The Free Market Empire of Zerni is a gargantuan, cultured nation, ruled by Emperor Mishami with an iron fist, and remarkable for its museums and concert halls, barren, inhospitable landscape, and strictly enforced bedtime. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 35.545 billion Zernians are ruled without fear or favor by a psychotic dictator, who outlaws just about everything and refers to the populace as "my little playthings."

The tiny, corrupt, moralistic, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Industry, and Law & Order. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Zerni City. Income tax is unheard of.

The frighteningly efficient Zernian economy, worth an astonishing 15,449 trillion Credits a year, is broadly diversified and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Arms Manufacturing, Book Publishing, and Uranium Mining. Black market activity is rampant. State-owned companies are common. Average income is an amazing 434,638 Credits, with the richest citizens earning 6.8 times as much as the poorest.

Civil engineers are undermining sinkholes, scientists take credit every time it rains in Zernxi Sector, public ferries only carry enough lifeboats for the first-class passengers, and it's been a banner year for local vexillology. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, despite the fact that it is difficult to make it through a day without breaking one of the country's many laws. Zerni's national animal is the silver lynx, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is shinto.

Zerni is ranked 81,854^th in the world and 1^st in Zernxi Sector for Largest Trout Fishing Sector, scoring 3,517.89 on the Nemo Depletion Efficiency Index.