The Combine of Universal Union is a massive, safe nation, ruled by Consul Marc Kinnison with an iron fist, and renowned for its compulsory military service, irreverence towards religion, and punitive income tax rates. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 4.334 billion Universal Unionists are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The enormous, moralistic, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of City One. The average income tax rate is 66.7%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The large but inefficient Universal Unionist economy, worth 164 trillion social credits 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 a slick, highly efficient black market in Automobile Manufacturing, Tourism, Trout Farming, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. 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 38,050 social credits, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Military pilots spend more time scraping feathers off their engines than flying their aircraft, lobster tastes best when it is red, the "Dreadnowt" is the pride and joy of the Universal Unionist Navy, and UFO sightings are listed daily in the morning news. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Universal Union's national animal is the crab and its national religion is transcendence.

Universal Union is ranked 101,553^rd in the world and 2^nd in The Populace of Overachieving Peoples for Most Primitive, scoring -17.45 on the Scary Big Number Scale.