66.6 million years ago, humans aboard a ship called the Illuminare crashed on Earth.
100,000 years ago, a section of the downed space craft frees itself from a thawing ice berg in the middle of the Mediterranean sea. Deeming the environment safe, the passengers are revived.
In an unexpected cosmic coincidence, a nearly identical species of humans already exist on this planet but they are technologically primitive – living alongside many other subspecies of hominid. With their limited resources, the humans from outer space are unable to rebuild the civilisation they once knew so they founded ancient civilisations across the sea hoping to begin the long journey to try to return home to the stars.
To keep their secret, the passengers of the Illuminare establish a secret order known as the Illuminati so that humans originally from Earth never learn about their origins from space. Knowing the violent tendencies of primitive societies, they know it is not safe to identify themselves as being from a foreign shore let alone another species and intestellar body.
Starting with the introduction (or reintroduction) of agriculture, the Illuminati shape plant species that resemble popular items from their home planet. After a few thousand years, the difference between the descriptions in the ancient texts and contemporary produce is indestuinguishable by even the most dedicated scholars.
Over the eons it takes to advance to modernity, some Illuminati break the ranks and try to rush the work creating great wars and losses, causing the fall of Rome and the dark ages. They live alongside humanity, freely interbreeding but meeting in secret under the guise of organised religion in the early days and eventually all sorts of social groups including board game clubs.
Sometime in the first half of the 21st century, the nation of Iran experiences a democratic spring. With a foreign aggressor at the gates, many expected the nation to rally behind the old guard and the religious leadership who were seen as tough, especially on foreigners. Instead the Iranian people rejected autocracy and religious rule and embraced democracy. With this historic change, artefacts in Iran that were unavailable for study are suddenly able to be.
Vatican City.
“Dr Tobias Jackson, please to meet you” he said nervously, his glasses falling off his face, he adjusts them only to reveal his suit doesn’t fit. A skilled archeologist and religious scholar, Jackson was hired by the Catholic church to help with a puzzle.
“Captain Janet Carter, likewise.” replied the military officer, as she scanned the academics almost textbook appearance and demeanour.
They were here to study some recently deciphered chapters of the Dead Sea Scrolls which appear to depict advanced technology that predates what humans should have known at the time. Thinking they are dealing with advanced ancient humans only, they seek to understand what kind of device is being depicted so they can reconstruct it.
While they worked, distressing information appears on the news of UFOs. For once it wasn’t some crackpot with a blurry photo, national defence agencies and air forces were briefing the public on definite sightings of spacecraft of unknown origin. Presidents and dictators spoke to their worried people, urging for calm.
“What do you think that’s about?” Jackson asked Carter, probing to see if she may know more about it given her choice of profession.
“I couldn’t tell ya even if I knew” Carter said, she was being honest this entire thing had unfolded while she was here.
After weeks of tireless research, Jackson and Carter begin to doubt whether the diagrams are instructions for building a device at all. One evening Jackson is staring at the stars and notices that one of the constellations – the Big Dipper, resembles a symbol he saw earlier that day.
Realising this may mean something, he calls Carter “Meet me in the lab in 10 minutes”.
As they begin to discuss the possibility of certain symbols being constellations from an alien world, the surrounding texts begin to make more sense. It turns out the text they were studying were a star map depicting the transit of an interstellar space craft. Using existing data collected from modern telescopes, they are able to pinpoint the approximate star system but it is so far away it’s light hasn’t even reached Earth yet so it’s purely theoretical. They present these findings to the Cardinal who oversaw their work, and he leaves the room without comment.
An orbital bombardment by aliens devastates cities across the equator, erasing major population centres and conventional defences. Normal weapons don’t even reach their targets due to the difficulty of sending ordinance into lower orbit and the aliens having energy shields.
Jackson and Carter are escorted to the Pope’s personal chambers, where she reveals she is a blood descendant of people who came from outer space. As one of the last surviving Illuminati, she was able to operate some artefacts including a device that warned of an impending attack by an unknown group of aliens. The church may have a means of fending off this attack, but it is locked away behind an enigmatic puzzle – the coordinates where the Illuminare originally launched from were lost long ago and were needed to activate the ships weapons.
As the walls of the Vatican begin to shake, the Pope, Dr Jackson and Captain Carter take the secret papal elevator to a chamber deep below the city. Stepping out of the elevator, they are shocked for a moment to see an enormous geofront housing a section of a downed spacecraft. They approach the ships doors and begin working on decyphering the code. The Pope helps them translate the coordinates from modern astronomy to the Illuminati forms.
While they work, Captain Carter feels uneasy about the ceiling. As she’s observing sections beginning to come down, a group of alien robot drones resembling robotic jellyfish breaks through. Carter yells at the Pope and Dr Jackson to hurry as they are running out of time. The first wave was dispatched quickly, but Carter infers that was just a scouting party.
The door opens just as a second wave of drones bursts through the ceiling, this time in the hundreds. The three heroes scramble in haste to get through the doors as the alien drones fly towards them. The Mothership AI greets them, saying it’s been a long time and she was beginning to worry. She asks the distressed humans what they need, and whether it has anything to do with the robot insects attacking her door.
As they explain the situation to Mothership, she begins spinning up a device that sounds like a thousand horses stomping on marble. For a moment the sound is deafening as it builds and then it stops and the ship emits a pulse of light that goes through solid matter and travels across the entire surface of the Earth and its lower orbit. Mothership tells the humans she has finished disabling the alien energy shields. Turrets jut out from sealed doors on the surface of the Illuminare and fire at the attacking drones. Outside, the human forces are able to destroy the invading forces by finishing them with conventional missiles.
In the aftermath, Dr Tobias Jackson and Captain Janet Carter are seen as heroes. The secret history of the Illuminati is maintained as anti alien sentiment begins to boil from the anger of those who lost loved ones in the attack. Humanity has questions about dangers from outer space, questions they won’t stop until they have answers to. In a secret ceremony at the acropolis in Giza, Jackson and Carter are inducted into the Illuminati order by the pope.