The State of Blue Thorn is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, renowned for its punitive income tax rates, suspicion of poets, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 31.92 billion Blue Thornians are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, corrupt, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized morass — juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Spirituality. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Capital Heights. The average income tax rate is 72.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The large but stagnant Blue Thornian economy, worth 110 trillion betales 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 slick, highly efficient, highly specialized black market in Trout Farming, Soda Sales, 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 3,473 betales, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Teenagers are sent to jail for being out too late, suppression of pro-democracy protests is a daily occurrence, a major religion has been named as Blue Thorn's national religion, and Blue Thorn has designated Capital Heights as its capital city. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Blue Thorn's national animal is the deer, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Blue Thorn is ranked 267,776^th in the world and 8^th in Western Sahara for Highest Food Quality, scoring 6.9 on the Meeshlin-Starr Index.