The Thorny Rose of Bristla is a colossal, cultured nation, remarkable for its avant-garde cinema, daily referendums, and ubiquitous missile silos. The hard-nosed, hard-working population of 4.401 billion Bristlans 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 prioritizes Law & Order, although Administration, Industry, and Defense are also considered important, while Spirituality and Public Transport receive no funds. The average income tax rate is 16.7%.

The powerhouse Bristlan economy, worth 339 trillion dollars a year, is dominated by the Arms Manufacturing industry, with significant contributions from Woodchip Exports, Automobile Manufacturing, and Basket Weaving. Black market activity is frequent. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 77,248 dollars, with the richest citizens earning 5.1 times as much as the poorest.

Kids refer to anything below the neck as "the parts that shall not be named", riot police are stationed around paintings of violent protestors, domestic cruise ships fly the Bristlan flag out of fear of being blown up, and economists claim no news is good news. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Bristla's national animal is the kangaroo, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Bristla is ranked 69,540^th in the world and 310^th in the Plains of Perdition for Most Advanced Law Enforcement, scoring 4,109.8 on the Orwell Orderliness Index.