The Third Empire of Eritria is a massive, cultured nation, ruled by Emperor Matthew Palaiologos with an iron fist, and renowned for its rum-swilling pirates, avowedly heterosexual populace, and state-planned economy. The compassionate, cynical, devout population of 3.064 billion Eritrians 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 large, corrupt, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of New Athens. The average income tax rate is 92.3%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Eritrian economy, worth 525 trillion Drachmaes 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 Tourism industry, with significant contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Information Technology, and Book Publishing. Average income is an impressive 171,351 Drachmaes, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Heretic deviants are free to practice their deviance outside of Eritria, police officers that upset their bosses get assigned to 24 hour stakeouts of bike sheds, doctors prescribe videos of political debates to patients with insomnia, and bored politicians often entertain themselves with games of Simon during important votes. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Eritria's national animal is the Phoenix, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Christian Orthodox.

Eritria is ranked 14,278^th in the world and 340^th in the South Pacific for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 338.04 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.