The Democratic Republic of Rushenberg is a massive, cultured nation, ruled by John Rauschenberger with an even hand, and remarkable for its sprawling nuclear power plants, ban on automobiles, and pith helmet sales. The compassionate, hard-working, devout population of 2.092 billion Rushenbergs have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.

The large government juggles the competing demands of Education, Administration, and Environment. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Rausch City. The average income tax rate is 85.9%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Rushenbergian economy, worth 296 trillion pounds a year, is quite specialized and led by the Information Technology industry, with major contributions from Book Publishing, Tourism, and Basket Weaving. Average income is an impressive 141,789 pounds, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 2.8 times as much as the poorest.

People with political aspirations study how to make balloon animals, paralegals spend all day Hewlett-Packing attorneys' law briefs, streakers swamp all public events in order to bare it all, and the morbidly obese often sell stock options on their own corpses. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Rushenberg's national animal is the pig, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Catholicism.

Rushenberg is ranked 7,801^st in the world and 21^st in Thaecia for Most Developed, scoring 91.68 on the Human Development Index.