A title sequence prologue details Britain's accidental acquisition of the island Gaillardia (located on the 33rd parallel south) during the seventeenth century, the feud between two scions of its royal house and Britain's granting the island self-rule in 1916. However, when independence was granted, the Foreign Office (F.O.) failed to recall its governor, who is still there forty years later. He writes a letter to the F.O. informing them of Russian moves to annex the island's mineral wealth.