Epsilon Library

The Epsilon Library is the largest collection of knowledge in the Galactic Armada and is located on the planet Epsilon. It contains many branches, such as the Epsilon Museum, the Epsilon Patent Office, and the Planetary Archive, and operates through locations across Epsilon, employing a bureaucracy rivaling most governments. The Library strives to achieve the best possible balance of preserving knowledge for all time and proliferating it to all peoples.

The Epsilon Museum
The Epsilon Museum is itself composed of various institutions, such as the EM of Culture and Language, the EM of Natural History, and the EM of Politics and War. Each Museum generally has separate collections for each planet in the GA, with a centralized exhibit for recent interplanetary history. Since colonialism and imperialism were generally frowned upon at the beginning of the modern space age, very few items in the Museum were brought without permission from their places of origin. There are significant collections of artifacts from cultures who either found little interest in material history, or who were so unstable that they wanted their heritage kept somewhere safer. However, the majority of items in the Epsilon Museum are physical or virtual facsimiles of artifacts that remain preserved by their culture of origin (or its rightful heirs). This gives curators access to items and even architecture that would otherwise be impossible to more or store, it allows them to display a far larger percentage of the archival inventory while still having it available for study, and it allows them to provide a far wider variety of exhibits with the same amount of museum real estate. In fact, many all-virtual exhibits are on a daily rotation and are publicly available to anyone with appropriate technology-- but the in-person experience is far more hands-on than a 3D headset.

Epsilon Patent Office
The Epsilon Patent Office serves the purpose of regulating knowledge transfer between distinct cultures and species, particularly regarding the laws and politics on each individual planet. As a general rule, a civilization that is a member of the Galactic Armada can only access the same number of patents as they have themselves contributed, and of similar kinds. The EPO evaluates patent applications and determines if they contain a genuinely novel idea, and categorizes them based on how significant they are. This serves to preserve individual cultures and moderate the adoption of new technology. It forces the more powerful communities to recognize the valuable contributions of the younger and less privileged civilizations, and it prevents newcomers from over-indulging in new technology at a rate they can't handle, destroying their culture and parasitizing the innovations of others who worked hard in their research. It even promotes a continued sense of distinct identity even between highly advanced civilizations, since it puts a premium on having a unique approach before learning from someone else's.

Planetary Archive
The Planetary Archive, colloquially known as the ARK, attempts to provide an off-planet "backup" for entire biospheres. This includes catalogs of species, descriptions of ecosystems, genetic samples from each major branch of life, and genetic information to clone a viable population for keystone species. While the archive is far from complete, it has entries for all known sentient species in the GA, and at least a cursory collection for each of their homeworlds, and has many field teams (many led by Taorike and Vannu) sorting through the vast complexity of the galaxy. For most planets, the archive can only provide current "snapshots" of the ecosystem, since it has neither the age nor the resources to document any useful history of a planet's evolution-- data on extinct species are sent to the Epsilon Museum of Natural History. The vision of the Planetary Archive is to allow planets that experience sudden catastrophes to not start from scratch when they attempt to rebuild their world.