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''Sixth Column'' is a ScienceFiction novel by Creator/RobertAHeinlein, first serialized in 1941 and published as a book in 1949.

''Sixth Column'' (aka ''The Day After Tomorrow'') tells the story of six surviving US soldiers after Pan-Asian invaders conquer America. Having recently invented a DoomsdayDevice that confers its wielder powers not much unlike omnipotence, the surviving Americans begin plotting to free their country using this new technology.

Complications arise as they realize how fickle the [=PanAsians=] are and how easily they resort to executing captive Americans. To avoid unnecessary loss of life, the Americans decide to set up a fake religion to take advantage of the only freedom given to American people anymore, and start working covertly to overthrow the Asian rule.

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!!Provides Examples Of:

* AdaptationExpansion: The original didn't bother to explain the racial bioweapons, and Heinlein had to come up with some sci-fi {{Hand Wave}}s and TechnoBabble.
* AppliedPhlebotinum: "The Ledbetter effect", which is explained via {{technobabble}} as the unifying principle of matter and energy, grants nearly godlike powers to the protagonists.
* AmbiguouslyBrown: Sergeant Scheer has "dark, brown hands," but several passages imply that everyone in the bunker is white.
* AuthorAppeal: More like Editor Appeal. The story was a reworked version of Creator/JohnWCampbell's unpublished ''All''. Campbell was adamantly of the opinion that Northern Europeans were the best of races. Campbell was the editor of ''Magazine/AstoundingScienceFiction'' and at the time thoroughly dominated the field of Sci Fi. Heinlein was uncomfortable with the racism and published ''Literature/FarnhamsFreehold'' sixteen years later, inverting racist tropes (or at least attempting to). Given that Heinlein was of the opinion that [[FairForItsDay he had removed the racist aspects of the story]], consider what the story originally must have been.
* AuthorTract: Heinlein pulls no punches with his opinions regarding the likely outcome of a United States that fully embraces isolationist politics.
* BackFromTheBrink: America is almost completely held by [=PanAsians=], and the main characters are most of what remains of the United States Army. They do survive, though.
* BrownNote: The Ledbetter effect can be used to disorient, incapacitate, or kill organic life, and can be tuned to the point where it affects only people of specific races. Point your staff at someone and make them crap themselves, pass out, or flee in terror? Done. The pistols handed out by the protagonists to their rebel recruits are specifically designed to kill only [=PanAsians=].
* CardboardPrison: The "priests of Mota" allow themselves to be imprisoned, knowing that they can use their powers to escape with ease. This has the intended effect of simultaneously emboldening their "congregation" while demoralizing the [=PanAsians=].
* ChekhovsSkill
** Ardmore privately admits that he's an advertising executive and not a professional soldier. This skill is useful for promoting the ScamReligion.
** Graham was an artist before he got drafted and designs the robes for the {{scam Religion}}'s priests.
* ChessMotifs: The main protagonist confuses the [=PanAsian=] commander in chief by presenting him with an insoluble chess problem.
* ChinaTakesOverTheWorld / JapanTakesOverTheWorld: [=PanAsia=], an [[InterchangeableAsianCultures amalgamation of Asian cultures]], uses the opportunity of a severely isolationist American foreign policy to develop superweapons and make a surprise invasion.
** This is likely a reference to Japan's Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a highly euphemistic title for the Japanese Empire. The description of the American occupation is a [=bowdlerized=] depiction of Japan's occupation of China.
* CovertGroupWithMundaneFront: To explain why people will be entering and leaving the Citadel, essentially inside of a mountain, they put the fake religion's flagship temple on top of it, so it's just people going in and out of a church.
* DayOfTheJackboot: The [=PanAsians=] have taken over the U.S. and rule it in a harsh, cruel, and ruthless manner.
* ElaborateUndergroundBase: The Citadel is buried inside of a mountain.
* {{Expy}}: It's thought that Calhoun (the one who goes crazy and thinks he's actually divine) was a parody of Campbell, the racist editor. As Calhoun was also the name of an inveterate defender of slavery in the nineteenth century and Campbell, rather infamously, ''also'' defended the practice...
* AGodAmI: All of the main characters have near-omnipotence thanks to their weapons, but Calhoun is the one who eventually goes crazy about it and actually thinks he's a divine in their scam religion.
* GoneHorriblyRight: When Ardmore arrives at the citadel, he discovers all but six of the people there were killed. Did the enemy do this? No. They did it to themselves. He is informed that the test of the Ledbetter effect killed almost everyone there.
* {{Hobos}}: One of the first people the protagonists recruit as a priest is a self-proclaimed hobo and helps recruit more to their cause.
* HolyHalo: The "priests of Mota" wear turbans that conceal a holographic projector. This projector generates a constant halo over the priest's head, to exaggerate their superstitious impact.
* ImpactSilhouette: Invoked for dramatic effect. When the "priests of Mota" stage a prison breakout, they use their staves to carve man-shaped holes in the walls, complete with halo.
* InterchangeableAsianCultures: The entire Asia has amalgamated to a massive nation of [=PanAsia=], with most elements resembling Japanese culture. The story was originally written during [=WW2=] when anti-Japanese propaganda was understandably strong... and the Chinese had already been fighting the Japanese for years.
* InvadedStatesOfAmerica: United States is taken over by Asians via surprise attack, with nukes thrown in.
* LaResistance: The eponymous Sixth Column.
* MasterForger: While scouting the outside world, Thomas visits Finny, a former anarchist forger who gives him a phony registration card and is also known for making counterfeit five-dollar bills. Finny merely requests that Thomas "help your brother when you can" as payment.
* NukeEm: The [=PanAsians=]' SuperweaponSurprise that allowed them to conquer America was for all intents and purposes the atom bomb. The threat of more destruction is what forces the resistance to operate so surreptitiously.
* OldShame: The novel is actually a version of Creator/JohnWCampbell's ''All'' with the racism toned down. Heinlein considered ''Sixth Column'' an Old Shame that he wrote to garner the favor of the racist but influential Campbell.
* OminousCube: The "temples" created by the priest are simply giant empty cubes, which are simple to create using their technology, with the emptiness more awe-inspiring than trying to fill it with stuff.
* OvernightConquest: The war with [=PanAsia=] was over in little more than a day, after they nuked all the major command and control centers in a surprise attack.
* PigLatin: The protagonists use this as a secret language to fool the [=PanAsians=], as they observe that it is incomprehensible to someone who is not a native English speaker.
* PragmaticAdaptation: Heinlein did what he could to tone down the racism of the original story.
* PressGanged:
** Thomas is a local farmworker who, when he stumbled across the military base, was drafted as a private due to the need to preserve secrecy.
** Calhoun was "jerked out of a university" due to having research skills the army needed.
* TheRemnant: The book follows four soldiers and three army researchers safely hidden in a research bunker during the invasion of the United States. They consider a series of hit-and-run attacks with the weapons in the bunker before realizing this would get thousands of hostages executed. Instead, they scheme to undermine the new regime with a ScamReligion.
* SafelySecludedScienceCenter: After the [=PanAsians=] destroy the U.S. government and occupy the U.S., a secret government laboratory underneath the Rocky Mountains is tasked to develop superweapons that can defeat the invaders.
* ScamReligion: In order to fool the Asians, the Americans set up a temple of Mota. Using staves fitted with omnipotence-granting weapons, they even perform miracles to keep the Asians away from the temples - in which the revolution is planned.
* SmartPeoplePlayChess: Both the main protagonist and the [=PanAsian=] commander play chess.
* SoleSurvivingScientist: The book begins with Major Ardmore arriving at a secret base hiding 200 top scientists during the borderline genocidal invasion of America. He finds all of the scientists dead from the testing of a DoomsdayDevice except for a young physicist, a mathematician, and a biologist, although those three manage to finish the device and use it against the invaders.
* SuperWeaponAverageJoe: The Americans have AppliedPhlebotinum that allows them to manipulate matter and energy on a fundamental level. They use this along with some old-fashioned subterfuge to turn the tide on an overwhelmingly powerful enemy.
* TokenEnemyMinority: Frank Mitsui, the ''only'' good Japanese-American character in the book. Which is still saying something, considering how Japanese-Americans were treated back then.
* YellowPeril: In 1941 you could get away with writing novels about evil Asians conquering the USA.
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