The Rogue Nation of ERAM MARE is a mid-sized, orderly nation, remarkable for its ritual sacrifices, pith helmet sales, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 82 million Shadow Mantle Holders are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The enormous, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Administration. The average income tax rate is 72.7%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but sluggish a Shadow Mantle Holder economy, worth 2.81 trillion Shadow Crystals 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 dominated by the Trout Farming industry, with significant contributions from Uranium Mining, Arms Manufacturing, and Retail. Average income is 34,213 Shadow Crystals, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Airports offer up-charged enemas, the working classes live and die on the fields of the farming communes, police spend their Saturday nights breaking up illegal street races, and war criminals are given full state funerals. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. ERAM MARE's national animal is the FRIEND, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

ERAM MARE is ranked 311,259^th in the world and 650^th in The UMNS for Largest Pizza Delivery Sector, scoring -12.69 on the Pepperoni Propulsion Productivity Index.