The Year is 2199. The galaxy is divided into various quadrants. Alien life has been discovered due to the advent of worm holes enabling space travel across millions of light years. Along with NASA, the European Space Agency and the Asian Space Agency, the rather “dodgy” United African Space Agency has emerged. It was Funded by Shark Muttleworth’s great grandson in 2085 in return for a free flight to Alpha Centauri and named rather unfortunately UASA.

We join the Freight cargo ship Mandela 19 on it’s maiden journey delivering supplies to the mining town, Nostra, on Alpha Centauri, the closest star in our galaxy and by this time a huge international space port. The only problem is that it is New Year’s eve and the crew have just woken. They are a little pissed off because they are working on a holiday, and to make matters worse, they are a bit lost. They are three billion light years off course. They also discover the lost Mandela 4. Mandela 4 is the original cargo ship sent as an emmisary of UASA in 2085. They detect that Mandela 4 is silent apart from a rather distraught entertainment droid who was originally programmed for the festivities on Alpha Centauri. However, like Mandela 4, in 2085, Mandela 19 never reaches it’s destination.

The format is a sitcom, the characters are larger than life, and all rejects from various walks of life, who have ended up on Mandela 19, a large cargo ship. The setting is mainly around the interior of the ship and their attempts to get home, after being thrown off course by a one in a million fluctuation in the wormhole called Catalan. The style is parody and a light hearted look at some contemporary situations and characters set in the future.

The interior of the ship is cheap, and the uniforms shoddy, to indicate that the African Space Agency is rather badly funded, and due to typical African bureaucracy, nothing has really changed even in 2199.