The Salisbury Blockchain

~2400 BC

A spaceship lands in what is today known as Salisbury Plain. Newcomers are greeted as gods.

~2320 BC

Newcomers’ descendants and their human accomplices establish a caste society, in which higher castes enjoy advanced technology brought from the spaceship’s homeworld.

~2300 BC

Advances in nanotechnology allow the Salisbury Civilisation to fill the world with miniature self-powering computing devices, communicating wirelessly and running a sort of a blockchain. To commemorate the amazing technological achivement, Newcomers’ human subjects erect a monumental structure resembling a chain of stone blocks.

~2290 BC

A secret research facility gets established on a floating artificial island off the Welsh coast. Selected Newcomer and human scientist begin working together to unravel the mysteries of quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

~2260 BC

A breakthrough in quantum computing research magnifies greatly the capability of the Net. Upgraded nanodevices, now filling the Earth’s atmosphere and soil as invisible computing dust, allow quantum smart contracts to directly influence material reality. Newcomers’ power and domination over increasingly educated humans stems mostly from their ability to access the Net.

~2255 BC

Artificial intelligence running on the blockchain, capable of recognising movement patterns and voice commands, finally makes accessing and commanding the Net possible for humans, with necessary help of remote control devices. To protect the Net security and social order that depends on it, Newcomers introduce critical changes to the network protocol and initiate a program of gene editing among its human subjects. Only specified lineages of most trusted human servants can access the Net; computing devices respond only if a particular autonomous program running on the blockchain detects the correct human gene sequence.

~2200 BC

Human insurgence threatens the stability of alien-created civilisation. A mysterious disease, believed to have been engineered by rogue human scientists, wipes out all of the Newcomers’ descendants. Most of their accomplices, the traitors of the human race, die from insurgents’ hands. A self-destruction protocol gets activated and sinks the Atlantic research facility.

~2000 BC - 900 AD

Most of the Newcomers’ science and technology is lost and forgotten. Some artifacts of the ancient Salisbury civilisation, including many remote control devices, are carefully preserved and protected, first by witch doctors and druids, then by monks, and then by Freemasons.

~950 AD

After centuries of attempts, a small secret society finally manages to gather a collection of ancient artifacts big enough to make some progress studying it. The four of them establish a research institution devoted to recovering and preserving the Salisbury knowledge and technology.

31 October 1981 AD

Voldemort murders James and Lily Potter.