Nation/Ryand

The Colony of Ryand is a huge, orderly nation, renowned for its compulsory military service, state-planned economy, and irreverence towards religion. The hard-nosed, cynical population of 322 million Ryandians are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources."

The large government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Law & Order, and Industry. The average income tax rate is 44.5%, but much higher for the wealthy.

The Ryandian economy, worth 12.8 trillion Imperial Credits 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, quite specialized black market in Arms Manufacturing, Tourism, Uranium Mining, and Door-to-door Insurance Sales. 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 39,771 Imperial Credits, and evenly distributed, with the richest citizens earning only 3.0 times as much as the poorest.

Surveillance cameras are banned, mantis shrimp studies is academia's fastest growing field, tech-mad citizens think that the laser-powered bread-slicer uPhone App is the coolest thing since sliced bread, and the working classes live and die on the fields of the farming communes. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to the all-pervasive police force. Ryand's national animal is the Bald Eagle, which can occasionally be seen dodging aircraft in the nation's cities.