The Republic of Galdona is a huge, safe nation, remarkable for its state-planned economy, daily referendums, and irreverence towards religion. The compassionate, democratic population of 597 million Galdonans 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 Administration, Education, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Echelon. The average income tax rate is 76.2%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The very strong Galdonan economy, worth 42.8 trillion gilders 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 Tourism industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Book Publishing, and Arms Manufacturing. Average income is 71,624 gilders, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Leader has no checks and balances after the upper house was abolished, midnight raids drag couples from their homes in the name of decency, money grows on trees, and saying "don't do anything that Leader wouldn't do" doesn't exclude a great deal. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Galdona's national animal is the falcon, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies.

Galdona is ranked 58,819^th in the world and 1,243^rd in the South Pacific for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 128.08 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.