The Roll of Tape is a titanic, efficient nation, ruled by The Card Machine with an iron fist, and renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape, pith helmet sales, and keen interest in outer space. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 10.62 billion Tapeians enjoy great individual freedoms in everything except elections, which, where they exist at all, are populist shams for a dictatorship government that has no intention of ever giving up power.

The tiny, corrupt, pro-business government is primarily concerned with Industry, although Healthcare and Administration are also considered important, while Environment and Law & Order are ignored. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Aloria. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 7.5%.

The frighteningly efficient Tapeian economy, worth a remarkable 2,014 trillion Cards a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Retail industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Gambling, and Soda Sales. Black market activity is frequent. Average income is an impressive 189,696 Cards, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 575,106 per year while the poor average 48,656, a ratio of 11.8 to 1.

The native owl population is in permanent hibernation, old folks yearn for the days when young people saw bloodthirsty death matches with their own eyes instead of through a screen, there's a lot of hot air coming from the Capitol Building, and comic books avoid plot inconsistencies by removing the plot. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, perhaps because of the country's complete lack of prisons. Tape's national animal is the Sticky Snakes, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Violetism.

Tape is ranked 332,289^th in the world and 4,802^nd in The North Pacific for Most Advanced Law Enforcement, scoring -15.81 on the Orwell Orderliness Index.