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...
Just as no man is an
island unto himself,
،ومثلما لا يستطيع الإنسان أن يعيش وحيدًا
Weder ein Mensch kann nicht überleben, …
Del mismo modo que ningún hombre
es una isla en sí mismo,
Del mismo modo que ningún hombre
es una isla en sí mismo,
De même que l’homme
ne saurait vivre seul,
Così come nessun uomo può vivere da solo,
Assim como homem algum é 
capaz de viver sozinho,