The Grand Empire of Elyssae is a titanic, efficient nation, ruled by Queen-Paramount Anastasia Tenebrae with an iron fist, and remarkable for its frequent executions, strictly enforced bedtime, and punitive income tax rates. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 14.224 billion Elyssaeans are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The large, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Aeris. The average income tax rate is 97.6%.

The frighteningly efficient Elyssaean economy, worth a remarkable 2,997 trillion Rens a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is a slick, highly efficient, broadly diversified black market in Information Technology, Arms Manufacturing, Tourism, and Furniture Restoration. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is an amazing 210,721 Rens, but there is a large disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 1,004,556 per year while the poor average 25,976, a ratio of 38.7 to 1.

Colonial citizens are forced to sing the praise of the "Great Elyssaean Liberator", old people living in plastic bubbles complain about a new type of social isolation, the recycled air in planes is nauseating, and people with hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia faint upon diagnosis. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a very well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Elyssae's national animal is the Raven, which soars majestically through the nation's famously clear skies, and its national religion is Aedis Nocturne.

Elyssae is ranked 3,984^th in the world and 208^th in Osiris for Most Developed, scoring 95.97 on the Human Development Index.