The Republic of Arty 9 is a very large, safe nation, remarkable for its multi-spousal wedding ceremonies, digital currency, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, devout population of 355 million Arty 9ians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The medium-sized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Administration, and Defense. The average income tax rate is 31.1%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but underdeveloped Arty 9ian economy, worth 11.7 trillion Colors a year, is quite specialized and led by the Arms Manufacturing industry, with major contributions from Door-to-door Insurance Sales, Book Publishing, and Cheese Exports. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 33,019 Colors, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Aggravated apostrophe abusers are admonished and assaulted, the easiest method of escaping from prison is to take singing lessons, child labor has been outlawed, and nobody is allowed to stop the local daycare from reading Nietzsche to pre-schoolers. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Arty 9's national animal is the Butterfly, which can occasionally be seen dodging aircraft in the nation's cities.

Arty 9 is ranked 222,015^th in the world and 113^th in Card Mine of Arty for Most Eco-Friendly Governments, scoring 279.3 on the Dolphin Recycling Awareness Index.