[1] The short story takes place in a run down Los Angeles, California in the year 2117 where the United States is no longer a world power but an "economic basket case" ever since China refused to renew its loans to the government a century earlier.
Real is a powerful hallucinogenic drug that came in the form of a small, colorful square of cardboard-like material.
Contact with the skin produced hallucinations that were claimed to be "realer than real life".
The United States government brought the issue to a head at a peace conference held in Los Angeles.
It first entered service in the 2050s but constant upgrades in weaponry, avionics and stealthiness kept it state of the art.
In addition, American soldiers trapped within the bowl were allowed to surrender unless they too offered more than token resistance.
As Hu Zhiaoxing had warned, the terms were harsher, which included the US would place no further restriction on the distribution of the entertainment known as Real and any criminal or civil penalties would be declared null and void, China would receive a 99-year lease on the ports of San Pedro and Long Beach for one dollar a year and that those ports would have no duty on imports although the Chinese reserved the right to impose duties on U.S. products entering the territory and that the US would pay an indemnity of twenty trillion dollars in either gold, petroleum, uranium or hard currency to be agreed upon with the full amount was to be paid within ten years.