The Directorate of Valkalan is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by Director Vikko with an even hand, and remarkable for its ubiquitous missile silos, unlimited-speed roads, and complete absence of social welfare. The hard-nosed, hard-working, humorless population of 34.83 billion Valks are either ruled by a sleek, efficient government or a conglomerate of multinational corporations; it's difficult to tell which.

The tiny, corrupt, pro-business government juggles the competing demands of Education, Defense, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Ravingard. Income tax is unheard of.

The frighteningly efficient Valk economy, worth an astonishing 27,622 trillion Syns a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Retail, Arms Manufacturing, and Uranium Mining. Average income is a breathtaking 793,078 Syns, but there is a large disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 3,625,758 per year while the poor average 105,656, a ratio of 34.3 to 1.

The national security service are a bunch of crooks, other worlds are informed of limited-time sales millennia after they conclude, an aboriginal talking stick is used for leaders' debates at election time, and doughnut-makers claim their products are healthy because they are fortified with vitamins. Crime is totally unknown. Valkalan's national animal is the Orca, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to heavy metals seepage into national waterways.

Valkalan is ranked 1,578^th in the world and 1^st in Zarathustra for Largest Gambling Industry, scoring 15,546.37 on the Kelly Criterion Productivity Index.