The Shoal of Butter Fish is a massive, socially progressive nation, ruled by The Talking Fish with a fair hand, and remarkable for its rum-swilling pirates, barren, inhospitable landscape, and sprawling nuclear power plants. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic population of 2.414 billion fish live in a state of perpetual fear, as a complete breakdown of social order has led to the rise of order through biker gangs.

The minute, liberal, pro-business, outspoken government, or what there is of one, is effectively ruled by the Department of Industry, although Education and Public Transport are also considered important, while Spirituality and Environment receive no funds. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Varies. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 3.0%.

The powerhouse fishy economy, worth 240 trillion Sand Dollars a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Soda Sales industry, with major contributions from Gambling, Retail, and Pizza Delivery. Average income is 99,561 Sand Dollars, but there is an enormous disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 595,765 per year while the poor average 7,562, a ratio of 78.8 to 1.

The Varies Pride Parade's head banner explains how unionizing is heteronormative, college athletes are arrested for selling lemonade, competing private ambulances racing to be the first to traffic accidents are a major cause of road accidents, and the Smalltopian embassy doubles as an electoral campaign headquarters. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, probably because of the absence of a police force. Butter Fish's national animal is the Butter Fish, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to heavy metals seepage into national waterways, and its national religion is Wanderlust.

Butter Fish is ranked 166,134^th in the world and 2^nd in Flevoland for Highest Food Quality, scoring 14.23 on the Meeshlin-Starr Index.