The Elder Empire of The Iron Stars is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by The Cosmic Horror Grox'ez with an iron fist, and renowned for its soft-spoken computers, strictly enforced bedtime, and smutty television. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 29.721 billion cosmic entities are ruled by a mostly-benevolent dictator, who grants the populace the freedom to live their own lives but watches carefully for anyone to slip up.

The large, corrupt, well-organized government prioritizes Defense, with Law & Order, Healthcare, and Education also on the agenda, while Welfare and Social Policy receive no funds. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Quasaropolis. The income tax rate is 100.0%.

The frighteningly efficient cosmic economy, worth an astonishing 14,292 trillion Novas 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, Uranium Mining, and Woodchip Exports. 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 an amazing 480,873 Novas, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Military doctrine says not to open fire until you see the "beady little eyes" of Johnny Foreigner, citizens are deployed to barren deserts to protect small territorial claims, citizens seem fixated on 105m x 45m rectangles, and the dessert 'Death by Chocolate' isn't the most lethal dish on the menu. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. The Iron Stars's national animal is the Dread Empyrean, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is The Celestial Creed.

The Iron Stars is ranked 5,397^th in the world and 2^nd in Fifth Empire for Most Subsidized Industry, scoring 11,799.55 on the Gilded Widget Scale.