The Ephemeral Rifts of Transtemporal Shifts is a gargantuan, socially progressive nation, ruled by the Transtemporal Federal Council with a fair hand, and remarkable for its sprawling nuclear power plants, anti-smoking policies, and hatred of cheese. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful population of 16.915 billion Transtemporal Travelers 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, liberal, socially-minded, outspoken government prioritizes Education, with Healthcare, Environment, and Welfare also on the agenda, while Spirituality and Defense receive no funds. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Eterne. The average income tax rate is 96.7%.

The frighteningly efficient Transtemporal economy, worth a remarkable 2,580 trillion Plancks a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is highly specialized, is led by the Tourism industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing and Information Technology. Average income is an impressive 152,561 Plancks, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Young girls aren't having a ball but they are enjoying themselves, modelling agencies send their clients to work in nursing homes, old dogs don't have to learn new tricks but they have to prove they haven't forgotten old ones, and astronauts take one small step for Transtemporal Shifts and one giant step backward from confrontation. Crime is totally unknown. Transtemporal Shifts's national animal is the Space Whale, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans, and its national religion is nonexistent.

Transtemporal Shifts is ranked 290,025^th in the world and 5,442^nd in the South Pacific for Largest Gambling Industry, scoring -29.33 on the Kelly Criterion Productivity Index.