On the day of the ceremony marking the transition from the A.D. to the Universal Century calendar, the space station Laplace, official residence of the Earth Federation prime minister, is destroyed by a terrorist bombing. One of the terrorists, a young man named Syam Vist, is caught in the explosion but barely manages to survive. He obtains a forbidden box that will come to be known as Laplace's Box.

Almost a century later, in Universal Century 0096...
Disperse Minovsky Particles
at combat density, now!
!بدّدوا جزيئات مينوفسكي على كثافة القتال فورًا
Zerstreut die Minovsky-Partikel
zu einer Kampfdichte! 
¡Dispersen Partículas Minovsky
a densidad de combate!
¡Dispersen Partículas Minovsky
a densidad de combate!
Émission des particules Minovsky
en densité de combat.
Iniziare la dispersione delle particelle Minovsky
a densità di combattimento.
Emitir partículas Minovsky,
densidade de batalha, imediatamente.