The Republic of Marquestan is a massive, safe nation, ruled by President Bjorn Halvorsen with a fair hand, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, barren, inhospitable landscape, and compulsory military service. The hard-working, democratic population of 1.643 billion Marqustanes are known throughout the region for their efficiency and work ethic, as well as their general suspicion of leisure.

The medium-sized, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Industry, Defense, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Lysvik. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 23.1%.

The frighteningly efficient Marquestanian economy, worth 154 trillion Marqus a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Retail industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Gambling, and Beef-Based Agriculture. Average income is 93,932 Marqus, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 276,425 per year while the poor average 25,131, a ratio of 11.0 to 1.

Soldiers are issued comics about superheroes punching unflattering caricatures of their enemies, people accuse the government of being in bed with Big Safety, not showing enough enthusiasm for mutual assured destruction is a court-martial offence, and bureaucrats close new businesses for not complying with the Penguin Packaging Index. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Marquestan's national animal is the Frostmaw, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Christianity.

Marquestan is ranked 218,033^rd in the world and 8^th in Artic for Largest Populations, with 1.64 billion capita.