The Sultanat Islamique of Bastos is a colossal, safe nation, ruled by Otty Erdene with a fair hand, and remarkable for its complete lack of prisons, absence of drug laws, and stringent health and safety legislation. The democratic population of 8.644 billion Bastosians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Administration, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Oomhan. The average income tax rate is 76.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The large but stagnant Bastosian economy, worth 164 trillion Francs a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is led by the Automobile Manufacturing industry, with major contributions from Woodchip Exports, Uranium Mining, and Information Technology. Average income is 18,995 Francs, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Translators have been hired to deal with the varying regional accents during national political debates, roads are often attended by round-the-clock construction crews, the police are destroying all photographic evidence of their own existence, and graffiti graces every city's streets. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Bastos's national animal is the sheep, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Islam.

Bastos is ranked 140,100^th in the world and 105^th in New United Kingdom for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 69.64 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.