The Cornelian Dominion of Maritzal is a titanic, orderly nation, ruled by Cornelius I with an iron fist, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, barren, inhospitable landscape, and free-roaming dinosaurs. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 21.615 billion Maritzalians are ruled with an iron fist by the corrupt, dictatorship government, which oppresses anyone who isn't on the board of a Fortune 500 company. Large corporations tend to be above the law, and use their financial clout to gain ever-increasing government benefits at the expense of the poor and unemployed.

The tiny, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Defense, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Meridian. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 58.5%.

The frighteningly efficient Maritzalian economy, worth an astonishing 11,642 trillion Pistas a year, is led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Retail, Arms Manufacturing, and Book Publishing. Black market activity is rampant. Average income is a breathtaking 538,622 Pistas, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 1,847,890 per year while the poor average 115,227, a ratio of 16.0 to 1.

Baby boys who pick up pink crayons are sent to a psychiatric ward, children are made painfully aware that mommy and daddy love each other more than them, scientists regularly clone human beings for research purposes, and labour strikes are routinely squashed by police. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Maritzal's national animal is the Cat, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is The Order Of Our Lord Cornelius.

Maritzal is ranked 331,961^st in the world and 920^th in Europe for Safest, scoring 1.54 on the Bubble-Rapp Safety Rating.