Tux, pop. 220 million

Tux was a nation being slowly swallowed by sand. Its wealth and population had grown in inverse proportion to the depletion of its most valuable natural resource: water. As the water disappeared, wealth and power consolidated among a small class of ultra-rich, who could afford indulgences like Silhouette; leaving a massive, impoverished, and precariously employed service class, many of whom left Tux seeking opportunities in Vetiver and Sel. (Economists in Tux greatly underestimated the degree to which the country's economy was buttressed by remittances from Tuxedo residents working abroad.) As in other instances of minority rule, the party in power maintained its dominance by declaring martial law, nationalizing the media, skipping election cycles, and creating a domestic militia to terrorize the population into submission.

Tux's dwindling population retreated continually inward, toward the heart of the nation's largest cities, while the deserted outlying districts succumbed, one by one, to the relentless sand. These partially buried perimeter regions were collectively known as Penumbra. Though Penumbra was a haven for illicit ventures like cockfighting and drug dealing, it also gave rise to a serviceable barter economy, through which residents could access necessities like rudimentary medical care, as well as indulgences like karaoke. Perhaps most importantly, a nascent pro-democracy opposition party was gaining traction in the sand-strewn streets.

The Tuxedo prime minister recognized this threat, and ordered his militia to increase the frequency and brutality of raids in Penumbra. But thanks to sources embedded deep within Tuxedo civil service, Penumbra residents usually had enough advance notice to clear out before they arrived. By the time agents were bursting out of their armored vehicles, all that remained for them to find were taunting messages, like smiley faces scrawled with human shit, or plastic bags full of old dildos.