The theory for the foundation of the Plasma Database was developed as an information representation system for global networks specified in 1985 by Hector McNeill while working as a Senior Scientific Officer at the Information Technology & Telecommunications Task Force (ITTTF) at the European Commission in Brussels. The basic theory that has evolved from this "Locational-State Reference Base" (LSRB) is Locational-State Theory.

The reason for developing the LSRB was to establish a failsafe information specification system so that requests for information over a global network could be understood and so that information sent back in response matched the requested specification exactly. The objective was to create a data exchange system that could satisfy the demand for strategic, business and government decision-making by ensuring that decision-makers had a basis for identifying exactly what information was required as well as make possible the translations of such requests into coherent information and data sets that satisfied the requirement. This capability has a range of important implications, one of which is an obligation or responsibility to both requesters and suppliers of information to remain confident that supply and demand are satisfied in quantitative, qualitative terms including precision and representability of data.

This work progressed several years before the creation of the world wide web on the Internet and it is distinct from the current work on the "Semantic Web".

The world's first application of the Locational-State Reference Base (LSRB) was a decision-support software (Seel-Telesis) developed for DOS PCs. This was developed by Hector McNeill over the period 1987 to 1990 and part of this work was supported by the Department of Employment of the Government of the UK. One of the most significant findings arising from this work was that McNeill had originally seen LSRB as an improved reference base for biological phenomena. This was based upon its taking into account event cycles over time or "life cycle management". However, the Seel-Telesis program demonstrated the relevance of this approach to inanimate objects in terms of, for example, investment or programme life cycle management. More importantly the approach permits clear distinctions to be drawn between common explicit knowledge concerning the operation of a human-machine processes and the less obvious tacit knowledge embedded the human factor within these processes. The Seel-Telesis program was able to achieve this refined discrimination because the program used a learning curve model (SEEL_axis) making possible the separation of learning-based increments in performance from resources allocation-based increments. This represented an important breakthrough in decision analysis providing a workable knowledge base. The approach enables the measurement and quantification of the contribution of tacit knowledge, learning and capability elements and can distinguish these from outcomes operational management decision-making related to resources allocation.

The outcome is an a quantitative model that can trace the evolution in a system's capabilities including growth rate constraints over time. The Plasma data base was developed as a means of handling the required data analysis but the so-called "fusion plasma seek operation" (FPSO) was beyond the capacity of state of the art hard drives that invariably suffered mechanical failures.

As a result the Plasma DB project was paused in 1995 to await the known evolution in solid state devices to occur.

During the last 12 months (2011) state of the art solid state technologies and associated memory cache capabilities have appeared whose specifications and prices meet the lower ranges of operational speeds for FPSO and therefore make the Plasma approach feasible.

SEEL is now prototyping a second generation of Plasma Database technology with Navatec.