The Mercenary of Hero Ike is a colossal, efficient nation, ruled by Greil with an iron fist, and remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, feral children, and prohibition of alcohol. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 9.904 billion Heroes 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 medium-sized, corrupt, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Law & Order, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Crimea. The average income tax rate is 73.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Ikean economy, worth a remarkable 2,244 trillion golds a year, is quite specialized and mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Retail, Uranium Mining, Information Technology, and Arms Manufacturing. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an amazing 226,600 golds, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.7 times as much as the poorest.

Airplanes have giant grilles on their noses to knock drones out of their path, record sales of 'child-whacking sticks' have been reported, grumpy old house owners demand that pedestrians get off their footpaths, and praying before a battle is a court-martial offence. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Hero Ike's national animal is the horse, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is Cards.

Hero Ike is ranked 106,544^th in the world and 3^rd in Confederation of New lands for Lowest Crime Rates, with 65.1 law-abiding acts per hour.