The Most Serene Republic of Hythos is a huge, safe nation, remarkable for its museums and concert halls, smutty television, and irreverence towards religion. The compassionate, democratic population of 574 million Hythosians are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The large, socially-minded, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Makrinopolis. The average income tax rate is 77.9%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The thriving Hythosian economy, worth 56.6 trillion Bits a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing, Beef-Based Agriculture, and Tourism. Average income is 98,686 Bits, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Juries are mostly made up of wealthy busybodies and ex-convicts, conductors wield diamond-encrusted batons to fit in with their freshly gilded surroundings, weekends are spent tilting at windmills, and banning party poppers has been a real party pooper. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Hythos's national animal is the Open-water Platypus, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans.

Hythos is ranked 10,931^st in the world and 5^th in Trica for Most Eco-Friendly Governments, scoring 5,174.72 on the Dolphin Recycling Awareness Index.