The Shadow Realm of Cuatela is a behemoth, safe nation, ruled by Elizabeth Rendino with an even hand, and notable for its museums and concert halls, anti-smoking policies, and pith helmet sales. The hard-nosed, hard-working, democratic, devout population of 51.63 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 enormous government 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 70.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Cuatelan economy, worth a remarkable 3,126 trillion credits a year, is highly specialized and mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Tourism. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 60,559 credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Saturday morning cartoons feature full frontal nudity, surfing lessons include how to ward off sharks, people think garlic bread counts as one of their "five a day", and there's never a spare chair in the retirement home. 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 304,547^th in the world and 2,902^nd in the Pacific for Highest Unexpected Death Rate, scoring 22.75 on the Bus Surprisal Index.