The Second Best Colony of Second Best Puppet 138 is a colossal, efficient nation, ruled by Noah with an even hand, and notable for its frequent executions, complete lack of prisons, and public floggings. The hard-nosed, hard-working, humorless, devout population of 8.18 billion Second Best Puppet 138ians are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The large, corrupt, moralistic government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Administration, and Industry. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 93.1%.

The frighteningly efficient Second Best Puppet 138ian economy, worth a remarkable 1,595 trillion cards a year, is broadly diversified and mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Retail, Information Technology, Book Publishing, and Uranium Mining. Average income is an impressive 195,089 cards, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 572,435 per year while the poor average 52,412, a ratio of 10.9 to 1.

Policy reversals are more often graceful demi-détournés than u-turns, sexuality-questioning teenagers are placed in locked rooms with dirty magazines and lewd posters, earthquake sirens are a leading cause of hearing loss, and they say that Second Best Puppet 138ians made a dessert and called it peace. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Second Best Puppet 138's national animal is the legendary, which is also the nation's favorite main course.

Second Best Puppet 138 is ranked 43,663^rd in the world and 2,296^th in Two for Largest Timber Woodchipping Industry, scoring 5,836.5 on the Tasmanian Pulp Environmental Export Index.