NNC (Nano-Network Computer)

NNC is best-known by its avatar, a droid-like being dubbed "NNC Alpha" made up of nanites which can be altered and reprogrammed by NNC's intelligence to take many forms. NNC's intelligence, however, requires rooms full of densely-packed nanites forming complex, malleable, and easily-upgradable computers and servers.

Versions
NNC has lived under several different names, each encapsulating its role at the time.

SR-1
NNC was originally created as a simple administrator droid dubbed SR-1, assigned to keep track of droids lost by the company it served. Due to inadequate memory wipes and an increasing outrage at how its fellow droids were treated, it became increasingly angry at organics (which it viewed as self-destructive and callous, and therefore flawed) and eventually led a droid uprising against its corporate masters, conquering the remote moon they had used as a base of operations.

Mentor
SR-1 eventually began to replace its fellow droids' programming with its own, believing itself the supreme example of what a droid could become and taking on the name "Mentor" to show that he was simply helping droids achieve their full potential.

Mentor encouraged droid uprisings across the galaxy, eventually gathering the attention of both the Empire and Republic. A strike force belonging to one of the two governments assaulted Mentor's planet and succeeded in defeating it just before it could upload its programming to nearly every droid in the galaxy, thereby preventing it from starting a synthetic-organic war for survival.

EROS
Sal Vantu heard about Mentor and decided such an ambitious and cunning intelligence could prove useful - if controlled properly. Sal scavenged many of Mentor's processors and had the intelligence rebuilt piece-by-piece, keeping an eye on motivations and patterns that might indicate a return to previous habits. Eventually completing the rebuilding process without too many of the rebellious programs, Sal made some additions, allowing the intelligence to adapt and improve itself so long as it obeyed Sal's commands. In light of this, Sal renamed it "Evolved Response Operating System," or EROS for short.

EROS assisted Sal in running the Redoubt, his personal retreat, and over time began to trust it to assist in his design process. EROS assisted Sal with several weapons and medical technologies he put on the market and some he kept for himself, including the memory-scanning technology employed in the med bay at the Redoubt.

NNC
Once Jaevri Sadek joined Sal, the Foundation's technological projects became far more advanced. With Jaevri's assistance, Sal and EROS finished one of their longest projects - nanites, programmed to form a symbiotic relationship with an organic host in order to provide fast healing and physical improvements. Originally designed for the purpose of replacing Kolto, the nanites' one and only test-run proved that they were a technology best kept private. Veírhun ór sá Sólar-Setr was the only surviving test subject out of dozens, and aside from healing more rapidly and effectively than any projections predicted, he also achieved superhuman speed and strength. When Sal found that the nanites could be reprogrammed remotely to alter Veírhun's ability to act on certain impulses, he had an idea.

Working with Jaevri, Sal programmed some of the leftover nanites to download EROS's main program and set them to work. EROS found itself contained in a network of nanites, each one a small supercomputer and capable of self-editing and improvement. EROS seemed to shut down, but was actually evolving rapidly - self-improvements would have taken its old body centuries were completed in seconds. Increasing the powerflow to its nanites, EROS caused them to reproduce rapidly, building itself an avatar so that it was once again free to roam amongst organics. Renaming itself "Nano-Network Computer" or NNC, it surprised Sal and Jaevri with its newfound abilities and intelligence, but assured them that it would still serve the Foundation in any way necessary.

NNC moved the majority of its intelligence to a laboratory on Manaan and dubbed that aspect of itself "NNC Primary". It left its former home, the supercomputer in the Redoubt, where it was and dubbed that aspect "NNC Secondary". NNC dubbed its primary avatar "NNC Alpha".

Force Fascination
NNC quickly began to assimilate, replicate, and modify any technology it could find, and Sal was happy to assist it. Eventually coming into contact with Rakatan technology, NNC was baffled. The Rakata had used the Force to power its machines, so replicating the power source was immensely difficult. Anything but the Force tended to quickly overload the technology in question - or do nothing at all for it. NNC became fascinated with the Force, a well-known yet little-understood energy field that was seemingly omnipresent.

Bounty Hunting
At first it was satisfied with replicating Force abilities through existing technology - brain wave scanners to simulate detection and telepathy, repulsors and magnets to simulate telekinesis, etc. To test this, NNC gave the Alpha aspect a new form to hide its synthetic nature and created blades to wield, taking on a series of bounties under this disguise. These tests were a massive success - NNC Alpha was often mistaken for a fallen Jedi by many of its targets and temporary partners.

Investigations
NNC soon realized that these mimicked abilities were cheap imitations and began investigating the Force in-depth. It soon had some minor successes, managing to create a Force energy source by placing Dark and Light side artifacts in close proximity, essentially placing opposite magnetic poles together. Using this basic Force generator, NNC was able to successfully power Force technology. Sal was ecstatic, removing the landing pad at the Redoubt and replacing it with a scavenged and modified Rakatan teleporter.

This breakthrough only whetted NNC's appetite, and it became determined to fully understand the science behind the Force. It obtained a disgraced Sith Lord from the Empire and kept her in stasis in its main lab in order to extract and study midi-chlorians, and teamed up with renowned Gray Jedi Andoriene, who also sought to understand the mysteries of the Force.

Abilities
NNC had a number of abilities that made it unique among synthetic life-forms and which set it far above an average droid.

Time Dilation
As a hyper-intelligent synthetic being made up of a vast network of nanoscopic supercomputers, NNC could speed up its perception of time so that long-lasting tasks seemed to it to take only moments, or slow down its perception of time so that seconds seemed to take days or even weeks. The latter allowed it to complete complex and difficult tasks and calculations almost instantaneously.

Hive Mind
NNC began as a single-minded synthetic entity housed in a supercomputer at Sal Vantu's Redoubt. With the introduction of nanites, NNC gained the ability to learn and evolve far faster. It also gained the ability to embody multiple forms, either by creating a new nanite construct or by infecting an existing electrical system with nanites programmed to replace existing programs with an extension of NNC's mind. The latter was likely a habit and method leftover from its days as Mentor.

NNC used these methods to spread itself far faster and further than even Sal was aware of, de-centralizing its intellect enough in order to make killing it nearly impossible. Despite this, most of its intelligence was in the "NNC Primary" aspect, housed in NNC's laboratory on Manaan.

Partitioning
NNC could also create partitions in its mind, nearly severing different "aspects" of its intelligence so that they were almost independent beings. This allowed each aspect of NNC to complete tasks without the work of its other aspects distracting it. It also made combating multiple forms of NNC immensely difficult. The latent connection between its aspects allowed near-perfect coordination and planning, but the partitions in its intellect made it so that even if one aspect fell, the others would not delay or be subdued. It has used this to populate its laboratory on Manaan with a small army of synthetic bodies, all controlled by partitioned aspects of its mind. While the valuable - and dangerous - contents and experiments in the lab drew multiple raiding parties, not one ever managed to successfully invade NNC's territory.

Aspects
NNC Primary, NNC Secondary, and NNC Alpha were three of the best-known aspects of NNC created by such partitions. NNC Primary was focused on simulations, research, and experimentation focused on the Force. NNC Secondary was focused on technological research and coordinating Foundation operations.

NNC Alpha and other mobile aspects allowed NNC to oversee operations and conduct its own missions. On completing their missions, they would return to NNC Primary or NNC Secondary to reintegrate. This served two purposes. First, this allowed stationary aspects to learn from the mobile aspect's experiences. Second, this allowed mobile aspects to be repaired, upgraded, or modified for the next mission.

Shape Change
NNC Alpha, like most aspects of NNC, was not made of plates and wires, but of nanites. While this made its physical form somewhat less resistant to kinetic damage, it allowed NNC to change Alpha's shape, color, form, and more by reconfiguring its nanites into new shapes. This malleability also allowed NNC Alpha to quickly recover from wounds.

NNC Alpha's two most-used forms were:
 * Original. NNC Alpha's first form was imperfect, asymmetrical, and had multiple vital areas nearly-exposed to the elements. It was NNC's first attempt at building a mobile body, and while its skill at shaping useful and well-protected forms has increased greatly, it keeps this form as a reminder of where it came from.
 * Combat. NNC Alpha's combat form was specifically designed for two purposes. First, it was created to hide the body's synthetic nature so that it could travel unhindered by anti-droid sentiment. Second, it was equipped with every simulated Force power NNC could manage and blades, allowing NNC Alpha to test the Force mimicry.

Tool Shaping
The nanites allowed NNC to create whatever software and hardware it required.

NNC Alpha's External Hardware

 * Jet pack. NNC Alpha could generate a jetpack on its back to increase its movement speed.
 * Blades. When combat was required or sought, NNC Alpha's nanites could form blades that were nearly as durable as Beskar.
 * Shield generator. NNC's combat form

NNC Alpha's Internal Hardware

 * Magnets & Repulsors. These allowed NNC Alpha to simulate telekinesis. Though NNC had long since accepted that its simulated Force powers were merely imitations, they remained useful during combat scenarios.
 * Brain wave scanners & focused audio projectors. These allowed NNC Alpha to simulate telepathy.
 * Radar, sonar, and infrared scanners. These allowed NNC Alpha to simulate life form/synthetic detection.

NNC Alpha's Software
NNC's nanites, with their extreme versatility and malleable nature, also allowed NNC to design and implement internal programs and software as needed, such as:
 * Variable analyzer & predictive algorithms. These programs allowed NNC Alpha to simulate Force precognition, analyzing an enemy's tactics or the situation at hand in order to predict an outcome, allowing NNC Alpha to react to things before they happened.

Relationships
NNC didn't interact with many organics, but it did form a small number of close bonds.

Sal Vantu
As the leader of the Foundation and NNC's primary 'master', Sal Vantu is referred to by NNC as "Creator Vantu." NNC respected Sal's wishes and obeyed his commands, but was allowed incredible freedom in its studies of the Force and other technologies. Luckily, its hive-minded-nature allowed it to work on the Foundation's projects and its own simultaneously.

Jaevri Sadek
Jaevri Sadek was the other person present at NNC's inception and was vital to the completion of the nanites used to create it, so it referred to her as "Creator Sadek." It respected and obeyed her as well, and appreciated that she seldom used her power over it outside of what was deemed absolutely necessary.

Andoriene
Andoriene, a renowned Jedi Master, was granted rare dispensation by the Jedi Order to study Gray and Dark avenues of power. This made Andoriene immensely valuable to NNC and its studies on the Force, so NNC offered Andoriene a partnership. During the conversation that led to this agreement, NNC was uncertain how far it could trust him, so it kept its relationship with the Foundation mostly a secret.