Laman has been a servant of the king of the Lamanites, the same king who has been murdered by servants of the dissenter Amalickiah around 72 BC (see Alma 47:20–24). Laman has fled to the Nephite side and soon thereafter joined the military under command of Captain Moroni. Over a decade later—the warfare between the Nephites and the Lamanites having continued unabated—Moroni devises a plan to disable the Lamanite guards through drunkenness, but he needs a person of Lamanite descent in order to pull this off. Laman is his man.