Fargo's body. As required by the terms of the exchange, Dredd leads a small, lightly armed party on a mission across the hostile Cursed Earth to retrieve their esteemed "Father of Justice." Since Fargo was believed to have died in the year 2051, and the mission takes place in 2129, much of the story consists of Dredd explaining to the members of his team how it is that Fargo might still be alive – a secret history which was concealed from the public for decades. Flashbacks The middle chapters of "Origins" cover Fargo's life history, and how he founded his Judge System in 2031. After serving twenty years as chief judge, however, Fargo succumbed to a moment of weakness and had an illicit affair with a female colleague, something strictly forbidden by the Judges' code of celibacy. Unable to cope with his own lapse in the exacting moral standards he had inflexibly demanded of his subordinates, Fargo tendered his resignation to the President of the United States. Spurning the entreaties of his two deputies, Judge Solomon and Judge Goodman, and of President Pierce, to reconsider his decision and resume his office, Fargo instead chose to commit suicide. However his attempt to take his own life failed, leaving him with significant brain-damage and without the use of his legs. Fearing that their political enemies would use the scandalous circumstances of Fargo's resignation and injuries to destroy Fargo's legacy, Solomon and Goodman covered them up. Using sophisticated video technology, they faked footage of Fargo bravely sacrificing his life in the line of duty, gunned down in a brutal drive-by shooting. This enabled them to present Fargo as a martyr, increasing public support for the Judges. This deception had been conceived while Fargo's doctors had predicted that he would not long survive. However Fargo defied their expectations and began to slowly recover. He was therefore kept in a secret medical facility, isolated from the world so that the cover-up would not be discovered. When his condition began to deteriorate again, Chief Judge Solomon had him cryogenically frozen in suspended animation until such time as medical science could cure him. By 2070 President Robert Linus Booth was in the White House, having illegally rigged the voting computers to win the 2068 presidential election, and murdered one of his aides who threatened to expose the fraud. Booth pursued an aggressive foreign policy, openly stating that