Location: the Pacific

Overview • People • Government • Economy • Trend • Analysis

The Commonwealth of Petone is a massive, socially progressive nation, ruled by Aberthnought Frogmorton with a fair hand, and remarkable for its punitive income tax rates. Its compassionate, intelligent population of 2.21 billion are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whoever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent government stops and the rest of society begins, but it devotes most of its attentions to Education, with areas such as Religion & Spirituality and Social Equality receiving almost no funds by comparison. It meets every day to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Jacksonville. The average income tax rate is 78%, and even higher for the wealthy. A small private sector is dominated by the Book Publishing industry.

Long arduous trials are held for the most trivial of offences, there's a shortage of swinging hot spots as land development grinds to a halt, citizens wishing to be parents must undertake a series of gruelling tests to evaluate their capabilities, and the government seeks peaceful forum with terrorists. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Petone's national animal is the Maine Coon Cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the Petone Crown.

Petone is ranked 3,892nd in the Pacific and 92,803rd in the world for Shortest Average Lifespan, scoring -24 on the Bus Surprisal Index.

Preview

NationStates by Max Barry, author of and