The Federation of Altiche is a small, safe nation, renowned for its irreverence towards religion, punitive income tax rates, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate, democratic population of 20 million Altichans are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Education, and Healthcare. The average income tax rate is 71.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The basket case Altichean economy, worth 209 billion Kons a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is mostly made up of the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Cheese Exports. Average income is 10,479 Kons, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Visitors often mistake the toiletplex at music festivals for the main stage, a vast monorail network carries people all over the country, protesters are up in arms over new nuclear power stations, and blue sky thinkers are reminded that the firmament is actually more of a grey-ish colour. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Altiche's national animal is the Octopus, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans.

Altiche is ranked 106,501^st in the world and 41^st in Eladria for Highest Unexpected Death Rate, scoring 33.38 on the Bus Surprisal Index.