History Main / OmniscientDatabase

* David of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'' apparently has access to a database of dog breeds that includes things like their jaw measurements, for some reason. It has a very '90s aesthetic to it, like an over-the-top hacker-movie interface run on an old Platform/AppleMacintosh OS.

* ''Series/{{Spooks}}'' - well, maybe it's magic, or maybe MI5 really ''can'' do that stuff...

* David of ''Series/{{Wishbone}}'' apparently has access to a database of dog breeds that includes things like their jaw measurements, for some reason. It has a very '90s aesthetic to it, like an over-the-top hacker-movie interface run on an old UsefulNotes/AppleMacintosh OS.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

Omniscient Databases almost always have a ViewerFriendlyInterface. If it's on paper or supernatural, it's a GreatBigBookOfEverything. See AkashicRecords for a related but {{older|ThanFeudalism}} trope. These are a special AppliedPhlebotinum used primarily in PoliceProcedural dramas, sometimes ones with a supernatural element. Compare Expositron9000.

* There is a notable aversion in ''Series/TheFall''. It takes several days to identify the brand of nail polish that the murderer applied to his victim postmortem, and even then the brand is sold everywhere, so it's a bit moot.

[[folder:Film]]

* Almost every depiction of Franchise/{{Batman}} has this, whether it's his own vast knowledge (a la Franchise/SherlockHolmes), the Batcave computer, or a combination of both. In one ''Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'' 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 Franchise/{{Superman}} had been friends with him in the past... err... future...
** Sort of justified, as Batman owns a Cray. The specific model depicted in one comic has an amazing 8MB. For comparison: this very tvtopes page has about 1MB (including images). Well, on second thought, not justified at all. The Cray's power is number crunching, not database operation.
** In ''ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}}'' Tim, who helped design and build the current computer in the batcave, notes that the system may have a ton of info but doesn't always have the info he wants from it when he faces an opponent who he recognizes from a file that has no more information on the villain than their villain name and a picture.
* Also in Franchise/TheDCU, ComicBook/{{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 [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection guidance]].
* In an issue of ''ComicBook/GothamCentral'', which focused on the members of the Major Crimes Unit of the Gotham City Police Department, [[WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries Renee]] [[ComicBook/TheQuestion 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, [[SubvertedTrope 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.
* ''Franchise/TheFlash'': Impulse is the only Flash able to permanently remember what he reads at super-speed. Once, he read ''an entire UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco public library''. It came in less handy than you'd think.
* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', Dream has a library of all the books that were never written. Including some famous real-world classics whose authors [[DiedDuringProduction died before they could finish writing them]]. It also has the books that you might dream of writing some day. Trippy.

* Patchouli Knowledge (It's ''[[MeaningfulName in her name]]'', duh!) of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' fame is an effective Human([[MageSpecies oid]]) Magical Database, thanks to her decades of study and self-made GreatBigLibraryOfEverything (remarkably, she's canonically fairly young for a youkai). In ''Subterranean Animism'', she is capable of spilling out the histories and powers of every {{youkai}} Marisa meets in her adventure... with the slight problem of taking until ''after'' the youkai was defeated to look up any relevant information.

** To push the point home, the only character who probably trumps her in intelligence might be Eirin Yagokoro, the Brain of the Moon. Very few humans know anything significant about the advanced Lunarian society and their technology (for their own protection, to some extent). In ''Silent Sinner In Blue'', Patchouli not only makes remarkably accurate predictions regarding the timing of their rocket's flight to get to the Lunar Capital but she also immediately identifies the Lunar Veil, a Lunarian device that allows flawless travel between the Earth and Moon, that Eirin had covertly attached to the rocket. The ever-collected Eirin's first thought is ''stab this person now''.

* Somewhat subverted in ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce''; the Codon Stream on planet Primus is the actual source of the Omnitrix's DNA samples; the Omnitrix itself is a sort of wireless reciever.

* As a work-saving device. Sometimes, writers just don't have time to come up with plausible ways to solve the convoluted plot they came up with this week. Maybe they're more interested in the detectives as characters than the police work itself, or maybe they just flat out [[CriticalResearchFailure didn't do the research]] and don't plan to start now. If you can't come up with a way for the protagonists to locate the bad guy realistically, the Omniscient Database is a cheap and easy way to gloss over that and advance the plot.

* As a work-saving device. Sometimes, writers just don't have time to come up with plausible ways to solve the convoluted plot they came up with this week. Maybe they're more interested in the detectives as characters than the police work itself, or maybe they just flat out [[CriticalResearchFailure didn't do the research]] and don't plan to start now. If you can't come up with a way for the protagonists to locate the bad guy realistically, the OmniscientDatabase is a cheap and easy way to gloss over that and advance the plot.

* Patchouli Knowledge (It's ''[[MeaningfulName in her name]]'', duh!) of ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' fame is an effective Human([[WitchSpecies oid]]) Magical Database, thanks to her decades of study and self-made GreatBigLibraryOfEverything (remarkably, she's canonically fairly young for a youkai). In ''Subterranean Animism'', she is capable of spilling out the histories and powers of every {{youkai}} Marisa meets in her adventure... with the slight problem of taking until ''after'' the youkai was defeated to look up any relevant information.

* ''VideoGame/{{Uplink}}'' is a game basically built in databases, it features a Social Security Database, a Criminal Database and an Academic Database which store all the important people in the game and every life you'll ever need to ruin (including yours). And the Website/InterNIC, a database containing every public website in the world, which is to say a few hundred in the actual game.

* Often inverted in real life. Government agencies typically fail to communicate in non-emergency situations and sometimes have to use comically outdated methods of accessing information. For example, despite constant accusations by gun-rights groups, the ATF has no database of gun-owners.

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', Dream has a library of all the books that were never written. Including some famous real-world classics whose authors [[AuthorExistenceFailure died before they could finish writing them]]. It also has the books that you might dream of writing some day. Trippy.

** In a third-season episode in which Lilah Morgan has to dig through cabinets of files to find information on Angel, it seems like the trope is being averted. At least until she's about to give up on finding the information she needs, at which point the clerk at the desk of the records room reveals ''herself'' as the example of this trope, able to magically access, search, sort, and recall all the information the firm has stored in their records. Lilah asks her a few simple questions and is immediately pointed to exactly the records and information she wants.

** This trope was lampshaded in an early episode. Abby is matching wounds from being hit by a car grille to the car grille database, and asks Gibbs "Can you believe someone actually made a car grille database?" She then goes on to mention the database she used to find the car grille database-- a database of databases.