The Kingdom of Asteran is a gargantuan, safe nation, ruled by Prime Minister Robert McCaskill with an iron fist, and notable for its sprawling nuclear power plants, pith helmet sales, and absence of drug laws. The compassionate, cynical population of 34.907 billion Asteris are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The large government juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Kirano. The average income tax rate is 91.4%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The all-consuming Asteri economy, worth a remarkable 4,661 trillion pounds a year, is led by the Tourism industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Basket Weaving, and Cheese Exports. Average income is an impressive 133,542 pounds, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Diplomats expel enough hot air to cause forest fires, anyone with an emergency on a holy day is advised to pray harder, it is not politically correct to suspect that a serially convicted burglar might steal again, and the national security service are a bunch of crooks. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Asteran's national animal is the lion, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is the Church of Asteran.

Asteran is ranked 26,472^nd in the world and 1,402^nd in Balder for Most Cultured, scoring 81 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.