The Holy Empire of Monkey 17 is a gargantuan, pleasant nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, restrictive gun laws, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic population of 11.516 billion Monkey 17ians 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 relatively small, pro-business, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Monkey City. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 8.1%.

The strong Monkey 17ian economy, worth 615 trillion bitcoins a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Pizza Delivery industry, with major contributions from Retail, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Uranium Mining. Average income is 53,479 bitcoins, but there is an enormous disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 326,866 per year while the poor average 3,854, a ratio of 84.8 to 1.

It takes months to get the proper permits for a child's first tricycle, people are careful to avoid hyperbolising that they'd "rather die" than support Leader, corrupt paupers spend taxpayer bitcoins on liquor and tobacco, and the Man in the Plastic Mask has been imprisoned in the Capital Penitentiary. Crime, especially youth-related, is a problem. Monkey 17's national animal is the squirrel, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Monkey 17 is ranked 179,171^st in the world and 6,820^th in Chicken overlords for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 52.45 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.