Datacrons, Holocrons, Noetikons, it seems like The Old Republic is full of just about every variation of the ‘cron there is. Datacrons in particular have become some of the most sought after items in the game with the permanent stat boosts they hand out to those lucky enough to track them down.  Today we are going to take a look at what the technological marvels do, how they work, and where they came from.

 

Both Holocrons and Datacrons were used to encode and store data and knowledge, the main difference being in how users interfaced with them. Datacrons could be accessed by anyone, assuming they could decode the data. Holocrons, on the other hand, could only be accessed by Force Sensitives. For this reason Holocrons were often used by the Jedi as teaching devices, and by the Sith as a way to pass their knowledge to those worthy enough to take it. Jedi and Sith were able to imprint their essence and spirit onto the Holocrons, allowing them to appear as holographic projections able of passing along their knowledge. These projections retained a type of sentience, granting those who created them a type of immortality within the Holocron.

 

Holocrons employ patterns of organic crystals and holographic technology to capture the appearance and cognitive networks of the Holocron’s owner, and transform this into a three-dimensional hologram. A gatekeeper acted as a guide through the Holocron’s store of information, as a search and recovery engine with a more personal touch. These gatekeepers could relate stories from the Holocron’s archives to events in the life of the one who activated the Holocron. Jedi gatekeepers could sense the ability and level of a Jedi, and offer or restrict information accordingly—so that Padawans were not shown information too advanced and dangerous for their basic stage. Sith Holocrons usually had the same restrictive mechanism like Jedi Holocrons, but the gatekeeper could corrupt the unaware listener.

 

The technology for creating Holocrons originated with the Rakata and their Infinite Empire. How they developed the technology is unknown at this time, but they seem to have distributed the technology across their Empire. It’s possible that they used their Holocron technology to develop their mind prisons, where the Rakata would seal the consciousness of criminals and rebels as punishment. The knowledge of how to create Holocrons would have ended with the fall of the Infinite Empire if the Rakata had not tried to move against the original Sith of Korriban.

 

The Rakata, masters of the Force, saw the threat that the Sith posed. Though the Sith were a primitive race, every single member of their species were Force sensitive, just like the Rakata. Determined to strike the Sith before they became a major threat, the Rakata sent infiltrators to win over the ruler of the Sith, a man by the name of Adas. In order to lure the Sith into a sense of complacency the Rakata gifted Adas with the knowledge of creating Holocrons. However, Adas saw through the lies of the Rakata and led his people to repel the Rakata forces when they arrived to conquer the planet, even capturing some of the Rakata ships and pursuing the Rakata to several worlds in order to ensure the safety of his people. Adas died in the process of saving his people, but not before creating a Holocron of his own and passing down the knowledge of creating the Holocrons to his people. It is unknown when the Jedi learned how to make Holocrons, but it can be assumed that they developed the means to create them after encountering the Sith Holocrons.

 

The Old Republic has introduced a new type of Holocron known as a Noetikon. There were three of these Noetikons created, and each was imprinted with the personality of three masters. These three Noetikons, dubbed the Noetikon of Science, Light, and Secrets respectively, were designed to both store and sort the large amount of information held in the Jedi archives. The Noetikon of Science held knowledge about the aspects of the Force that dealt with Science, the Noetikon of Light handled the mystical aspects of the Force, while the Noetikon of Secrets held secrets of the Dark Side as taught by Jedi Masters who had fallen to the Dark Side but were redeemed and returned to the Jedi Order. When the three Noetikons were together they could converse and pool their knowledge, making them valuable resources of the Jedi Order.

 

Holocrons and Datacrons were priceless items given the wealth of knowledge they could hold. They were often heavily guarded or hidden, and more than one person has been killed by someone attempting to obtain one. To some they were bastions of knowledge, to others they were tools used to gain power. If you want to track down all the stat boosting Datacrons in TOR make sure to check out our Datacron Location Guide over at swtor-spy.com.

 

Joshrooms is the Lore columnist and news guy for swtor-life.com. You can follow him on twitter @MagicJoshrooms where he shares SWTOR and other gaming news and you can write to him directly at Magicjoshrooms(at)yahoo.com. If you have any ideas, questions, thoughts,stories, or just want to talk some Star Wars Lore feel free to contact him.

Tags: Datacrons, holocron, jedi, Noetikron, Rakata, sith