The story takes the form of a non-fiction article by Clarke in which he warns the United States that the
People's Republic of China is planning to, using a Russian rocket, launch a
communications satellite in
geostationary orbit to broadcast directly to Americans. The satellite will offer an uncensorable mix of heterosexual and homosexual
pornography (using the
Kinsey Report as market research), gore (such as details of
bullfights and photographic evidence from the
Nuremberg trials), and
communist propaganda. The American ex-ad man and Communist sympathizer that reveals the plan to Clarke thanks his influential 1945 article on satellite transmission for giving China the idea, and boasts that "History is on our side. We'll be using America's own decadence as a weapon against her, and it's a weapon for which there's no defence". One of the pornographic films in the story is described as depicting the erotic sculptures of the
Konark Sun Temple in
Odisha (Clarke uses the variant spelling of "Konarak"). == References ==