In the Gamma Age, people have come up with all sorts of ways to try to survive and recreate civilization. Misinterpretations of what people did in the Old World abound. One of the most unusual examples of this is
the Coop's alpacas. In many ways, the alpacas are like any other kind of livestock. The Coop uses or sells the alpacas' wool and milk, and on rare occasions their meat (this only happens if an alpaca must be put down due to injury or disease, and healthy, edible meat remains). Yet the Coop also uses their alpacas in a unique way.
The alpacas are the basis of the Coop's government.
Shares
The Coop is a "corprate cooprative" (some people may believe these words are misspellings of other words common in business, but this is not the case) and is run like a business. Coop members own shares in the community, and the more shares one owns, the more power one potentially possesses.
Owning a "Type A" share means owning an alpaca. ("Type B" shares also exist, but they bring with them no say in the running of the Coop or any other benefits, and are widely regarded by people in the rest of
Taebur as a scam.) Every alpaca represents one Type A share. Only people who are permanent residents of the Coop may acquire and own alpacas, and the Coop has made a concerted effort to ensure that they own all alpacas in Taebur. If any alpacas are ever discovered in the possession of non-Coop residents, the Coop will send operatives to "liberate" the alpacas and "bring them into the fold". In other words, they'll steal the alpacas and run off with them. However, this is only theoretical. As of the start of 98 AF, it has never happened.
Acquiring Alpacas
Every child who has at least one parent (either natural or adoptive) who is a shareholder receives one complimentary alpaca/share upon reaching 18, the age of adulthood. There are a couple of caveats to this, however. The recipient must be a current resident (defined as someone who travels in the company of the Coop) and cannot have spent more than a year residing away from the Coop at any point prior to gaining their first alpaca. This complimentary alpaca must be claimed on or after the day of turning 18, but before turning 19. In cases where the exact date of birth is unknown, a best estimate is acceptable.
Gaining additional alpacas (and gaining the first for people who don't qualify for a complimentary alpaca at age 18) is a more complicated affair. Shareholders may sell or gift alpacas to other shareholders and/or residents that the Executive Council have declared to have gained the right to become shareholders. However, while this does happen from time to time (particularly if someone has decided to permanently leave the Coop, a situation which requires them to sell all their alpacas), it doesn't happen particularly often, since a decrease in the number of alpacas owned brings with it a commensurate decrease in wealth and power.
Breeding alpacas is a common way of increasing the number of alpacas a shareholder owns. This usually means making agreements with other shareholders in order to avoid inbreeding, since most people don't own more than a few alpacas. Those few shareholders who own enough, however, breed their own alpacas.
The best way to acquire more alpacas (particularly in large numbers) is through inheritance. When a shareholder dies, their alpacas are, by default, divided as evenly as possible between their children. If the alpacas cannot be divided evenly, the first of the remainder goes to the oldest child, the next to the second oldest, and so on. However, a shareholder with a written will can override this default division, and leave their alpacas to anyone of their choosing. The richest shareholders (the ones owning the largest number of alpacas in the Coop) generally use this option to leave all their alpacas to the same person, usually their spouse or one of their children. This helps ensure their family retains any political power they have.
This system of inheritance combined with the richest being able to breed their own alpacas tends to result in the same families retaining most of the wealth and political power in the Coop, and it can be extremely difficult for others to significantly increase their shares.
Alpaca Upkeep and Death
Shareholders are responsible for the care and upkeep of their own alpacas. However, it is permissible to pay others to do this for you, and this is what most shareholders tend to do. As such, there are some people in the Coop who make a good living caring for the alpacas while not owning many of their own.
Since the alpacas tend to gather in large groups (every alpaca is tagged so that there is never any confusion as to whose alpaca is whose), it is necessary for there to be oversight of these caretakers. For most of the Coop's history, this has been the job of the synthetic
R.A.N.C.H.E.R. , who reports directly to the CFO (currently
Naja Sereen).
Since alpacas are directly tied to wealth and political power in the Coop, most people are motivated to provide the best care for their alpacas. The Coop also has laws requiring a minimum level of care (recently made more stringent by Naja Sereen) that allow for the Council to charge shareholders who don't provide appropriate care and to seize their alpacas if necessary.
Nevertheless, even with the best care possible, alpacas do eventually die. An alpaca can potentially live into its mid-twenties (the oldest alpaca in the Coop lived to the age of 25; the current oldest is 19 as of May 98). However, life in the Gamma Age brings with it all kinds of dangers. The Coop has come under attack, on numerous occasions, from various beasts and mutant creatures that live in the desert or the southern plains of Taebur. These attacks do often result in the deaths of some alpacas. Disease and mutation can also take the lives of the alpacas, and the alpacas' caretakers have to vigilantly monitor everything the alpacas eat.
The death of an alpaca, for any reason, results in the loss of a share. However, if it is ever discovered that a shareholder has deliberately killed another shareholder's alpacas, the killer is immediately exiled from the Coop and their alpacas gifted to the shareholder(s) whose alpacas they killed. This has only happened twice (to the best of anyone's knowledge) in the Coop's history.
The Executive Council and Council Alpacas
The executive council is made up of 12 members. The head of the council is the "Council of Executives Overseer" or "CEO". Second to the CEO is the "Chief Fleecing Officer" or CFO, who is responsible for seeing to the care of all the alpacas in the Coop.
Holding a position on the executive council is dependent on the number of shares a shareholder owns. Whenever a position other than CEO or CFO becomes available (due to the death of a council member), the shareholder in the Coop with the most shares (not including those already on the council) is offered the position. If the shareholder turns the position down (a rare but not unknown event), the position is offered to the shareholder with the next largest number of shares. When the position of CFO or CEO becomes open, the same process is followed, except that other members of the council can qualify as well.
This system usually results in a spouse or child of the previous council member gaining the open position. However, this isn't always the case. A notable recent exception came after the death of
Ebdul Evrayl. Despite inheriting his father's shares,
Darmand Evrayl did not end up having the highest number of shares, and the position instead went to
Naja Sereen, who was not even a member of the council up to that point.
A position on the council is for life, even if a member's shares decrease after gaining the position. This can mean that there are shareholders in the Coop with more shares than people on the council. It can also mean that the CEO, who theoretically has more shares than anyone else, does not actually have the most shares (only that they had the most shares at the time of appointment).
Council Alpacas
The executive council collectively owns some alpacas instead of those alpacas having individual owners. These council alpacas do not count as shares for as long as they are owned by the council. The council uses these alpacas' wool and milk to help generate funds for the upkeep of the Coop itself. These council alpacas are also the source of the complimentary alpaca given to Coop children when they reach adulthood.
The number of alpacas owned by the council fluctuates over time, but is generally kept to around twenty or so. As of May of 98 AF, there are 18 council alpacas.
