Spotlight on:

The Cellular Chameleon of The Thing

“Who Goes There?”

Overview • Policies • People • Government • Economy • Rank • Trend • Cards

The Cellular Chameleon of The Thing is a gargantuan, efficient nation, ruled by RJ MacReady with an iron fist, and renowned for its avowedly heterosexual populace, otherworldly petting zoo, and free-roaming dinosaurs. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical, humorless, devout population of 10.586 billion Communicants are ruled by a mostly-benevolent dictator, who grants the populace the freedom to live their own lives but watches carefully for anyone to slip up.

The large, corrupt, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Administration, Industry, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of US Outpost 31. Citizens pay a flat income tax of 92.1%.

The frighteningly efficient Thingian economy, worth a remarkable 2,423 trillion Flamethrowers a year, is broadly diversified and mostly comprised of black market activity, especially in Retail, Uranium Mining, Furniture Restoration, and Information Technology. State-owned companies are reasonably common. Average income is an amazing 228,926 Flamethrowers, but there is a significant disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 658,246 per year while the poor average 63,274, a ratio of 10.4 to 1.

Dangerous criminals are often 'accidentally' sent on one-way trips to Maxtopia, little children cry as their rainbow drawings are seized by the Straight-Thought Police, citizens live in superstitious fear of the mysterious glowing clouds that float over The Thing, and penniless buskers are singing for their supper. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown, thanks to a capable police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. The Thing's national animal is the Alaskan Malamute, which teeters on the brink of extinction due to widespread deforestation, and its national religion is the Cult of the Spider Head.

The Thing is ranked 284,687^th in the world and 48^th in The Card Mine for Safest, scoring 5.54 on the Bubble-Rapp Safety Rating.

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