The United Socialist States of Maen is a very large, socially progressive nation, remarkable for its ritual sacrifices, compulsory vegetarianism, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate population of 181 million Maenis are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The enormous government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Social Policy. The average income tax rate is 70.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but inefficient Maenian economy, worth 5.73 trillion Fogos a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, quite specialized black market in Book Publishing, Basket Weaving, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is 31,670 Fogos, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Programmes of questionable content are shown at peak-hours, homeless people are periodically found dead upon altars to assorted deities, scientists recently cloned the long-extinct feather-bellied Phoenix, and fur coats have become the latest fashion trend. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Maen's national animal is the Phoenix, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Maen is ranked 220,740^th in the world and 273^rd in The Region That Has No Big Banks for Safest, scoring 26.79 on the Bubble-Rapp Safety Rating.