The Most Serene Republic of Bertaeyn is a very large, cultured nation, renowned for its museums and concert halls, irreverence towards religion, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic population of 143 million Bertaeynians are free to do what they want with their own bodies, and vote for whomever they like in elections; if they go into business, however, they are regulated to within an inch of their lives.

The large, liberal, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Welfare, Education, and Healthcare. The average income tax rate is 57.8%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The sizeable but stagnant Bertaeynian economy, worth 2.50 trillion Balkabits a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector is led by the Tourism industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Basket Weaving, and Pizza Delivery. Average income is 17,490 Balkabits, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

An increasing percentage of the population's youth have homosexual parents, orphans would rather live their life of luxury than be adopted by prospective parents, children are raised bilingual from an early age, and the government seeks peaceful forum with terrorists. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Bertaeyn's national animal is the Black Cat, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Bertaeyn is ranked 166,700^th in the world and 3,552^nd in the South Pacific for Most Advanced Public Education, scoring 1,078.44 on the Edu-tellignce® Test Score.