The Oppressed Peoples of Next Meal is a gargantuan, orderly nation, ruled by Bad Bessie with an iron fist, and remarkable for its public floggings, lack of airports, and aversion to nipples. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 10.787 billion Next Mealians are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The enormous, corrupt, well-organized government prioritizes Administration, although Industry, Healthcare, and Environment are also considered important, while Welfare receives no funds. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of The Pasture. The average income tax rate is 99.7%.

The frighteningly efficient Next Mealian economy, worth a remarkable 3,729 trillion Helping Hands 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 an enormous, deeply entrenched, quite specialized black market in Retail, Furniture Restoration, Uranium Mining, and Basket Weaving. 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 345,728 Helping Hands, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Religious epiphanies are often cited as a reason for high school drop-outs, foreign policy often involves bullwhips and leather, dining out often involves Handsy Humans on the plate no matter what you order, and a signed affidavit from a prominent anti-corruption advocate declares that he is in fact a crook after all. Crime is so common that it is unusual to encounter someone following the law, perhaps because of the country's complete lack of prisons. Next Meal's national animal is the Handsy Human, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Next Meal is ranked 294,324^th in the world and 842^nd in 10000 Islands for Lowest Crime Rates, with 1.7 law-abiding acts per hour.