The Concordium of Independent Planets is a gargantuan, genial nation, ruled by Chief Executive Mark Halpert with an even hand, and remarkable for its zero percent divorce rate, triple-decker prams, and rampant corporate plagiarism. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful, devout population of 36.004 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, socially-minded 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 12,245 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 340,122 credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Strip mining of rare earth metals is up while back problems are down, autopsies often involve only cursory examination, sexually-starved male dinosaurs terrorise tourists during weekly breakouts from Mesozoic Park, and 100-year-old politicians are now a thing of the past. 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 992^nd in the world and 3^rd in Texas for Most Beautiful Environments, with 4,592.93 pounds of wildlife per square mile.