The Budding Forest of Grace Wellesley Thayer is a massive, socially progressive nation, ruled by Welly Thayer with an iron fist, and remarkable for its keen interest in outer space, irreverence towards religion, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 1.966 billion Thayerians enjoy great individual freedoms in everything except elections, which, where they exist at all, are populist shams for a dictatorship government that has no intention of ever giving up power.

The relatively small, liberal, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Industry, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Saint-Paul-de-Vence. The average income tax rate is 17.0%.

The frighteningly efficient Thayerian economy, worth 195 trillion wellies a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Retail, Soda Sales, and Uranium Mining. Average income is 99,436 wellies, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.2 times as much as the poorest.

Everyone hates people who encourage hate, under love's heavy burden Welly Thayer sinks lower in the political right's esteem, foreign powers often deal with problems that Grace Wellesley Thayer can't handle, and for 25 wellies tourists can gawk at the site of national tragedy. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Grace Wellesley Thayer's national animal is the elk, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Thayerian deference.

Grace Wellesley Thayer is ranked 41,260^th in the world and 930^th in the South Pacific for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 173.27 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.