The Net

The Net, also called The Network, the Reticulum or the Extranet, is the standard name for a network of servers, computation devices and other technologies that allow communication over many a parsec. While interconnected networks, so-called internets, had been around for many years on different planets and stations, it took the discovery of Hyperspace and hyper-communications to interlink and synchronise all these networks on a galactic scale. Now, anyone with a functioning Scroll can gain access to most of information known to current civilization.
Something as old as the Net, though, brings with it some mystery. Only about 5% of it is charted by current galactic society, and only 0.01% is visited by most folk on a regular basis. The other 95% is unarchived data, ancient blueprints and knowledge long thought lost, stored on devices whose original creators have passed millennia ago. Even advanced A.I. often remark how the galaxy appears tiny compared to the vastness of the Net. Some experts theorize that, should the Net be fully mapped once more, the galaxy could enter a second void age. The immensity of such a task, however, makes it unlikely to say the least.