The Colonial Dominion of Serendipita Martia is a massive, orderly nation, ruled by Fabricator-Locum Conro Akos with an iron fist, and renowned for its ubiquitous missile silos, restrictive gun laws, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless population of 2.742 billion Martians 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 medium-sized, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Olympus Mons. The average income tax rate is 80.1%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Serendipita Martian economy, worth 584 trillion Gallows a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Uranium Mining, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. Black market activity is rampant. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an amazing 213,206 Gallows, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.3 times as much as the poorest.

Martians are regularly fired for looking at MyFace during their lunch breaks, the citizenship exam requires years of study to actually pass, recorded music can be rented but not bought from record companies, and pet owners make sure their dogs wear diapers. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Serendipita Martia's national animal is the Axolotypus, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is The Cult Mechanicus.

Serendipita Martia is ranked 5,733^rd in the world and 335^th in The North Pacific for Most Developed, scoring 92.95 on the Human Development Index.