Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is a series of award-winning stealth video games, the first of which was released in 2002, and their tie-in novels. The protagonist, Sam Fisher, is presented as a highly-trained agent of a fictional black-ops sub-division within the NSA, dubbed "Third Echelon". The player guides Fisher, who usually has the iconic trifocal goggles at his disposal, to overcome his adversaries in levels based on Unreal engines that were extended to emphasise light and darkness as gameplay elements. All the console and PC games in the series were critically acclaimed, and the series is commercially successful.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell was developed in 2 years, after which it was published and released by Ubisoft for the Xbox, PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Windows, and Mac OS X in North America on November 19, 2002. It uses an Unreal Engine 2 that was modified to allow the light-and-dark based gameplay. An HD remastered edition of the game was released on the PlayStation Network in late 2010. To date the game has sold over 3 million copies and won IGN's Best of 2002: Xbox Game of The Year.

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. (born April 12, 1947) is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes. His name is also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders. He is Vice Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs, as well as a part-owner, of the MLB Baltimore Orioles.

Clancy was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland, graduating with the class of 1965. He then attended Loyola College in Baltimore, graduating in 1969. Before making his literary debut, he spent some time running an independent insurance agency. This agency thrived for a few years before joining a group of investors.

Clancy and his first wife Wanda married in 1969, separated briefly in 1995, and permanently separated in December 1996. Clancy filed for divorce in November 1997, which became final in January 1999.