The Syndicate of Sigma Iotia II is a colossal, orderly nation, ruled by Bela Oxmyx with an iron fist, and notable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, deadly medical pandemics, and absence of drug laws. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 8.995 billion Bosses are rabid consumers, partly through choice and partly because the government tells them to and dissenters tend to vanish from their homes at night.

The tiny, corrupt, pro-business government is primarily concerned with Defense, although Industry is also considered important, while Environment and Social Policy are ignored. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Chicago. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 6.4%.

The frighteningly efficient Sigma Iotia economy, worth a remarkable 1,088 trillion Heaters a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Arms Manufacturing industry, with major contributions from Retail, Uranium Mining, and Gambling. Average income is an impressive 121,049 Heaters, but there is an enormous disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 692,153 per year while the poor average 10,238, a ratio of 67.6 to 1.

Sales of fishnet stockings have reached a record high, if there's something strange in your neighborhood you call Brancaland, distant and obscure male relatives succeed to the Sigma Iotia throne, and Bela Oxmyx shot first. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Sigma Iotia II's national animal is the Gangster, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Chicago Mobs of the Twenties.

Sigma Iotia II is ranked 292,989^th in the world and 172^nd in United Earth Space Probe Agency for Lowest Crime Rates, with 4.22 law-abiding acts per hour.