Silent Vault
A rumored Existential Risks Directorate facility said to hold the organization's most dangerous artifacts and information, things which could devastate or destroy interstellar civilization were they ever released.
Unlike other XRD facilities such as Mordechai Vanunu Station (for storing nuclear technology), the Directorate will neither confirm nor deny the Vault's existence, though in modern times leaks and investigations have turned it into an open secret. It is probably located on an asteroid or moon in a brown dwarf system near Sol and connected thereto by a restricted-access stargate. This system also houses stockpiles and ship boneyards for the Star Patrol, giving an element of plausible deniability and enabling the precise location to remain hidden. Its history is unknown as well, though it is thought to have been established early on in the XRD's existence.
The Silent Vault is thought to be reserved for the very worst of what the Directorate collects: technologies and knowledge so dangerous that even their existence cannot be made public lest someone learn how to find, create, or use them. This goes beyond "simple" weapons of mass destruction like nuclear devices or nanoplagues, to things like self-replicating paleotechnological weapons or exotic physics devices, which would enable small groups of unhinged terrorists (or even a single individual) to cause civilization-terminating destruction.
Any concrete information is likely known only to the upper echeleons of XRD leadership, themselves a demi-secret group. While the installation must be manned or at least overseen by sapients on some level, no investigators have ever been able to track down a current or former crewmember. Thus it is suspected the XRD maintains secrecy by rotating staff in on tours of duty and then erasing any memories of that time from their minds (with a generous salary as compensation for the intrusion). Another, more sinister, theory postulates the facility uses a workforce custom-engineered for the task and never leaving.
Unlike other XRD facilities such as Mordechai Vanunu Station (for storing nuclear technology), the Directorate will neither confirm nor deny the Vault's existence, though in modern times leaks and investigations have turned it into an open secret. It is probably located on an asteroid or moon in a brown dwarf system near Sol and connected thereto by a restricted-access stargate. This system also houses stockpiles and ship boneyards for the Star Patrol, giving an element of plausible deniability and enabling the precise location to remain hidden. Its history is unknown as well, though it is thought to have been established early on in the XRD's existence.
The Silent Vault is thought to be reserved for the very worst of what the Directorate collects: technologies and knowledge so dangerous that even their existence cannot be made public lest someone learn how to find, create, or use them. This goes beyond "simple" weapons of mass destruction like nuclear devices or nanoplagues, to things like self-replicating paleotechnological weapons or exotic physics devices, which would enable small groups of unhinged terrorists (or even a single individual) to cause civilization-terminating destruction.
Any concrete information is likely known only to the upper echeleons of XRD leadership, themselves a demi-secret group. While the installation must be manned or at least overseen by sapients on some level, no investigators have ever been able to track down a current or former crewmember. Thus it is suspected the XRD maintains secrecy by rotating staff in on tours of duty and then erasing any memories of that time from their minds (with a generous salary as compensation for the intrusion). Another, more sinister, theory postulates the facility uses a workforce custom-engineered for the task and never leaving.
Owning Organization
I'd love to know more about the XRD. This sounds like a good idea for any interstellar polity.