The Pacific Alpine Commonwealth of Mount Seymour is a gargantuan, safe nation, ruled by Prime Minister Nathaniel Gardiner with a fair hand, and notable for its museums and concert halls, national health service, and hatred of cheese. The compassionate, democratic, cheerful population of 11.152 billion Seymourians 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 government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, socially-minded, outspoken morass — juggles the competing demands of Education, Environment, and Welfare. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Fort-Frédéric-sur-le-Montagne. The average income tax rate is 98.5%.

The large but sluggish Seymourian economy, worth 654 trillion pounds a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is extremely specialized, is mostly made up of the Book Publishing industry, with major contributions from Tourism. Average income is 58,707 pounds, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Vital intelligence-gathering activities are put on hold as agents return home for seduction training and advanced poker instruction, people accuse the government of being in bed with Big Safety, prankster scientists legally change their names to silly pseudonyms before major discoveries, and nouveau riche farmers diligently take care of their golden calf herds. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Mount Seymour's national animal is the purple-spotted newt, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its national religion is Seymourian Humanistic Naturalism.

Mount Seymour is ranked 234,506^th in the world and 422^nd in Forest for Largest Cheese Export Sector, scoring -10.51 on the Mozzarella Productivity Index.