The Cornelian Dominion of Maritzal is a titanic, efficient nation, ruled by Cornelius I with an iron fist, and remarkable for its deadly medical pandemics, frequent executions, and keen interest in outer space. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 21.576 billion Maritzalians are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The tiny, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Defense, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Meridian. The average income tax rate is 64.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Maritzalian economy, worth an astonishing 12,200 trillion Pistas a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is an enormous, deeply entrenched black market in Information Technology, Retail, Arms Manufacturing, and Book Publishing. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is a breathtaking 565,467 Pistas, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.6 times as much as the poorest.

Pro-democracy protesters are shot on sight by state police, genetic screening weeds out citizens whose legs don't bend easily at the knee, the government is a law unto itself, and half-submerged and flooded seaside hotels are technically still next to the beach. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Maritzal's national animal is the Cat, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is The Order Of Our Lord Cornelius.

Maritzal is ranked 332,715^th in the world and 1,445^th in Europe for Largest Trout Fishing Sector, scoring -54.82 on the Nemo Depletion Efficiency Index.