The Directorate of Valkalan is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by Director Vikko with an even hand, and remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, otherworldly petting zoo, and daily referendums. The hard-nosed, hard-working, humorless population of 30.13 billion Valks are either ruled by a sleek, efficient government or a conglomerate of multinational corporations; it's difficult to tell which.

The minute, corrupt, pro-business government, or what there is of one, juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Ravingard. Income tax is unheard of.

The frighteningly efficient Valk economy, worth an astonishing 22,523 trillion Syns a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Retail, Arms Manufacturing, and Uranium Mining. Average income is a breathtaking 747,535 Syns, but there is a large disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 3,846,932 per year while the poor average 79,340, a ratio of 48.5 to 1.

Valk police have to pay out of their own pockets for bulletproof vests, ethnic minorities are often refused admission to some of the nation's best schools, customers who are not the epitome of politeness always find themselves at the back of the queue, and children often explain to their parents that the Mega Ultimate Sword Fist was worth the thousand-Syn charge on their phone bill. Crime is totally unknown. Valkalan's national animal is the Orca, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to heavy metals seepage into national waterways.

Valkalan is ranked 283,517^th in the world and 1^st in Zarathustra for Safest, scoring 4.11 on the Bubble-Rapp Safety Rating.