Daystrom One was a facility that was created by the United Federation of Planets in the mid-24th century in order for it to serve as a new massive information storage archive.
Its goal was the creation of a secured archive that contained the sum total of knowledge possessed by the Federation. Daystrom One was to serve as the prototype for a series of such facilities. Due to the sheer magnitude of information that needed to be stored, it was decided that instead of isolinear circuitry, holodeck technology would instead be employed to create an extradimensional tessaract. This allowed the designers to exponentially increase the size of the fourth dimensional cube shaped tessaract. The data of each of the Federation homeworlds were to be stored in individual nodes. In addition, those worlds friendly to the Federation who had given their consent had their data backed up within the archive of Daystrom One. The holographic replication capabilities of the system allowed the archive to create further data nodes as needed.
As a result, the management of the archive was seen as a monumental task that was deemed to be only accomplishable by an artificial intelligence. Thus, the Daystrom project decided to create one based on the positronic brain technology developed by Doctor Noonien Soong. This artificial intelligence thus served as the hub for the entire information network for Daystrom One and fully made use of the heights of positronic brain technology. Notable personnel involved with the project included Admiral Kebal and Project Director Mendock with a number of Bynars also attached to the program. Furthermore, the Soong-type android Lieutenant Commander Data, being only machine that possessed a positronic brain, was regularly consulted by the project during its design phase. After his last consultation, it was deemed that the A.I was performing sufficiently for the task assigned to it.
In 2368, the computer engineers began to experience troubles with the artificial intelligence that managed the data archive. Initially, it began acting erratically and performing slowly to commands with it eventually not responding to instructions sent to it. There was some concern that the artificial intelligence had gained sentience and had chosen not to cooperate any further with Starfleet. Thus, the project directors requested the assistance of Lieutenant Commander Data who was accompanied by Commander William T. Riker in order to ascertain the nature of the problem. The orders given were to either repair the malfunction or destroy the artificial intelligence in order for the project to be restarted. This was a mission statement that Lieutenant Commander Data felt some concern over if the A.I had achieved sentience. It was later determined the string of errors faced at the facility was due to the infiltration of four Romulan agents that intended to capture Data. Following the incident, the Romulans were apprehended thus ending their activities within the interdimensional tesseract at Daystrom One. (TNG - Intelligence Gathering comic: "Valued Intelligence")
- Presumably, the facility was named after Richard Daystrom, and perhaps served as an offshoot of Memory Alpha, though this is speculation.
- The visual appearance of Daystrom One was based on the original Velara III station matte painting by Andrew Probert.
