Editing The Puppet Masters (section)

==Background==
The novel starts in 2007. Following a nuclear war between the [[Soviet Union]] and the [[Western Bloc]], which left both sides battered but unbroken, both sides return to a state of [[Cold War]]. [[Washington, D.C.]], and other US cities devastated in nuclear strikes had been completely rebuilt. The Soviet Union and [[China]] remain a single bloc dominated by [[Moscow]], and the sharp [[Sino-Soviet split]] of the late 1950s never happened.

Social customs have changed somewhat, in a way typical for Heinlein's fiction (i.e. having become more liberal, such as [[Prenuptial agreement|marriage contracts]] being possible with fixed terms, etc.) and [[Raygun|ray guns]] and personal [[flying car]]s are commonplace. "Slug throwing guns" remain in possession of some private citizens, but are considered obsolete by professionals. Space stations exist and [[Space colonization|colonies]] have been [[Colonization of Venus|established]] on the planet [[Venus]] (depicted, as common in science fiction of the time, as a tropical planet habitable by humans). There exists a [[Eugeroic|wakefulness-promoting drug]] known as "tempus fugit" that most agents carry a tube of. Although they are considered not habit forming they do produce a mild euphoria, but mostly used as they can stretch out the users subjective perception of time, 'by a factor of ten or more'.<ref>''The Puppet Masters'', 1951, p. 35</ref>

Space technology is far more advanced than in the actual first decade of the 21st century. For example, in the last scene, a space warship is sent on a twelve-year trip to [[Titan (moon)|Titan]], with not only life-support for a large crew, but also enough armaments to confront an entire world on its own.

However, [[communications satellite]]s have not been thought of, and television broadcasts are still limited to line-of-sight, as they were at the time of writing. This is of critical importance to the plot. The territory of the United States is divided into numerous transmission blocks, which receive television broadcasts from their neighbors and relay them onwards. When the invaders seize one of these blocks, they effectively control all communications within it and can isolate its inhabitants from the outside world, deny the central government any access to them, and consolidate control at their leisure.

The current president—on his second term—had established directly upon being first elected a new intelligence agency, known as the Section. Its creation was never authorized by Congress and its existence is kept secret, being funded by sums diverted from innocuous sounding items in the budget. It has a disguised underground headquarters in Washington, D.C., and a network of similarly disguised branch offices around the US. Unlike the clearly demarked spheres of the [[FBI]] and [[CIA]], the Section carries out extensive espionage in Soviet territory, but also conducts operations inside the United States. If ordered to, its agents are ready to shoot and kill American citizens on US soil. The Section's Director, who had been the president's campaign manager, is universally called "The Old Man". Only gradually does the reader learn that he is the protagonist's actual father.