Author's Note
As many must have figured out by now, Crow's Nest is currently on hiatus. However, I do not wish to cease the worldbuilding aspect of that story, and feel that switching over to this as my new primary focus would be the best way for me to continue contributing to the VC community. Certain elements of the worldbuilding I've established in Crow's Nest and those of the official established lore itself are subject to change when absolutely necessary.
As always, please feel free to leave reviews and constructive criticism. They will help me improve my writing and worldbuilding moving forward.
March 1, 1943 EC
Dear Mr. Gutenberg,
Thank you so much for your warm wishes in your last letter! Yes, I completely agree with you that it will be so very strange to have to refer to me as "Koller" instead of "Ellet" now. I certainly will need a little bit of time to get accustomed to that, too, and I've known my husband for years already. And thank you plenty for the chocolate as well, it's finally back in stores after so long.
Now, down to business, shall we?
I do agree with you that the current draft I've sent you of my new book may be a bit scant in certain places, as much as it may be hard to believe given the sheer length of it as it stands. As I had discussed with you in person back a few months ago, the purpose of my book is primarily to document our wars in 1935 and 1938 as they truly were to the best of my knowledge. It's called On the Gallian Front for a reason, right? Believe me when I say that I had no choice but to prune it down to the length that it was when you commented on it. Something about it being a perfect replacement for a Lanseal war maul. There are a lot of rumors still going around about what happened here and there, and I'm unfortunately just one woman with a camera and a notepad. While I've recently gotten in contact with a Mr. Claude Wallace and his lovely wife in Hafen to see if they had any fresh materials for me, they're not too eager to tell me what they did during our wars. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Mrs. Wallace is wheelchair-bound and that Hafen is having to rebuild from the ground up being near the border with what used to be the Empire, and I didn't want to press too hard on it.
But I suspect you didn't have more Gallian points of view in mind when you asked me to "broaden the encyclopedia's horizons," Mr. Gutenberg. I explicitly remember that one of the pieces of feedback you gave me in our personal meeting (and which you repeated in the last letter) was how the encyclopedia section of the draft didn't seem to have much at all about the world outside Gallia. It's a fair assessment; to discuss the Gallian experience during the Great War in complete isolation is not a very good way to go about things. Perhaps I should've detailed the workings of the old Empire a little bit better for those who pick up the book and somehow don't know how that country used to work. Same thing with the Federation.
But then you wanted me to add more detail about the League? And the Pacific Ashan Compact? And now the Syndicate? Of course I didn't mention them at all, Mr. Gutenberg. The PAC had almost nothing to do with Gallia, and still doesn't as far as I am aware. And I don't think anyone right now really knows what the Syndicate will do all the way in eastern Europa for the time being, anyways.
And yes, I'm aware that I somehow got even our own country's details wrong. I know that I accidentally reduced Gallia's pre-war population by an order of magnitude in the relevant encyclopedia page in the draft. I may also have inputted a very wrong number for how many Gallian Navy personnel there were in 1935 overall. Those will definitely get fixed by the second draft, don't you fret. As for the 1935 maps you've provided me, there needs to be a few corrections on those as well - your cartographer seems to have made Varangia, Latium, and the entire Haemusian Peninsula part of the Federation. Galciana right to the south of Valois across the Mediterranean, your man seems to pretend it was never on the side of the Empire. We won't even discuss all of the placeholder names for the countries he put in the map for some reason, or the map I got for 1937.
But besides that, I understand that you do have a certain audience that really craves the minute details. History, hard numbers, cultures, even a brief overview of military organization and gear. Truth be told, I've come to appreciate these topics as well during my time with the famous Squad 7. I didn't just make up all of those firearm magazine (NOT a clip, I'll have to fix that in the second draft) sizes and tank weights out of thin air. I'll need some time to work on these national profiles and other collected bits and pieces as I find them, and when I'm not too busy trying to think about what may happen to our country now that we're basically completely surrounded by the Feds. I still don't completely trust those Prutenic "Free Staters" or the rest of the Federation, if I'm being perfectly honest with you.
But the more that I think about it, the more I'm convinced that this might be best treated as an entire separate, parallel project to On the Gallian Front, Mr. Gutenberg. The entries might be too long to fit neatly into the book's encyclopedia section, anyways. This is why I have a proposal for you.
It's probably best that I write the entries you want in a format that will work well for something like a small handbook or a collection of them, let's call it the Irene Koller's Guide To series as a placeholder name. I know, I'm such a humble woman. As I make these entries, we can modify them to be shorter and better suited overall to include in On the Gallian Front as well. This way, we can do two things. First, we get you want you want and expand the encyclopedia of my doorstopper of a book. Second, we give these new topics we approach in doing so the proper attention and labor they deserve in light of the Great War.
To this end, I've recently gotten in touch with Prof. Owen Welch at the University of Castleton's history department. I've actually sent letters to historians across most of the world except those in the Syndicate (for obvious reasons), and Prof. Welch was the first one to send back a reply. Since the man is based in the Federation, the Federation is the winner of the Great War, and our biggest market would probably be the Federation, I think I'll start with that alliance. Prof. Welch has actually gone beyond my wildest dreams and has offered to pass me information and even rough drafts for what I want to write about, and I can't thank him enough for this. All he asks for is to credit him alongside me and any other contributing writers, and I'm certain we can accommodate this request.
In the meantime, do please keep yourself and your family safe over there in Randgriz, Mr. Gutenberg. The war is over at last, but something tells me we're still trapped in very interesting times.
Best regards,
Irene Koller
Gallian Broadcasting Station
