Pineleaf Bubble

The novel begins in Pineleaf Bubble, as Hope Hubris has just been declared the Tyrant of the United States of Jupiter.

Jupiter

Jupiter is the leading nation in the solar system. It is run by Hope Hubris, a benevolent dictator, and it is opposed by its longtime enemy, Saturn, which is a communist state, much in the way that the U.S. and USSR were in opposition in the 1980s when Executive was written.

The holo helmet

This is the device that allows the wearer to make a recording of imagined things, many of them sexual in nature. Hope Hubris and Amber use the helmets to exchange 'feelie chips' with their experiences recorded.

Bubbles

Bubbles are the structures in which Hope Hubris and the others live, floating in the Jupiter atmosphere. These structures have to be prospected for, searched for as they rise from the interior...