The series portrays the eventful lives of the Australian ambassador and his staff in Ragaan, an imaginary South East Asian military dictatorship (not unlike Myanmar), with elements of office politics, Australian and Ragaan's 'real' domestic politics, diplomacy as Australia is the closest strictly western regional major power with significant economic (mainly oil) interests, corruption, drug trade and other smuggling, cultural differences, the 'consular' affairs of citizens from or going to Australia, asylum seekers.