Sanctuary Device

Sanctuary devices are pieces of technology designed for the preservation of entities as data, mainly used by various Caretaker monastic orders of Old Brethren.

Description
A Sanctuary device usually consists of small USB-like data storage devices with a Brethren Orb installed within them. A Sanctuary device transmutes a target (ranging from individual particles all the way to solar systems) into data that is stored within the device.

History
Sanctuary devices trace their origins to a type of Old Brethren technology known as a Datascape Transplants. These devices were used well before the Brethren met the factions of the Weave, used as a way to preserve physical entities and worlds within a virtual cosmos. Several centuries after this category of technology came into surface, the Old Brethren Uzil was born. Uzil's own terraforming field was known to be able to transform physical matter and energy into information and it was with this in mind that the more study was performed on the Datascapes. Research into expanding the function of these devices created the first Sanctuary Worlds; virtual landscapes created by the transmutation of physical entities into data. At first, these devices were large enough to require them to be fitted onto megastructures such as a orbital rings and Dyson Spheres, but over centuries of development became miniaturized to the size of a grape.

The technology was widely used as a transportation and storage method for mundane megastructures and objects, though after the collapse of the Weave it begun to be used as a way for Old Brethren to evacuate Bound individuals and civilisations from places such as Tor. In the tumultuous times after the Tor crisis, some Old Brethren banded together into monastic sects known as Caretaker Orders, with the central goal of the preservation of life throughout the multiverse.

Mechanism
The device's Brethren Orb is a derivation of Uzil's own, and is nowadays produced by imprinting Uzil's orb signature into a highly concentrated mote of Timeless Eternity protoplasm. The data storage part of the device utilises cosmic string circuits that has been imprinted with a Protean Husk pattern, ensuring virtually unlimited data storage capability.

The device usually possesses a mind-link built within the Brethren Orb itself to allow a user to modify the data within and upload and download entities into the device at will. Once activated, the Orb releases a pulse that spreads to one or two light years from its position, converting everything apart from the wielder within its radius into data to be stored within the device. Targeted activation is also possible, allowing smaller and more precise pulses to be released at other positions within its radius to download entities. Outside of directly transforming the data back into its physical form, sanctuary devices can also create copies of the entities downloaded into the device, creating numerous instances of the same being over different locations.

The terraforming field projected from the Orb notably doesn't work on any sort of acausal beings or objects, meaning it has limited usage for other Old Brethren and Transcended artifacts.