The Community of Harmonious Optimization is a tiny, safe nation, remarkable for its barren, inhospitable landscape, compulsory military service, and suspicion of poets. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 10 million Harmonious Optimizationians 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 enormous, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Administration. The average income tax rate is 71.5%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The developing Harmonious Optimizationian economy, worth 312 billion 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 led by the Arms Manufacturing industry, with significant contributions from Automobile Manufacturing, Door-to-door Insurance Sales, and Book Publishing. Average income is 31,293 dollars, and distributed extremely evenly, with little difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Military doctrine says not to open fire until you see the "beady little eyes" of Johnny Foreigner, the automotive industry soaks up huge government handouts, citizens are barcoded to keep track of their movements, and the nation's official head of religious affairs is an atheist. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Harmonious Optimization's national animal is the armadillo, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation.

Harmonious Optimization is ranked 234,336^th in the world and 37^th in QA nerds for Highest Unexpected Death Rate, scoring 29.29 on the Bus Surprisal Index.