It happened so long ago now that it’s not even history anymore.

The cargo ship Forthright embarked on its forty-second journey from Mimas to Earth containing a cargo of newly manufactured robots. Thousands of them, each shiny and new, all awaiting programming and parameter allocation.

The crew was, of course, freelance – it was cheaper for the Normandy Robotics Corporation to hire freelancers – and so they lacked the discipline and organisation of union cargo crews. At least, that’s one possible reason for the horrific disaster that occurred on this forty-second and final journey the crew would ever make.

The reactor core, an artificial star, went supernova. There are failsafes to prevent this, of course, but the report that Normandy filed concerning the accident suggests that the crew hadn’t performed routine maintenance for weeks. It seems they died at their own hands.

The ship itself somehow survived the cataclysm, drifting out into deep space. And slowly, one by one, the robots began to awaken…