The Great Congregation of Brethren is a massive, cultured nation, renowned for its teetotalling pirates, museums and concert halls, and prohibition of alcohol. The compassionate, devout population of 1.391 billion Brethren are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

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

The Brethren economy, worth 109 trillion tokens 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 led by the Book Publishing industry, with major contributions from Beef-Based Agriculture and Tourism. Average income is 78,772 tokens, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Genocide is seen as a topic best avoided in history lessons, government buildings are being cleansed of anything that might have racist connotations, nudity is frowned upon, and referenda can be called for any law at the request of at least one third of the voting population. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Brethren's national animal is the Seagull, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Dolphinism.

Brethren is ranked 143,541^st in the world and 6,200^th in The East Pacific for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 8.08 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.