The Holy Empire of Altasconia is a mid-sized, efficient nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, irreverence towards religion, and complete absence of social welfare. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic population of 68 million Altasconians are effectively ruled by a group of massive corporations, who run for political office and provide their well-off citizens with world-class goods and services. Their poorer citizens, however, are mostly starving to death while being urged to go out and get real jobs. The populace has reasonably extensive civil rights, although these are mostly aimed at allowing them to buy whatever they like.

The tiny, pro-business government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Education. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 7.0%.

The very strong Altasconian economy, worth 3.91 trillion Altas a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Uranium Mining industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Retail, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. Average income is 57,427 Altas, but there is a large disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 238,257 per year while the poor average 9,071, a ratio of 26.3 to 1.

Anyone with an emergency on a holy day is advised to pray harder, autocrats are persona non grata, the nation is famous for bravely sending wave after wave of its soldiers until the enemy runs out of bullets, and the police force is on a recruitment drive. Crime is moderate. Altasconia's national animal is the Alta Lion, which can occasionally be seen sifting through garbage in the nation's cities.

Altasconia is ranked 135,407^th in the world and 12^th in Novastralix for Most Developed, scoring 56.91 on the Human Development Index.