The Empire of Nova Sambuca is a huge, socially progressive nation, renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape and compulsory military service. The hard-working, democratic population of 700 million Nova Sambucans 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 government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Defense, and Education. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 7.7%.

The strong Nova Sambucan economy, worth 43.7 trillion Bucans a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Arms Manufacturing industry, with major contributions from Gambling, Pizza Delivery, and Furniture Restoration. Average income is 62,424 Bucans, with the richest citizens earning 8.4 times as much as the poorest.

Crime, especially youth-related, is relatively low. Nova Sambuca's national animal is the Jangahordians, which can occasionally be seen sifting through garbage in the nation's cities.

Nova Sambuca is ranked 129,428^th in the world and 26^th in THE W0RLD for Most Developed, scoring 57.52 on the Human Development Index.