The Republic of Alactain is a titanic, efficient nation, renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape, ritual sacrifices, and keen interest in outer space. The hard-nosed, humorless, devout population of 14.438 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 government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Administration, and Education. The average income tax rate is 96.3%.

The frighteningly efficient Alactainian economy, worth a remarkable 3,593 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 248,910 Penances, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 867,297 per year while the poor average 52,011, a ratio of 16.7 to 1.

State-run museums boast about their anti-Alactainian art collections, most politicians belong to the Church of the Divine Kickback, nobles' fancy titles no longer help them cut in line at the supermarket, and the invisible hand of the market wipes babies' bottoms. 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 305,025^th in the world and 63^rd in The Card Mine for Most Cultured, scoring 33 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.