The Republic of Nephai is a small, safe nation, renowned for its public floggings, state-planned economy, and stringent health and safety legislation. The hard-nosed, cynical, devout population of 23 million Nephaians 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 medium-sized, moralistic, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Law & Order, Defense, and Education. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 41.3%.

The developing Nephaian economy, worth 818 billion cans 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 black market in Information Technology, Tourism, Cheese Exports, and Basket Weaving. 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 35,569 cans, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 103,912 per year while the poor average 9,614, a ratio of 10.8 to 1.

Fancy dress parties are raided by military police for new recruits, AI chatbots generate grayscale images when asked for a picture of the truth, family trees become bare as entire branches are lopped off, and citizens seem fixated on 105m x 45m rectangles. Crime is almost non-existent, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Nephai's national animal is the camel, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

Nephai is ranked 108,779^th in the world and 136^th in Fifth Empire for Most Cultured, scoring 66 on the Snufflebottom-Wiggendum Pentatonic Scale.