Location: the West Pacific

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Bellicose Rioghachd of Hy Alba is a massive, socially progressive nation, ruled by Mac Bethad Rí Deircc with a fair hand, and notable for its barren, inhospitable landscape. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 4.116 billion are effectively ruled by a group of massive corporations, who run for political office and provide their well-off citizens with world-class goods and services. Their poorer citizens, however, are mostly starving to death while being urged to go out and get real jobs. The populace has reasonably extensive civil rights, although these are mostly aimed at allowing them to buy whatever they like.

There is no government in the normal sense of the word; however, a small group of community-minded, pro-business individuals juggles the competing demands of Defence, Law & Order, and Public Transport. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Dunscoine sciath-airde. Income tax is unheard of. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Information Technology, Uranium Mining, and Beef-Based Agriculture industries.

The tenet of free speech is held dear, ethnic minorities are often refused admission to some of the nation's best schools, truth is often impossible to tell from fiction on the evening news, and citizens are allowed to rise or fall based on their own merits. Crime is crippling. Hy Alba's national animal is the Blood Hound, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its currency is the Hy Mark.

Hy Alba is ranked 20th in the West Pacific and 1,450th in the world for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring 10 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and