Jemma Singleton is an archivist at Newcastle University
It's WDPD24 and it seemed fitting to highlight the crucial role that digital preservation plays in films… and specifically as a key plot driver in a galaxy far, far away…
Yes, this is about Star Wars. What if I put to you the following proposition… that there are various factors linked to digital preservation practices or interventions by both the empire and the rebels. If any of them had played out differently then the death star would have continued to exist beyond ‘A New Hope,’ ensuring empire supremacy for the long-term.
Unconvinced…Well now it’s time for the detail.
The crucial chronological range of films available for discussion is specifically, the offshoot (and arguably the best) film, ‘Rogue One’ spilling over into ‘A New Hope.’ The key narrative arc involves Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor stealing the physical carrier and born digital plans of the Death Star from the archive planet Scarif and transmitting it to the rebel fleet. The rebels can then gain knowledge of the in-built weakness of the death star, and so plan their attack for its destruction. Key assumptions that are made regarding this argument for the importance of digital preservation include, similarities of bit stream and data storage concepts as found on Earth across the galaxy.
The main drivers concerning digital preservation in practice within this story arc are:
Retrieving the physical carrier
We need to just accept that having one planet where you deposit all your born digital materials has its flaws. Especially as there doesn’t seem to be any back-ups. Other variables to accept in this story are; the speed at which Jyn can scan the finding aid under pressure, especially as she doesn’t know the key terms to look for, along with trust that the robotic retrieval arms have been regularly maintained and the physical carriers have not been moved around and refiled in the wrong place.
Transmission of the born digital files
A personal favourite line in the film is when the reprogrammed droid ‘K-2SO’ says ‘the file size is too big, the only way for a successful transmission is to destroy the shield gate.’ Anyone who has conducted digital accessioning or ingesting into resource strapped systems or navigating organisational firewalls can relate to this most pressing issue. Whilst it’s not recommended to destroy the systems designed for network security, it is useful to have ways of navigating around them temporarily so that born digital files can be uploaded.
Rebel Download
Whilst the physical carrier and original copy of the Death Star files gets destroyed in Rogue One, the rebels make a key strategic play in downloading the received file onto an alternative physical carrier, leaving no trace of the transmission on any of the rebel ships, effectively stealing the only copy of the death star plans and leaving the Empire reeling regarding lack of information about their own weaknesses.
Interoperability
A particular droid crops up in every Star Wars film, hovering on the outskirts of all powerful conversations… we are of course talking about R2-D2, receiver of the stolen plans provided by Princess Leia for wider rebel intelligence. From a digital preservation point of view, this is evidence of interoperability between hardware and software over multiple different carriers, format and droid types since the time of the Phantom Menace to allow that information to still be accessible by the people who need to access it; at least 50 earth years. That is long indeed in digital preservation terms. Then again, R2-D2 is a remarkably resilient and independent little droid, so I’m sure he took care of most of the emulation and migration processes himself.
Protecting the bits
The potential for data corruption of the death star plans could never have been greater than when R2D2 gets tasered by the jawas. Luckily any bit degradation was relatively minor, and the rebel forces could attempt their daring and courageous fight back against the evil empire.
If the Galactic Empire had decided to invest in a dedicated digital preservation professional, they may have fared better against the rebel alliance. Happily, in this case, the cumulative actions of individuals led to a cascade of born digital events resulting in victory for the rebels and the galaxy. May the force – and a solid digital preservation plan - be with you. Happy WDPD24
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