Spanish to English Social Sciences Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc.

This little section is causing me much grief. I will break it up into a couple questions. The whole thing is a problem, nu the main problem areas are "Poco imaginaban los atribuidos precursores" and "cómo vaya instrumentándose su papel".

Castilian Spanish to UK English

Orignal
...si algo parece seguro es que un ingrediente dominante del futuro va a ser la Red. O, dicho de otra manera, todo tiende a evolucionar adherido a cómo vaya instrumentándose su papel. Poco imaginaban los atribuidos precursores por dónde acabaría discurriendo la realidad que trataban de impulsar… poco más de medio siglo atrás.

VERY rough draft
...if anything is a certainty, it is that the Internet will play a dominant role in our future. Or, put another way, everything tends to evolve according to how its role is played. Little did they imagine where the ascribed precursors they tried to promote would lead to only a little more than half a century earlier.