Clark Gifford is a disaffected politician in a nameless, media-driven modern state where representative politics has dwindled to the corrupt transaction of business as usual, and a foreign war is always breaking out on the horizon. One night Gifford and some of his followers seize radio stations to broadcast a call for freedom -- a rebellion that is immediately put down by the government and whose motive will remain forever obscure. Even so, it leads to twenty years of war.