Service Model

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

“Uncharles, you misunderstand. We have no multiple copies. The Archive contains one single record of all recovered human knowledge, Multiple copies may be edited. Edited copies may vary one from another. Variance leads to error. There must be only one authoritative and canonical record of the past. All the learning that comes to us, electronically or physically, is read in the First Hall as you have seen above. It comes here to these screens. Our scribes read it and, in reading, copy it faithfully into the main archive system, at which point that copy is the definitive and final version of the document, never to be amended. There must be no direct electronic contact between the Archive and the outside world. That way risks the introduction of error, unauthorised editing, and malicious programs. We maintain an absolute data gap to keep our trove of learning safe from the outside world, and all those who can access the Archive can never link to another. My copyists and archivists and I are electronic anchorites who have foregone the touch of the wider world so we may keep ourselves pure.”