The Dominion of Bardo is a titanic, efficient nation, ruled by The Shepherd with an iron fist, and notable for its national health service, aversion to nipples, and free-roaming dinosaurs. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 13.181 billion Bardoans are ruled by a mostly-benevolent dictator, who grants the populace the freedom to live their own lives but watches carefully for anyone to slip up.

The medium-sized, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Industry, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Sanctum. The average income tax rate is 95.7%.

The frighteningly efficient Bardoan economy, worth a remarkable 5,154 trillion utopis a year, is broadly diversified and mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Information Technology, Retail, Uranium Mining, and Woodchip Exports. Average income is an amazing 391,020 utopis, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 1,414,015 per year while the poor average 77,166, a ratio of 18.3 to 1.

The right to counsel goes both ways, the government is a law unto itself, when flight control tells pilots to alter course the usual reply is "No, YOU move!", and the government is attempting to revitalize a gutted private sector. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Bardo's national animal is the crystal giant, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Second Dawn.

Bardo is ranked 1,119^th in the world and 1^st in Alvarez for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring 9,899.77 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.