STRADA

Strategic Research and Development Administration (STRADA) was a top-secret underground scientific and military base housed “80 miles past nowhere” in the side of a mountain.  The complex consisted of five levels around an inner core with 100,000 square feet of laboratory space on each level with the top ground level providing access to the facility via a cave entrance. The facility was secured and controlled by Sandi, a fifth-generation artificial intelligence system developed by Dr. Jill Ludlum who believed removing the human factor would provide a perfect infallible system. Colonel Scott Woodward, a hard-nosed by-the-book military career soldier oversaw the command of the facility.

Woodward hired the Phoenix Foundation to certify the brand new facility before it went live. MacGyver was brought in to test the security, which included guards, dogs, alarms, electronics, gas and maybe nuclear bombs, by breaking into the facility. His challenge was to use his human factor against Sandi’s “infallible” system. MacGyver was able to successfully bypass all the security but an error in Sandi’s programming caused the system to perceive the simulation as a real threat trapping MacGyver and Dr. Ludlum in the facility and removing the oxygen from all levels while Pete, Woodward and Ludlum’s assistant, Steven Lee, worked to deactivate the system from the outside.

MacGyver and Ludlum were able to eventually escape to the outside via an air vent, but short circuited Sandi in the process. Despite the damage to the system, Dr. Ludlum vowed to continue working to improve it claiming she was on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough.