The Republic of Alactain is a titanic, efficient nation, renowned for its public floggings, infamous sell-swords, and avowedly heterosexual populace. The hard-nosed, humorless, devout population of 14.517 billion Alactainians are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The enormous, corrupt, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Administration, and Education. The average income tax rate is 96.4%.

The frighteningly efficient Alactainian economy, worth a remarkable 3,638 trillion Penances a year, is quite specialized and mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Uranium Mining, Retail, Arms Manufacturing, and Information Technology. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is an amazing 250,658 Penances, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 815,351 per year while the poor average 58,057, a ratio of 14.0 to 1.

Underground railroads have become more literal and physical these days, shoppers carry protractors to verify their produce, voters regularly try to eat their ballot papers, and the art of conversation has been rediscovered. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Alactain's national animal is the Lynx, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Alactain is ranked 330,512^th in the world and 66^th in The Card Mine for Nicest Citizens, with 0.15 average smiles per day.