The Mega-Lyceum of Kharostia is a colossal, efficient nation, ruled by Professor-General Istvan Batory with an iron fist, and remarkable for its keen interest in outer space, compulsory military service, and restrictive gun laws. The compassionate, cynical, humorless, devout population of 5.166 billion Kharostie 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 enormous, corrupt government juggles the competing demands of Education, Law & Order, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of New Budapest Central Lyceum. The average income tax rate is 90.4%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Kharostian economy, worth 601 trillion Textbooks a year, is quite specialized and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Tourism, and Basket Weaving. Average income is an impressive 116,421 Textbooks, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.1 times as much as the poorest.

Baby dolls thrown in the trash are a leading cause of panic attacks, police protocol is to arrest anyone who looks a bit foreign, slavery has been abolished, and everyone hates people who encourage hate. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Kharostia's national animal is the Kharostin Writable Penguin, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans, and its national religion is Church of Textbooks.

Kharostia is ranked 276,545^th in the world and 10,256^th in Osiris for Largest Insurance Industry, scoring -10.3 on the Risk Expulsion Effectiveness Rating.