Barter

History

Barter is an isolated island nation, that has been in existence in one form or another for nearly two hundred years. Barter was originally founded by early traders who were travelling around the world by ship, transporting cargo from the new world.

When the traders suffered serious damage to their vessel after a storm, they chose to anchor at a small and uninhabited island nearby. Due to the ill health of many of the traders and the low odds of the cargo ship (The Barter) returning to civilisation, around a hundred merchants (and in many cases their newly acquired brides) decided to stay on the island and form a new nation: The Dominion of Barter.

After several years another ship approached Barter, offering a return to civilisation for those who wished to return and for the remainder an opportunity to begin trading with the outside world.

After the traders visit to Barter, it quickly became apparent that the inhabitants of Barter had made the correct decision to stay, especially as ‘The Barter’ never returned to civilisation, with the remainder of its passengers and crew losing their lives.

Barter established a particular strength in the exportation of materials such as wood and in later years moved to car manufacturing and Information Technology, while very slowly begining to develop as a nation.

However the isolated location of Barter and the struggle to both import and export goods, combined with problems such as attacks by pirates meant that Barter didn’t really begin growing until well into the 20th century.

The population of Barter reached 5 million by the early 21st century, and rapid growth had been promised by the current political leaders, both in terms of population and wealth.

Governemnt

Barter has always been governed by traders, right from the early days.

Historically the most powerful business leaders would establish their own political party, and those who had the most wealth and influence tended to win the election to become President, although this tends to lead to the St John dynasty having political control over Barter. The Dominion of Barter has a simple political system with relatively few MPs and a traditionally comparatively efficient government.

Barter has nearly always been ruled by the senior member of the St John empire, and it has traditionally enjoyed political stability and freedom, with the electorate knowing that their leaders (the St John clan) are more interested in making money than war. Whilst Barter has always been comparatively wealthy with an impressive GDP per capita and excellent lifestyle for most citizens, its social welfare is often lamentable as sometimes are its political freedoms, yet the majority of the population are contented to trade this in for a comfortable life-style.

Additional information

Notable dates

• Christmas (24/25/26 December – three day holiday)
• New Year (30/31 December & 1/2 January – four day holiday)
• Bank holiday on 1st Monday of each month (not January)
• Landing day (22nd October) day original traders discovered Barter.

Government positions

• President – Max St-John: also chairman of St John industries.
• Vice-President & Minister of Regions – Jonathan St-John *
• Chancellor & Minister of Commerce – Carl St-John *
• Home secretary & Minister of Security - Alex St-John *
• Foreign & Defence secretary – Will I.B Hurt
• Minsiter of Health & Sickness – Dr Ian Ailing-Moore
• Minister of Education & Development – Professor Emma English
• Minister of Marginal & Constituitional Affairs: – Nick St-John.

• Jonathan, Carl, Alex & Nick are younger brothers of Max St John.

Ethnic groups

• European: 85%
• Asian: 5%
• African: 5%
• Other: 5%

Religions

• Atheist/agnostic: 50%
• Christian (any denominations): 40%
• Other (many minorities): 10%

Demographics

0 – 3: 16%

4 – 8: 14%

9 – 14: 12%

15 – 24: 20%

25 – 44: 16%

45 – 64: 14%

65 + 8%

Compulsory education starts at the age of four and finished at fifteen in Barter. Standard retirement age is 65.

Other (irrelevant) facts about Barter:

Language spoken is English, resulting from founding by English traders.

Major industries are automobile manufacturing, Information Technology and Soda Sales industries.

Millitary

Given Barter’s tiny yet rapidly expanding population, the government have decided to set a quota of 1% of the total population (2% of the workforce) to be recruited into the armed forces, which concentrate on defence and border control.

The government of Barter have enlisted a 'reserve' army of the same size as the 'regular' army, so that in times of need a further 1% of the total population serve the armed forces.

Around a third of the troops in Barter's armed forces provide support functions such as logistics and medical aid.

Barter's armed forces are divided into:

Army (40% of troops) Navy (40% of troops) Air Force (20% of troops)

Barter is currently in the processing of developing its own equipment for its growing defence forces. Some equipment such as that below is still bought in.

Equipment currently includes:

AA-8 Aphid - (missiles) x 1000 AA-10 Alamo - (missiles) x 1000 AA-11 Archer - (missiles) x 1000 LAV Ambulance (LAV-A) x 10 M1078 Standard Cargo Truck x 100 BTR-80 Armoured Personnel Carrier x 10 SA-19 Grisom x (Anti-aircraft truck)x 10 C-71 'Progeny' strategic airlift (aircraft) x 200 B1-B Lancer (VERY heavy bomber) x 100 F-117A NightHawk (Stealth Fighter) x 100 Walther P99 Tactical Knife x 3m FNP-90 (Machine gun) x 100,000 Steyr IWS 2000 (Scaled down tank cannon rifle) x 100,000

Barter's domestically engineered weapons include:

The BDF/FB1 (fighter/bomber) x 40000

The BDF/FBT (Trainer version of above) x 4000

The BDF/VT1 (Tank) x 200,000

The SuperShot (G1 - rifle) x 20m

The SuperShot (G2 - automatic pistol) x 20m

The BDF/SM1 'BattleCruiser' (Heavy cruiser/carrier) x 125

The BDF/SM2 'BattleCarrier' (Super heavyweight carrier) x 125

The BDF/SM3 'SuperCruiser' (heavyweight cruiser) x 250

The BDF/SM4 'LightCruiser' (light cruiser) x 250

The BDF/SM5 'LookOut' (Patrol Ship) x 250

The BDF/H1 'SuperChopper' (battleship helicopter) x 4000

The BDF/H2 'MultiTask' (troop carrying/fighter chopper) x 3000

The BDF/H3 'Search & Seek' (Rescue helicopter) x 1000

The BDF/K1 'SharpCut' Tactical Battle Knife x 10m.