Magical Database: Difference between revisions

[[File:acmagicdatabase_6793acmagicdatabase 6793.png|link=Axe Cop|frame|He also has a file of maps to bad guy labs.]]

'''Tech Guy:''' I'm on it... According to this, this particular model of wall is of an excellent quality. It doesn't creak. ''Unless... there's a body behind it''.|''[http://theslackerz.com/index.php?nav{{=}}Comic&Page{{=}}26 Slackerz]'' making fun of ''[[CSI]]''}}

It should be noted that some of these "[[Magical Database|magical databases]]" actually exist, and ''are'' in use by various agencies, though they aren't quite as stunningly accurate or omniscient as the [[Police Procedural]] suggests. In real life, "Data Mining" is a time-consuming task that has to be practiced. Does each agency host a different server? Which ones pull from each other? Are all servers identical? Are there delays in updating the databases? Not to mention the curious fact that dastardly villains who were clever enough to evade the police this long, probably know how to avoid leaving much for the police to follow. These are all questions the searcher needs to be aware of, and there is no single database that stores 100% of the information.

A key aspect of this trope is that there must be a pre-existing compendium of all possible samples of whatever is being identified. In [[Real Life]], forensics can indeed match samples of, say, paint or glass not only down to manufacturer but even to a specific batch, but this requires two samples: one sample from evidence, and another sample to compare against. This also means that in real forensics, the implications of this evidence are different; while crime dramas typically use the [['''Magical Database]]''' to find a new lead from trace evidence, real forensics usually confirms identity after the police have already gotten a lead (i.e. the police already suspect the glass came from the suspect's house or workplace and can prove it by comparing them, as opposed to identifying where the suspect lives with no prior knowledge just from the glass sample).

Forensics labs also have an [[Hand Wave|out]] for many of these [[Magical Database|'''magical databases]]''', since it's generally believable that they would have a database of common murder weapons or components of weapons.

* The titular character of ''[[ToA AruCertain Majutsu noMagical Index]]'' is quite literally one of these considering the database itself ''is about magic''. It should also be noted that in this series, in Magic at least, knowledge quite literally equals power.( There are some spells and such that aren't chronicled in the 103,000 grimoires that are kept in her mind, most notably ones of angelic (or otherwise non-human) origin.)

* Almost every depiction of [[Batman]] has this, whether it's his own vast knowledge (a la [[Sherlock Holmes]]), the Batcave computer, or a combination of both. In one ''[[Justice League of America]]'' issue, it is shown that Batman's database of fingerprints looks at the magical databases of the Batcave, the GCPD, AFIS, JLA Headquarters and Superman's fortress of solitude. This allows him to determine the identity of a ''31st century superhero'' because Superman had been friends with him the past... err... future...<br />[[Voice with an Internet Connection|Oracle]] has taken on the role of database for the hero community at large. She serves as information retriever and disseminator, as well as offering mission-specific hacking and guidance.<br />In an issue of ''[[Gotham Central]]'', which focused on the members of the Major Crimes Unit of the Gotham City Police Department, [[Batman: The Animated Series|Renee]] [[The Question|Montoya]] was attempting to track down the history of a sniper rifle that had been used in several high-profile assassinations. She is seen accessing numerous government databases, including the FBI and ATF, [[Subverted Trope|but none of them can give her any useful information]]. When she mysteriously gains access to a system named "Oracle,", which neither she nor her partner can identify, she is shocked (But happy) when it suddenly gives her the complete history of the gun, including the gun shop where it was sold.

** Death's library in sometimes functions like a [[Magical Database]], instantly delivering books on very obscure subjects when he requests them, or writing out fresh text if his query doesn't require a long answer (the "some of the sheep" response from ''The Last Continent'').

* ''[[Secret Histories|The Secret Histories]]'': The Karma Catechist is a living database of every spell, ritual and magical concept conceivable in his universe.

* ''[[CSI]]'' is the king of the [[Magical Database]]. They have demonstrated databases on blood, hair, rope, wire, shoe prints, tire treads, tire rubber compositions, and even clown makeup patterns. There was a [[Lampshade Hanging]] in a sixth season episode, in which a character sarcastically suggested searching a database to discover the brand of a hot dog.

** And yes, there actually ''is'' a national clown registry to prevent identical makeup.

** Amusingly subverted in one episode where Greg is disappointed to learn that there is no hotdog database &and winds up spending his entire year's food budget on various brands of hotdogs in an attempt to find a match to one found in a vic's stomach. (He thought the department would re-imburse him. [[Butt Monkey|They didn't]]).)

** However, one episode shows them using [https://web.archive.org/web/20090926235612/http://livelabs.com/photosynth/ Photosynth].

** In fact, it's when CSI avoids the trope that it can be jarring. A reoccurring scene is the local trace evidence guy naming a compound, and the CSI identifying the compound's common name, and its uses, including the more arcane (say, Jewellerjeweller grinder lubricant) on the top of their head. Said arcane use are always the key to cracking the case. This gets jarring because there ARE''are'' databases to identify the most common uses of chemicals.

** There actually are multiple shoe-print databases available to police. An episode of ''[[True Crime|Cold Case Files]]'' discussed a murder case that was solved, thanks to a partial shoe-print on a piece of glass that matched the shoes of a person in the neighborhood, who was found to be the killer.

* A [[Magical Database]] is often an implicit background element of investigations in all the ''[[Law and Order|Law & Order]]'' series. Although they have used such databases for many of the same types of queries as in ''[[CSI]]'', the database query itself is more often carried out off-screen, with a lab analyst mentioning that a fiber found at the crime scene matches a luxury brand of purse that is only sold in only three stores in New York City.

** On ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'', they often query some supposed national database implied to consist in all sex crime reports recorded by all local precincts throughout the entire country. They also have Warner, whose mind occasionally acts as a virtual [[Magical Database]].

* ''[[Star Trek]]'': The franchise must hold the freakin' copyright on the [[Magical Database]] cause there are like 1500 of them in the series and movies.

** The holodeck can recreate any setting or fictional story known to Man and several other species. (In one of the books, the holodeck can even replay every Opera performance from 1400 to the year 2356. How they managed to record pre-Renaissance operas ... best not to ask. But there's a reason the Federation Time Police look so harried when we see them -- and it's not just Kirk.)

** The Enterprise Main Computer carries all kinds of info like the launch codes to the Voyager probe built over 200 years earlier, or the command codes to every other Federation ship. And yet, when it would actually be useful for the computer to find a piece of obscure information, such as in '"The Naked Now'" or '"Darmok'", it takes hours. On the other hand, this matches real database performance - selecting a specific single record is far, far, FAR''far'' faster and easier than a complex query with plenty of cross-referencing, calculations on and parsing of retrieved data, and presumably multiple sources. '"Darmok'" also contains more than a little Fridge Logic, in that hethe database actually knew the stories they were talking about, and yet nobody had made the link before.

** One episode of ''TNG'', "The Chase", had an intersection of two of these. The computer needed to do a very complex calculation involving genetic code and the locations of planets in the distant past. It would take several hours, and both the Federation, the Klingons, and the Cardassians agreed to view the results simultaneously. The Klingon commander, in the interim, tried to persuade Data to do so much faster, basically saying that Data is even more powerful than the ship's incredibly powerful computer.

* ''[[Painkiller Jane]]'': This is almost the entire purpose of Riley's character -- tocharacter—to run the computers that have access to these things.

* ''[[Blake's 7|Blakes Seven]]'': Orac, the super computer, who can read any computer with "tarial cells" and is therefore able to find any data the characters can possibly want. Whether he then tells them what he finds out is another story.....

** The Doctor is a living [[Magical Database]]. For more recent incarnations, there isn't a single episode in the new or old series where he met an alien, visited a planet, or saw a piece of technology he hadn't seen, invented, or met previously. In the new series, when a bunch of alien cops threaten him and Donna in a language not even the mighty TARDIS can translate he easily understands and berates them in the same language. The man is awesome. But then who knows what anybody might know after traveling the universe for a thousand years...

** And then there's {{spoiler|CAL}}, which contains every book ever written ''in any language, '''by any species''','' '''since the beginning of time'''. Including lost works. In both hard copy and digital.

** An episode had Dexter identifying an STD in some bloodwork, then going into the Florida STD Database to find the names of people afflicted with that particular -- andparticular—and, of course, extremely rare--strainrare—strain. It is implied that he never leaves the building during all of this, so Dexter's miraculous set of databases even cover what you might be doing with your genitals.

* From a Western Animation: From ''[[Jem]]'' episode, "In Search of the Stolen Album" in which Synergy, Jem's super-computer is able to scan clues that "Misfits"'s treasure hunt joke on the Holograms in a matter of moments--andmoments—and even the reasons behind the places.