The Concordium of Independent Planets is a gargantuan, genial nation, ruled by Chief Executive Mark Halpert with an even hand, and remarkable for its avant-garde cinema, rampant corporate plagiarism, and keen interest in outer space. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful, devout population of 34.742 billion Planetians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The enormous government juggles the competing demands of Education, Spirituality, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Saint Francis. The income tax rate is 100%.

The frighteningly efficient Planetian economy, worth an astonishing 11,769 trillion credits a year, is highly specialized and mostly made up of the Tourism industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing and Information Technology. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an amazing 338,765 credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

A soldier's body is a temple, home renovation projects take decades to complete, annual Formula One races bring the capital to a screeching halt, and the nation's atlases tend to go out of date every few weeks. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Independent Planets's national animal is the ox, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Independent Planets is ranked 919^th in the world and 3^rd in Texas for Most Beautiful Environments, with 4,566.59 pounds of wildlife per square mile.