for this trope is because crystals have been suggested as a storage medium for holographic memory.
- The University of Southampton has developed 5D data storage; which can hold 360 TB in a 12 inch glass disk for 13.8 billion years and is far more resilient than other data storage methods. Easily the closest this trope has come to Truth in Television.
- The University of Southampton has developed 5D data storage;
- While all semiconductors function through quantum effects in their crystal structure, some technologies like Silicon on Sapphirenote more accurately reflect this trope.
- There do exist various experimental molecular-level storage technologies though they look and operate nothing like a gem.
- William Gibson reportedly thought that computer chips actually looked like this. Back in The '80s!
- The actual semiconductor crystal part of any electronic device (the integrated circuitry) tends to be rather small, as being small is better for both performance and cost-effectiveness, and so they're not generally associated as being based on shiny crystals despite the fact that... they are.
- Phase Change Memory is one avenue for research into future storage tech. It's a form of memory where some reversible process is applied to a material (for example heating) in order to change the phase (the type of solid) of a specific portion of the material between a crystalline state (where the atoms form a coherent structure) and an amorphous state (where the atoms still form a solid but are all jumbled up without a discernible structure). As the crystalline and amorphous phases have different conductivities, the resistance of the treated area can be treated as a binary 1 or 0. In theory such storage devices would retain data without power and last for a very long time, as well as have very fast read times (all you have to do is feed a current through an area of the material and measure its resistance to determine binary 1 or 0). One big drawback with phase change technology is that writing is extremely slow and consumes considerable power as you need to get the material to the correct temperature to effect the state change.
- Taiwan-based Polytron Technologies has not only built transparent USB memory sticks, but transparent smartphones.
- A team of physicists from the City University of New York demonstrated the ability to encode images into diamonds by manipulating nitrogen vacancy centers with lasers, creating a literal example of this trope.
