The Kingdom of Rising Starr is a huge, safe nation, renowned for its barren, inhospitable landscape, frequent executions, and prohibition of alcohol. The hard-nosed, hard-working population of 327 million Rising Starrians are highly moralistic and fiercely conservative, in the sense that they tend to believe most things should be outlawed. People who have good jobs and work quietly at them are lauded; others are viewed with suspicion.

The medium-sized, moralistic government prioritizes Education, with Defense, Healthcare, and Law & Order also on the agenda, while Spirituality and Social Policy receive no funds. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 18.6%.

The powerhouse Rising Starrian economy, worth 21.3 trillion gems a year, is led by the Retail industry, with major contributions from Basket Weaving, Uranium Mining, and Pizza Delivery. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is 65,244 gems, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 234,669 per year while the poor average 12,983, a ratio of 18.1 to 1.

Cheese lovers have a case of the bleus, children are raised bilingual from an early age, the nation's once beautiful countryside has turned brown as farmers spray potent pesticides, and all government facilities are built in the subterranean citadel of Rising Starr City. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Rising Starr's national animal is the tiger, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Rising Starr is ranked 84,873^rd in the world and 59^th in Byzantion for Highest Foreign Aid Spending, scoring 326.02 on the Clooney Contribution Index.