The United Socialist States of Ver-land is a huge, genial nation, remarkable for its irreverence towards religion, punitive income tax rates, and devotion to social welfare. The compassionate population of 462 million Ver-landians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The enormous, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Defense, and Law & Order. The average income tax rate is 71.0%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but sluggish Ver-landian economy, worth 11.1 trillion Deutschkredits 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 Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Book Publishing, and Furniture Restoration. Average income is 24,059 Deutschkredits, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The latest Harry Potter book is a bestseller, spies caught red-handed are served cocktails on their first-class flights home, orphans would rather live their life of luxury than be adopted by prospective parents, and serial killers who are released early distribute death but not their seed. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Ver-land's national animal is the Fox, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Ver-land is ranked 274,148^th in the world and 7^th in The Ostblock for Largest Automobile Manufacturing Sector, scoring -9.7 on the Henry Ford Productivity Index.