The Commonwealth of HMS Lightning is a colossal, pleasant nation, renowned for its ritual sacrifices and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, hard-working population of 4.924 billion HMS Lightningians 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 government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Welfare, and Healthcare. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 18.7%.

The strong HMS Lightningian economy, worth 256 trillion Delta Eagles a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Gambling industry, with major contributions from Door-to-door Insurance Sales, Arms Manufacturing, and Tourism. Average income is 52,042 Delta Eagles, with the richest citizens earning 7.8 times as much as the poorest.

Political visitors are forced to stop ten paces from Leader's throne, street crime is on the rise as police officers spend most of their time in prisons, citizens are constantly disappointed to find their nuisance neighbours are still alive, and members of ethnic minorities are more often called "boy" or "girl" than by their actual names. Crime is moderate, possibly because it is difficult to make it through a day without breaking one of the country's many regulations. HMS Lightning's national animal is the Kitsune.

HMS Lightning is ranked 262,184^th in the world and 16^th in British Royal Navy for Most Cultured, scoring 61 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.