Midway through the 21st century, man has finally mastered the technology required for travel to, and colonisation of, distant planets. The first starship, Deadalus I, set off in the year 2052 heading for Wolf 359, a small red star some 8.1 years away from Earth. As the scientists arrived some generations later they discovered that the dual star solar system was entirely devoid of planets. There was no more in that solar system than a large number of asteroid belts. On closer inspection it appeared that among the asteroids there flew thousands of tiny craft, automatically controlled mining vessels. It seems that previous colonists has destroyed all the planets so they could mine more efficiently. Deadalus I headed for the only lump of rock bigger than an asteroid but smaller than a planet, a moon that no longer had a planet to orbit. This moon, christened Frontier Alfa, was inhabited by a race of independent capitalist and unscrupulous robots and their creators the Remusians. The Remusians were small bug-eyed humanoids who took a much less active role in the colony than the Roboforms. The Earth starship was soon captured by the Remusians, who enslaved the human habitants. Some of them escaped capture however, and established a small colony of their own. They set you up as a trader, with the ultimate aim of making enough profit to be able to buy the whole colony and become supreme leader, thereby being able to free the enslaved humans.