The Confederacy of Hertalin is a massive, genial nation, remarkable for its museums and concert halls, absence of drug laws, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic population of 2.309 billion Hertalinese 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 enormous, outspoken government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Healthcare. The average income tax rate is 88.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The powerhouse Hertalinese economy, worth 204 trillion pounds a year, is highly specialized and led by the Tourism industry, with major contributions from Trout Farming, Book Publishing, and Information Technology. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 88,769 pounds, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Asking what someone does for a living is considered a faux pax for being potentially jobist, H-SPAN viewership drops as MPs act their age, the Hertalin Enquirer offers weekly cash prizes for 'most blasphemous song, story, or cartoon', and teenagers are told they're not thinking about sex enough. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Hertalin's national animal is the dolphin, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans.

Hertalin is ranked 77,772^nd in the world and 53^rd in The Internationale for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 100.65 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.