Location: Equinox

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Forceful Apathy of Pelagic Spectres is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by The Stig with a fair hand, and notable for its museums and concert halls. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, intelligent population of 12.475 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.

The minute, corrupt, pro-business government, or what there is of one, juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Social Welfare, and the Environment. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Pelagic Spectres City. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 43%. A powerhouse of a private sector is dominated by the Tourism industry.

The police have been reduced to using duct tape instead of handcuffs following further cutbacks, most governmental positions are filled by zealous nationalists, same-sex marriages are increasingly common, and convicted felons are forced into slavery for their crimes. Crime -- especially youth-related -- is crippling, probably because of the country's utter lack of prisons. Pelagic Spectres's national animal is the swamp bandicoot, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, its national religion is Echidnaology, and its currency is the bandicoot tail.

Pelagic Spectres is ranked 2nd in Equinox and 1,587th in the world for Most Influential, scoring 117 on the Soft Power Disbursement Rating.

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NationStates by Max Barry, author of and