The Commonwealth of Kirkas is a mammoth, cultured nation, ruled by Premier Ochas Valo II with a fair hand, and renowned for its compulsory vegetarianism, punitive income tax rates, and restrictive gun laws. The compassionate, democratic population of 8.025 billion Kirkasians are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Paistaa. The income tax rate is 100%.

The frighteningly efficient Kirkasian economy, worth a remarkable 1,884 trillion electrums a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing, Tourism, and Basket Weaving. Average income is an amazing 234,768 electrums, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Paistaa spends billions upgrading public transport, children are often observed making 'sand angels' in bunkers, space shuttles are lying silent on the runway till the Space Agency can work out how to fit a creche and a meditation room into their next spacecraft, and they say that Kirkasians made a dessert and called it peace. Crime is totally unknown. Kirkas's national animal is the mountain bluebird, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Kirkas is ranked 561^st in the world and 21^st in The Communist Bloc for Nicest Citizens, with 110.37 average smiles per day.