The Democratic Republic of Torness is a massive, safe nation, ruled by The Workers' Union with an even hand, and remarkable for its smutty television, absence of drug laws, and punitive income tax rates. The compassionate population of 2.014 billion Tornessians enjoy extensive civil rights and enjoy a level of social equality free from the usual accompanying government corruption.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, liberal, socially-minded morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Luxemgrad. The average income tax rate is 92.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The strong Tornessian economy, worth 159 trillion Workers' Credits a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is highly specialized, is mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing and Basket Weaving. Average income is 78,947 Workers' Credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

It is illegal to make racist remarks in public, they who do not work shall not eat, solid-gold toilets are Tornessian prisons' least expensive furnishings, and hordes of tourists are ruining the environment. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Torness's national animal is the Dove, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Torness is ranked 297,139^th in the world and 50^th in The Internationale for Most Avoided, scoring 0.77 on the Kardashian Reflex Score.