The Borderlands of Belistien is a gargantuan, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by Yuri Serbinaski IV with an iron fist, and notable for its pith helmet sales, punitive income tax rates, and stringent health and safety legislation. The cynical population of 24.391 billion Belistienians are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, corrupt, well-organized morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Belistien City. The average income tax rate is 97.2%.

The frighteningly efficient Belistienian economy, worth a remarkable 3,240 trillion Gold Beliens a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is highly specialized, is led by the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing and Tourism. Average income is an impressive 132,851 Gold Beliens, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Movie producers send film critics wads of cash in their morning newspapers in anticipation of gushing praise, cutting-edge missile systems are being retrofitted to twin-prop air force biplanes, trade policy consists of ganging up on the new guy, and one tree's worth of paperwork accompanies each imported log of timber. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Belistien's national animal is the Dread Hawk, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Belistien is ranked 5,290^th in the world and 5^th in A Taco Paradise for Lowest Crime Rates, with 115.19 law-abiding acts per hour.