The Empire of Steamstate is a mammoth, efficient nation, ruled by Alexsteamer I with an iron fist, and remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, soft-spoken computers, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 6.594 billion Steamstateans are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The medium-sized, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of St SteamBurg. The average income tax rate is 71.8%.

The frighteningly efficient Steamstatean economy, worth a remarkable 1,686 trillion coals 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 an enormous, deeply entrenched, broadly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Information Technology, Uranium Mining, and Retail. 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 an amazing 255,758 coals, with the richest citizens earning 5.1 times as much as the poorest.

The military is slashing spending on conventional arms and diverting it to spending on prosthetic arms, Steamstate is increasingly belligerent on the international stage, not showing enough enthusiasm for mutual assured destruction is a court-martial offence, and power to the people comes from the barrel of a gun. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Steamstate's national animal is the Pigeon, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to toxic air pollution, and its national religion is Steam.

Steamstate is ranked 2,321^st in the world and 4^th in United Kingdom for Most Advanced Law Enforcement, scoring 15,810.78 on the Orwell Orderliness Index.