The Colony of Contraption is a huge, genial nation, remarkable for its public floggings, parental licensing program, and prohibition of alcohol. The compassionate, democratic, devout population of 809 million Contraptionians love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

The medium-sized, socially-minded, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Education, Law & Order, and Healthcare. The average income tax rate is 32.3%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but inefficient Contraptionian economy, worth 27.7 trillion Diamonds a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is led by the Beef-Based Agriculture industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Trout Farming, and Tourism. Average income is 34,192 Diamonds, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.4 times as much as the poorest.

A National Academy regulates grammar and usage, the government is financing an extremely costly war against malaria, clerics are taught that silence is golden and duct tape is silver, and trade policy consists of ganging up on the new guy. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Contraption's national animal is the Zombie, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Contraption is ranked 296,844^th in the world and 10^th in IxCraft for Most Cultured, scoring 49 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.