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SERENITY ISLAND
Capital:
Catthorpe
HISTORY: Situated some 160 miles off
the North West coast of Brunswick. Before 1752, Serenity was a
wild, uninhabited volcanic island, although the volcano has not erupted for some
30,000 years. The countries of Brunswick
and Arransia annexed Serenity, then known as Harold’s Isle (after Harold
VI, Brunswick’s final monarch), as
a penal colony. There was a mens’ prison, and also a female prison, on the
island, separated by the wild forests and the foothills of the extinct volcano
in the centre. The men got the northern rocky coastline, and ended up doing brutal work
such as building and fishing. The women got the more sheltered southern sandy beaches. Therefore, the initial
inhabitants of Harold’s Isle were murderers, con-artists, unmarried mothers,
and numerous petty thieves. The name Serenity Island was originally coined as a
sarcastic nickname on the mainland, as at this time, the island was anything but
serene! The colony was subsequently
disbanded in the mid-1800’s when Arransia & Brunswick reformed their
prison systems. Whilst the convicts were free to go where they pleased at this
time, many decided to stay, and build lives for themselves in this fertile land
beyond their prison walls. Obviously, some of the men took partners from the
female population, and the seeds of a new independent colony were sowed. The penal colony’s final
governor, Brunswick’s Sir Gerald ‘Jerry’ Finkleson, decided to stay on and
lead the fledgling nation. Thus, on 1 January 1855, Sir Gerald signed the 1st
Charter of Independence from Brunswick & Arransia, witnessed by officials
from both lands, and thus became the First Governor of Serenity Island. This
historic moment took place at Sir Gerald’s residence, at the mouth of the Rio
Grand, on the South West tip of the island. The residence was developed into
Serenity’s first town, and subsequent capital city, Jerrytown, so named after
Sir Gerald. In 1876, history was made
again, when Prince Carl, youngest son of Arransia’s then monarch, King Malcolm
IV, took a wife from the local Serenity population, whilst convalescing in South
Beach whilst recovering from pneumonia. Serenity’s then Governor, Peter
Cadbury, was a fervent royalist, and encouraged Prince Carl and his consort,
Ruth, Duchess of Verne, to stay. With the blessing of the Royal House of Fraser
on Arransia, Serenity officially became a Principality on 1 January 1877. Life pottered on, with
Serenity’s road system becoming established in the early 1920’s. In 1940, Brunswick decided to
site a military base at the North East tip of the island, in preparation for the
Great War of 1942-49, much to the revulsion of the peaceful locals. Prince
Frederick, by then on the throne, only had limited powers, and these weren’t
enough to resist the far larger Brunswick’s military might, and thus, the base
remains to this day. Befitting the peaceful nature
of Serenians, today’s method of protest at Brunswick’s military intrusion is
also peaceful. Since the late 50’s, a large group of protestors have held a
vigil in the form of a ‘peace camp’ around the perimeter fence of the
facility. The current leader of the
peace camp is Eric Troyer (no resemblance to the singer of the same name and
appearance <wink>!), who is now renowned as one of the most heroic
Serenians who ever lived, for managing to get the Brunswick authorities to
abandon their proposals to do nuclear research and development at their Serenity
facility. He became very much a bugbear
of the facility, frequently scaling the fence, hanging up banners, organising
massive petitions against the facility from the islanders, and last but not
least, lying in the road, with his growing band of protestors, in front of a
military convoy into the facility, completely grid locking the roads in the
north of the island for nearly two days! Finally, in 1969, amid fears of a huge
conflict between Serenity and the mainland, not to mention huge embarrassment,
the plans were completely abandoned. Serenity’s first
motorway
opened in 1970, beginning at the Catthorpe Circle Road (A101) to the
South West.
Although officially the M1, the motorway is only known as this in
Serenity’s
road atlases. On road signs, at least until an M2 is built (plans have
been
afoot for many years, but have so far not come to fruition), the M1 is
known as
the Eric Troyer Parkway (or ET Parkway), in honour of the heroic peace
activist. 20 miles before the perimeter of the military base, in the
North
East, the Parkway ends at a small roundabout, where the A1, which has
criss-crossed
the motorway frequently, rejoins, and continues forward to the
perimeter as the
A1. At the perimeter there is another roundabout, which has been aptly
named
Troyer Island (featuring a 20ft bronze statue of Eric holding a dove in
the palm
of his hand, in the centre of the roundabout), where the A1 ends and
splits to
the A4, which goes along the southern coast, and the A5, which goes
along the
northern coast. Serenity’s current sovereign is Princess Catrina, who ascended to the throne as a shy single teenager in 1958, after the sudden and tragic death of her father, Prince Frederick III in a car crash. In 1964, at the age of 22, she married Brunswickian billionaire business tycoon Thorpe Mackay, then aged 35. Catrina is a well-respected sovereign, ready to mix with her people and take on public engagements. In Serenity’s most recent historical event, Jerrytown’s local council floated the idea of changing the capital’s name to Catthorpe (Cat+Thorpe) to honour the royal marriage. A national referendum overwhelmingly came back with the “Yes” vote, and the city’s name was changed to Catthorpe on 20 July 1964, the date of the Royal Wedding.
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