The Holy Empire of Summitstead is a huge, orderly nation, notable for its compulsory military service, irreverence towards religion, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 351 million Summitsteadians 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 medium-sized, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Education, Welfare, and Defense. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 26.6%.

The sizeable but inefficient Summitsteadian economy, worth 13.3 trillion pesos a year, is fairly diversified and led by the Tourism industry, with major contributions from Information Technology, Furniture Restoration, and Uranium Mining. Black market activity is notable. State-owned companies are common. Average income is 37,778 pesos, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 124,502 per year while the poor average 8,583, a ratio of 14.5 to 1.

Slavers are real nutters, the nation is completely gun-free, military spending is on the increase, and Summitstead is renowned for its lax gun laws. Crime, especially youth-related, is well under control, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Summitstead's national animal is the axolotl, which frolics freely in the nation's sparkling oceans.

Summitstead is ranked 238,197^th in the world and 11^th in The Democratic States of NS for Most Subsidized Industry, scoring 138.23 on the Gilded Widget Scale.