The Duchy of Esoteric Thought is a titanic, cultured nation, ruled by Aoife Cumascaigh with an even hand, and renowned for its sprawling nuclear power plants, rampant corporate plagiarism, and parental licensing program. The hard-nosed, hard-working, humorless, devout population of 22.549 billion Esoteric 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 medium-sized, corrupt, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Dunanry. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 61.0%.

The frighteningly efficient Esoteric economy, worth a remarkable 4,408 trillion bezants a year, is mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Tourism, Retail, Book Publishing, and Arms Manufacturing. Average income is an impressive 195,491 bezants, with the richest citizens earning 7.4 times as much as the poorest.

Senior professors are allowed to skip the wait at soup kitchens, making up random numbers to name new asteroids is the bulk of astronomers' work, the subway is dead quiet in early afternoons, and lovesick people are told 'it's not them, it's you'. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Esoteric Thought's national animal is the raven, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies, and its national religion is Somethingism.

Esoteric Thought is ranked 11,790^th in the world and 3^rd in Imperial Britain for Most Developed, scoring 89.63 on the Human Development Index.