The Shadow Realm of Cuatela is a behemoth, cultured nation, ruled by Elizabeth Rendino with an even hand, and remarkable for its pith helmet sales, otherworldly petting zoo, and punitive income tax rates. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic, devout population of 51.488 billion Cuatelans have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked morass — juggles the competing demands of Environment, Education, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Velocia. The average income tax rate is 71.1%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Cuatelan economy, worth a remarkable 3,032 trillion credits a year, is extremely specialized and mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 58,897 credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Posters on 'Cuatelan Values' advise against being proud of Cuatela, the government is continually probing the galaxy in search of alien life, toy versions of heroin paraphernalia let kids pretend to be their favourite TV characters, and EpiPen sales have skyrocketed. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Cuatela's national animal is the panther, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Cuatela is ranked 22,982^nd in the world and 380^th in the Pacific for Most Cultured, scoring 84 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.