The Republic of Vuranda is a massive, cultured nation, ruled by Ellis Wolford with a fair hand, and remarkable for its sprawling nuclear power plants, national health service, and restrictive gun laws. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful population of 4.474 billion Vurandans are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The enormous, liberal, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Healthcare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Griphets. The average income tax rate is 97.9%.

The frighteningly efficient Vurandan economy, worth 775 trillion dollars 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 mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing and Tourism. Average income is an impressive 173,371 dollars, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Flight attendants rip down curtains with revolutionary fervor, the military is slashing spending on conventional arms and diverting it to spending on prosthetic arms, there is no other place with more lab coats per square mile than former houses of worship, and Vurandan novella fans become unusually flustered when thinking about Ellis Wolford. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Vuranda's national animal is the owl, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Vuranda is ranked 6,650^th in the world and 166^th in the South Pacific for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 493.57 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.