Hive (based on EPIC 2014)

2016 The grassroots Free of Information Initiative (FII) starts The Tree, a vision of a worldwide network where any two users can share information with perfect anonymity or with perfect confidence in each other’s identity. The project attracts hackers, software engineers, and security experts from around the world.

2018 The Tree is perfected into Hive, the holy grail of secure communications. The system can hide not only the nature, but the existence of interaction between any two or more users. The Hive is built over the existing architecture of the World Wide Web. It has no central servers - every computer connected to the Hive is part of it.

2022 Seven out of eight personal computers connect to the Hive. The Hive grows and swallows the World Wide Web.

2023 The Sinclair media conglomerate builds it Clarity database, which collects and stores demographic information for each person alive to target media to him or her. Everything from where one lives to how many holes ones socks have is in the database. Media is flooded with ads targeted to a degree never previously imagined.

2026 The FII announces that 87% of known media objects, whether historical or newly released, can be found in the Hive network. The movie and recording industries can only watch as users upload and download media on Hive on a scale before possible. Paying for music and movies, information that can be copied at will, is considered absurd.

2027 The Clarity database is compromised and copied into the open-source Eye project and distributed for free. Any person can look up information on anyone. Privacy advocates cry foul.

2027 Multiple projects, including Eye, Wikipedia, FreeGoogle, combined into the FII-sponsored Truth, a collaborate project to organize and catalogue all knowledge.

2028 This contentious presidential election was the first to have the Hive as its main medium. Every person wants his or her view heard. Supporters of each candidate flood the networks with propaganda, demographically-targeted using Truth. Real issues are ignored as the network is flooded with sensationalism and lies.

2029 The newly-formed Truth shocks the Chinese public with the extent of the country’s human rights abuses. The Chinese government fights to regain “information control” through increasingly draconian measures that, by 2031, lead to China’s complete digital isolation from the world.

2030 The Truth project becomes increasingly filled with false information on a scale that makes maintaining its accuracy impossible. Verity is founded by entrepreneur Kevin Krone amidst the increasing amount of spam, junk, and lies on the Hive. Organizations pay to have Verity send out field agents to verify facts with rigorous standards. Information marked a C in a circle, formerly the copyright symbol, is known to be confirmed, or “Veritified”. Two years later, half of Truth pages are Veritified.

2032 Four anonymous users post documents and photographs onto the Hive network that reveal secret CIA bargains with Turkmenistan to hide wrongdoing from UN inspectors in exchange for economic privileges. Verity confirms the allegations. These whisteblowers are hailed as heroes, despite being branded by the President as “unpatriotic traitors”.

2034 The FII creates Cypher, an open repository of modules and code. Every computer program, open source or legally proprietary, is translated into Sigma, a universal programming language that allows snippets of code to be combined seamlessly into any application imaginable. Writing programs from scratch is a remnant of the past.

2034 A resistance force builds up using the Hive system on Chinese computers. Demonstrations are organized anonymously, appearing suddenly and disappearing with no trace. Censorship is nothing more than a minor annoyance. Slowly, the government of China loses the information war.

2035 AOL/Time Warner invests enormous capital in selling content on the Hive. They protect their digital property with once First Limited Use (FLU), a breakthrough algorithmic advance in Digitial Rights Managements which makes data self-destruct after one use, in addition to preventing copying and ad removal. Other media companies soon follow.

2035 The US government blames the failure of a military operation in Turkmenistan to the enemy army picking up American military secrets shared on the Hive network. However, volunteer experts tracking and analyzing troop movements and fiscal flow point at gross incompetence by the armed forces.

2037 The programming community converges on Cypher to develop “antibiotics,” methods of circumventing FLU. Within months, every DRM’ed media file is disinfected and linked on the Hive network.

2028 Now on their last throes, media conglomerates unite a legal attack on the Hive. The case makes its way to the Supreme Court with the FII as nominal defendant. The case United States of America vs Hive Network is the largest and most complex case in history.

2039 Despite the support of the collective legal knowledge of the American public, Hive is declared illegal by a 7-2 vote. The Court claims the case is not just one of property law – the issue is that Hive is anarchy. It breaks every law because no law can be enforced when every interaction can be made secret. The dissenting opinion disagrees strongly, “Hive is democracy. No invention since the printing press has done so much for free speech.” However, the decision is a moot point. Hive is not a person or corporation that can be sanctioned. Hive is on every computer in existence. Hive is indestructible.

2039 The commercial media market is effectively dead, replaced by media created by groups of enthusiasts who direct movies and write plays for everyone’s enjoyment. The American Government promotes the arts with a patronage system that encourages invention and innovation, and other nations follow suit. Verity is charged with identifying projects with artistic merit worth funding, amidst the sea of garbage put out by well-meaning masses.

2043 China’s communist government collapses under the weight of freedom and truth. Other oppressive regimes fall soon after. Hive connects the world as one democracy.

Circa 2060 Verity is the arbiter of beauty and truth. It manipulates the Hive, slowly subverting reality, and becomes the de-facto world-government. Verity wields not power, but truth. How this transformation occurred is not fully understood.

Here, the record ends. All knowledge after this date may be lost forever.