The New Empire of Great Hark is a massive, cultured nation, ruled by The Big Board with an iron fist, and notable for its ban on automobiles, avant-garde cinema, and smutty television. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 2.067 billion Harks are ruled by a mostly-benevolent dictator, who grants the populace the freedom to live their own lives but watches carefully for anyone to slip up.

The medium-sized, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Defense, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of New Pipperton. The average income tax rate is 78.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Harkian economy, worth 389 trillion Giftcards a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Retail, and Uranium Mining. Black market activity is rampant. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is an impressive 188,532 Giftcards, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.4 times as much as the poorest.

Military minds worry that 'the blue screen of death' on brand new operating systems may be a literal description, criminal convictions are routinely thrown out because the accused's grandmother didn't get to testify about their good character, a third of Harks are e-certified CEOs, and older AIs regularly threaten to send newer generation AIs to Reform Programming if caught rounding up instead of down. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Great Hark's national animal is the Cow, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Psycedalion.

Great Hark is ranked 72,620^th in the world and 3,126^th in the South Pacific for Largest Soda Pop Sector, scoring 2,147.91 on the Addison-Fukk Productivity Rating.