The Democracy of Merni is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by Emperor Xaranas IV with an even hand, and renowned for its museums and concert halls, frequent executions, and ban on automobiles. The compassionate, humorless population of 18.933 billion Mernians 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 Administration, Education, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Qersi. The average income tax rate is 99.1%.

The powerhouse Mernian economy, worth a remarkable 2,796 trillion koras a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector is solely comprised of the Book Publishing industry. Average income is an impressive 147,704 koras, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

New arrivals are asked the location of the Minister of the Interior's birthmark, Qersi University is said to be the modern-day Tower of Babel, the police crack down on tax evaders without mercy, and octogenarian swimsuit models insist that they've still got it. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Merni's national animal is the horse, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Merni is ranked 2,550^th in the world and 1^st in The Labyrinth for Most Cultured, scoring 231 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.