The Republic of Qastari is a gargantuan, safe nation, ruled by Ariya Mareqi with an even hand, and remarkable for its state-planned economy, smutty television, and compulsory gun ownership. The compassionate, cheerful population of 16.864 billion Qastarians are fiercely patriotic and enjoy great social equality; they tend to view other, more capitalist countries as somewhat immoral and corrupt.

The enormous, corrupt, socially-minded government juggles the competing demands of Education, Healthcare, and Administration. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Drakhas. The average income tax rate is 99.3%.

The frighteningly efficient Qastarian economy, worth a remarkable 3,309 trillion Qastari Dollars a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector, which is quite specialized, is mostly made up of the Information Technology industry, with significant contributions from Tourism, Arms Manufacturing, and Book Publishing. Average income is an impressive 196,258 Qastari Dollars, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

A favorite "life hack" for gap year backpackers is to pretend to be homeless for government handouts, government fact-checkers use surprising amounts of high explosive, home renovation projects take decades to complete, and young children are learning advanced physics to scientifically disprove the existence of Santa Claus. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Qastari's national animal is the Snake, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Qastari is ranked 3,514^th in the world and 1^st in Selene for Most Scientifically Advanced, scoring 656.6 on the Kurzweil Singularity Index.