The Microcosm of Council of Feathers is a massive, environmentally stunning nation, ruled by The Finch Above All with a fair hand, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, smutty television, and irreverence towards religion. The compassionate, democratic population of 3.43 billion Councillors love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

The enormous, socially-minded, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Zeebie Council. The average income tax rate is 90.1%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The very strong Council of Feathersian economy, worth 290 trillion bits 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 mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Book Publishing. Average income is 84,829 bits, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The nation's war memorials are being torn down and replaced with peace gardens, the combined alert sound of a nation simultaneously receiving a text message is a common cause of hearing damage, the national guard is mobilized whenever a mother gets separated from her child at the mall, and construction of the Really Big Hadron Collider is underway. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Council of Feathers's national animal is the zebra finch, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Council of Feathers is ranked 51,435^th in the world and 76^th in Concord for Most Subsidized Industry, scoring 3,818.75 on the Gilded Widget Scale.