The United Socialist Republic of The Dark Aether is a massive, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by President Serial Designation N with an iron fist, and notable for its keen interest in outer space, soft-spoken computers, and absence of drug laws. The compassionate, cynical, humorless population of 4.374 billion Aetherans are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The enormous, corrupt government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Education, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Der Eisendrache. The average income tax rate is 90.6%.

The frighteningly efficient Aetheran economy, worth 557 trillion Aetherium Dollars 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 an enormous, deeply entrenched, quite specialized black market in Information Technology, Book Publishing, Arms Manufacturing, and Retail. 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 127,355 Aetherium Dollars, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.1 times as much as the poorest.

Every spring railroad foundations erode to reveal human remains, vacationers and business travelers are often warned that they may lose the right to vote if they spend too much time overseas, noble feuds don't end until one side gets their point across, and the government loves seeing the little people fight. Crime is totally unknown. The Dark Aether's national animal is the Hellhound, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Umbrism.

The Dark Aether is ranked 72,036^th in the world and 16^th in The Bar on the corner of every region for Most Authoritarian, with 1,305 milliStalins.