At the beginning of the 21st century, the great technological powers of Earth collaborated to build a system which would protect all peoples from threat of war. Code-named "Indigo", the orbiting system was to monitor activity on Earth, and intervene whenever activity involving weapons of mass-destruction was detected. The system was to utilize the latest technological advances in Artificial Intelligence, Energy, Weaponry, Communications and Robotics; Indigo was essentially self-sufficient.
In addition to protecting the people of Earth, Indigo's computers were also programmed to protect itself. Indigo was extremely effective in deterring aggression, and instrumental in maintaining the new peace that the people of Earth now enjoyed. The system was greatly praised by all, and was the seed from which the subsequent global disarmament proceedings grew.
Soon all nuclear and other weapons of mass-destruction had been eradicated; the world was finally at peace.
The time now came to decomission Indigo - or at least to scale down its proactive posture. But the Engineers had done too good a job; attempts to shut Indigo down remotely were fruitless. The system was protecting itself, and in effect holding its human creators hostage!
In desparation, attempts were made to send teams of astronauts into orbit to disable Indigo from within - all met with the same fate. Rumours spread that Indigo had captured these brave men, and was using torture to extract information about the efforts to shut the system down. Indigo was systematically destroying all ground-based launch facilities..
Under great secrecy, a small group of brave individuals has managed to locate an old 20th century ESA launch facility in Guyana and stocks of fuel and other equipment.
As yet unknown to Indigo, this facility has been adapted to launch you, the brave astronaut, into orbit in a last-ditch attempt to rescue the captive astronauts and ultimately destroy Indigo.
