The Cornelian Dominion of Maritzal is a titanic, cultured nation, ruled by Cornelius I with an iron fist, and renowned for its museums and concert halls, barren, inhospitable landscape, and free-roaming dinosaurs. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless population of 21.509 billion Maritzalians 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 tiny, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Defense, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Meridian. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 66.0%.

The frighteningly efficient Maritzalian economy, worth an astonishing 11,941 trillion Pistas a year, is mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Information Technology, Retail, Arms Manufacturing, and Book Publishing. Average income is a breathtaking 555,208 Pistas, with the richest citizens earning 9.6 times as much as the poorest.

Factories grind to a halt every time there is an election, politicians are often seen with soldiers pointing guns at their heads, urban graffiti is hand-calligraphed in perfectly kerned elegant fonts, and the nation is committed to nuclear rearmament. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, with the police force struggling against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Maritzal's national animal is the Cat, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is The Order Of Our Lord Cornelius.

Maritzal is ranked 5,327^th in the world and 99^th in Europe for Highest Poor Incomes, with 160,823.14 Standard Monetary Units.