The Peaceful Union of Ashtie is a titanic, orderly nation, ruled by Lady Aria Latriva with an iron fist, and remarkable for its ubiquitous missile silos, irreverence towards religion, and restrictive gun laws. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 19.226 billion Ashtieans are ruled by a mostly-benevolent dictator, who grants the populace the freedom to live their own lives but watches carefully for anyone to slip up.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, well-organized morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Ashtide. The average income tax rate is 82.1%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The all-consuming Ashtiean economy, worth a remarkable 1,265 trillion Rubies a year, is highly specialized and mostly made up of the Pizza Delivery industry, with significant contributions from Furniture Restoration. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 65,800 Rubies, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Doctors prescribe medicines but they rarely dispense hope or compassion, trying to toast marshmallows in an electric fireplace just isn't the same, buses are widely regarded as the safest way to travel, and the police think a properly conducted criminal investigation is a real pain. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ashtie's national animal is the Saint Bernard, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Spiritualism.

Ashtie is ranked 308,779^th in the world and 21^st in The Labyrinth for Largest Publishing Industry, scoring -8.46 on the Bella Potter Productivity e-Index.