The United Communes of South Laudesia is a massive, efficient nation, ruled by Premier Julian Johnson with an even hand, and remarkable for its closed borders, barren, inhospitable landscape, and public floggings. The hard-nosed, humorless population of 4.091 billion South Laudesians are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The relatively small, corrupt, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of East Hades. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 30.2%.

The frighteningly efficient South Laudesian economy, worth 594 trillion Sterlings a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a large, well-organized, broadly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Woodchip Exports, Information Technology, and Uranium Mining. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is an impressive 145,297 Sterlings, with the richest citizens earning 5.5 times as much as the poorest.

Politicians accepting drinks in bars are executed for taking bribes, nobody is allowed to stop the local daycare from reading Nietzsche to pre-schoolers, a weakened police force struggles to maintain law and order, and the government tries not to listen to the people unless it absolutely has to. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. South Laudesia's national animal is the Eagle, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution.

South Laudesia is ranked 64,403^rd in the world and 22^nd in Autropolis for Smartest Citizens, with 38.19 quips per hour.