The Empire of Marsche is a colossal, genial nation, renowned for its lack of airports, state-planned economy, and restrictive gun laws. The compassionate, democratic, devout population of 5.037 billion Marscheans enjoy great social freedoms and frequent elections, where the majority of the populace regularly votes to increase its benefits at the expense of various hapless minorities.

The government — a sprawling, bureaucracy-choked, moralistic, outspoken morass — juggles the competing demands of Spirituality, Welfare, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Marshal City. The average income tax rate is 85.6%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The large but inefficient Marschean economy, worth 140 trillion seaweeds 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 a slick, highly efficient, extremely specialized black market in Tourism and Gambling. 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 27,801 seaweeds, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Sleeping on the job is recommended, delicate flowers faint at news of house plants being eaten, the religious lobby has the power of veto over health initiatives, and the National Archive now covers square miles of warehouses in order to accommodate its new stone tablets system. 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. Marsche's national animal is the tadpole, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Marsche is ranked 87,485^th in the world and 9^th in Antarctic Oasis for Lowest Crime Rates, with 67.54 law-abiding acts per hour.