The Galactic Socialist Empire of The Dark Aether is a mammoth, orderly nation, ruled by Kortimex Exalor SD-N with an iron fist, and notable for its teetotalling pirates, lack of airports, and aversion to nipples. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 8.375 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."

It is difficult to tell where the omnipresent, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government stops and the rest of society begins, but it juggles the competing demands of Industry, Administration, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Der Eisendrache. The average income tax rate is 94.3%.

The frighteningly efficient Aetheran economy, worth a remarkable 1,211 trillion Aetheran Marks a year, is driven almost entirely by government activity, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is an enormous, deeply entrenched, highly specialized black market in Retail, Automobile Manufacturing, and Information Technology. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. State-owned companies are the norm. Average income is an impressive 144,716 Aetheran Marks, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.5 times as much as the poorest.

Baby boys who pick up pink crayons are sent to a psychiatric ward, hunters often become the hunted, schoolchildren learn basic numeracy by counting off their push-ups, and citizens who want to celebrate the holidays generally deck the halls with old newspaper trimmings and dirty socks. Crime is all-pervasive, perhaps because of the country's complete lack of prisons. The Dark Aether's national animal is the Cosmic Fox, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Umbrism.

The Dark Aether is ranked 326,565^th in the world and 195^th in United Kingdom for Least Corrupt Governments, with 18.76 percentage of bribes refused.