The Working and Mercantile Sneks of Strala is a titanic, efficient nation, ruled by Ya Yingtan with an iron fist, and notable for its aversion to nipples, compulsory military service, and pith helmet sales. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 18.377 billion Stralans are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The medium-sized, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government is dominated by the Department of Defense, with Education, Law & Order, and Industry also on the agenda, while Environment and International Aid are ignored. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Somewhere. The income tax rate is 100%.

The frighteningly efficient Stralan economy, worth an astonishing 12,395 trillion Denarii 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, fairly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Information Technology, and Uranium Mining. 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 674,528 Denarii, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.2 times as much as the poorest.

Pollution is on the rise along with government approvals of fracking projects, much of Strala's computer network is controlled by a rampant artificial intelligence, military instructors tire of being asked for another bedtime story by seven-year-old conscripts, and couch potatoes are considered to be model citizens. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Strala's national animal is the Dragon, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution, and its national religion is God Snek.

Strala is ranked 21,685^th in the world and 177^th in the Pacific for Largest Populations, with 18.4 billion capita.