The Corporate Federation of Maritzal is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by President Cornelius Crewes with an iron fist, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, deadly medical pandemics, and smutty television. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 16.405 billion Maritzalians 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 relatively small, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Law & Order, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Meridian. The average income tax rate is 96.2%.

The frighteningly efficient Maritzalian economy, worth a remarkable 9,331 trillion Pistas a year, is quite specialized and mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Information Technology, Retail, Arms Manufacturing, and Book Publishing. State-owned companies are common. Average income is a breathtaking 568,819 Pistas, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.9 times as much as the poorest.

Cute fluffy little President Cornelius Creweses are increasingly popular exotic pets, a blood-red mark on the doorframe means a building must be passed over for destruction, news headlines usually include p-values, and odysseying merchant sailors swear that they've heard sirens in the western seas. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Maritzal's national animal is the Cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Maritzal is ranked 8,159^th in the world and 127^th in Europe for Most Advanced Public Education, scoring 12,275.93 on the Edu-tellignce® Test Score.