Tellius Recollection tells us that Gallia is a nation “without written law or political institutions” and then chooses to not elaborate much further, leaving the reader perhaps even more confused about how Gallia works than they were when they started that sentence.

It does, however, note that Gallia doesn’t have an organized military (which would be “impractical”, as there is “no national regulation”). While Gallia did fight off two Begnion invasions (which began in 350 and in 360), Tellius Recollection tells us that those wars were fought and won “using the strength of individuals” which isn’t too difficult to conceptualize. The people who fought off Begnion would be more along the lines of Crimea’s militias (made up of normal with day jobs like Brom and Nephenee) acting independently rather than its professional knight order.

What makes this all the more interesting is that, despite not having an organized military, what we see of Gallia still has a very clear chain of command: Caineghis, Giffca, and Skrimir are at the top in that order, Lyre and Kyza (and others, probably) report to Ranulf, and Mordecai and a unit of unnamed Gallian soldiers (mentioned in Lethe’s supports with Muarim and Ranulf) report to Lethe or Kezhda (who might have his own unit if Lethe survives Radiant Dawn). Textually it's all supposed to be de facto and not de jure (because otherwise it would be an organized military and also a political institution); nobody except Caineghis has a defined station, so every hierarchy is built upon intangible and legally-undefined concepts like “I respect this person and want to follow them” (which is why Ranulf and Moredcai follow Caineghis) or “I agree with the cause this person is championing” (which is why Skrimir gets to call himself a general during Act 3) or “Ranulf is kinda hot”.

We are meant to believe that the reason why Mordecai defers to Lethe despite their differing stances on laguz-beorc reconciliation and she gets to boss him around a little, as well as the reason why Skrimir defers to Giffca and preemptively apologizes for worrying him (and so on) is because they personally have a reason to do so voluntarily, not because there's a line of text on a piece of paper somewhere saying that they must. It’s unclear if Lethe is normally Mordecai’s ‘commanding officer’ or not, but it’s not a terrible leap in logic to assume that Caineghis (who Mordecai respects and follows) told Mordecai to listen to Lethe’s orders during the trip to meet up with the Greil Mercenaries if she isn’t. Skrimir respects strength above all else, so it’s no surprise he gladly listens to Giffca when Giffca has expectations about his behavior in the 3-10 base conversation (“Skrimir, your reply to his thanks”).

This will be important later.

While Gallia normally has a ‘military’ that’s more along the lines of a militia, it does end up participating in the war against Begnion in Radiant Dawn Act 3. You’d think that requires some level of internal organization but… while Skrimir is called a ‘general’ during this period (a defined station that implies an organized military), it couldn’t be clearer that every Gallian is there because they want to be (there was no draft or otherwise coerced participation) and that they are all off doing their own thing (they are not following anyone’s orders (unless they want to, of course)). Gallia’s military is unorganized and uncoordinated and more along the lines of a mob than an institution, though we can probably assume that small groups like Ranulf and Lethe’s units continued to work alongside the people they’ve trained alongside. Skrimir is probably called the ‘general’ just because he’s going to be handed the throne any day now, which… is something we shouldn’t really just breeze right past.

It's difficult to call Gallia's military a “political institution”, but what about their monarch? Gallia is undeniably a monarchy, and the existence of a throne and the apparatuses that are used to justify and maintain it are all a type of political institution one way or another.

We look at the text and it is contradictory. This is a problem.

‘Has no political institutions’ is mutually exclusive with ‘is a monarchy’, so we can now give ourselves a round of applause and pat ourselves on the back and go home satisfied. We did it! We solved the puzzle put forth by recognizing that there is no solution, that there are facts put forward that are simply irreconcilable, and that because there is no solution there is nothing left to be done.

But I’m not done. I don’t want to go home yet. I’m not satisfied with this. I want to keep talking about cat government. I want this to make sense. Come back here.

To begin with…

*sigh*

If we ignore the ‘absolutely no’ in ‘absolutely no political institutions’ so we can make room for there to be a monarch, this is a real political system (real as in ‘people have thought about it before and it wasn’t invented for a 2005 tactical roleplaying game’, not ‘has been implemented literally anywhere in real life’). Anarchomonarchism is a type of ‘government’ that centers on two things: 1) the people are granted an absolute right to self-determination (anarcho-) and 2) there is a monarch (-monarchism) whose sole purpose is to ensure that the people are granted that right to self-determination (such as protecting their ‘state’ from foreign invasion).

If this is difficult to imagine, you can think of it roughly as an inversion of the relationship between a monarch and their subjects under feudalism: instead of a monarch demanding fealty because they use their power to protect their subjects, a monarch is instead conditionally granted power by their ‘subjects’ for the sole purpose of protecting them (and it’s also otherwise an anarchist society).

Now, you may have already noticed some issues with this idea. Things like “how do you decide who is the monarch?” and “how do you avoid a civil war when deciding who is the next monarch?” and “how do you ensure that the monarch does not abuse the power they are granted?” and “where does the ‘power’ used by the monarch even come from?” and “how quickly would an anarchomonarchy devolve into literally any other political system?”

Lots of people have already thrown their hat into the ring to try to address these problems, so let’s start with this: The past three paragraphs were physically painful for me to research and especially to write, and if I ever start to talk about the real-world viability of anarchomonarchism something has gone terribly wrong and I need you (yes, you) to come to my house and smash my keyboard, then my computer, and then any objects I could conceivably use as a writing implement.

We are here to talk about Gallia, which exists in a fantasy setting that already asks us to suspend our disbelief in plenty of places. Some of these problems will be touched upon during the course of this journey, but for the most part we can (and must) assume that ‘it just works’ because no materials indicate that there are Gallians significantly discontent with the way things are. Everyone is more or less willing to play along with the systems in place, so the systems will remain in place. The real question that needs to be answered is what those systems actually are.

I’ll note here that “political institution” is a fairly specific term, and it’s possible that there is some minute nuance being lost in translation, or it’s possible that the developers didn’t think of a monarchy as a “political institution” (which would be an error, but… whatever), so we’ll make one concession going forward: Gallia (as both a country and as a group of people within that country) will strive to be an anarchomonarchy without political intuitions. It will not always be able to live up to that ideal because of internal or external factors, but it will try wherever possible because that is what Gallia wants to be. This way, we can get Gallia as close as possible to what the authors seem to have intended.

 

Going back to Tellius Recollection for a moment, I'll summarize the parts that I feel are relevant for furthering our understanding of how Gallia works.

So, while Gallia is interested in having as small of a government as possible (and no government at all if it could get away with it), why choose to be an anarchomonarchy instead any other flavor of anarchist ‘state’?

We’ll have to answer a few other questions before we loop back to this.

First of all: why does Gallia still elect a monarch?

...Does Gallia still elect a monarch?

There's no certain answer here, but I'm leaning towards yes. Solhaut was undeniably elected (it says it right there, on page 11 of that ¥29,200 (plus tax (plus shipping)) artbook we all imported), and if the reason for having a monarch hasn't changed, there isn't really a compelling reason to believe that the process for deciding who becomes monarch would change either. Additionally, while “[they get together and] acknowledge the most powerful of them all as king” could be read a few ways, the act of coming together and picking who is going to be your leader is, by definition, an election. The specifics might still be up in the air (is it somehow a direct democracy?), and I can’t really say with 100% certainty what the exact intent was, but it seems about as clear as it could be with the number of words that they devoted to the subject.

Gallia's leader being an elected official also makes more sense than any other alternative, as the lack of a constitution or charter or other fancy piece of paper that enshrines a ruler's rule as legitimate would mean that their legitimacy (and ability to avoid being overthrown, assassinated, or otherwise deposed) is tied directly to nobody seeking to challenge their position. Put more abstractly, the legitimacy of their rule will always be entirely dependent on public approval, and an election is a way to get a leader that at least some people will like.

This is likely why Gallia's monarch does not appear to have much in terms of direct power within Gallia: people need to like the monarch for them to stay a monarch, and a person who tries to push people around is typically unliked. Path of Radiance has multiple scenes that emphasize that Caineghis, as king, cannot simply point at any random Gallian and expect them to do what he tells them to do: Caineghis, Giffca, and Ranulf each say he is beholden to the interests of “elder statesmen”, “older retainers”, and “ministers” (which is the reason given for why he can't do more for Elincia), so it seems like this was a pretty important detail that Intelligent Systems really wanted us to understand.

On the other hand, it shouldn’t go unsaid that we only ever see a tiny slice of Gallian society. The story the Tellius games want to tell doesn’t need us to know if Caineghis acts as a mediator during civil disputes or what his tax policies are (or if Gallia even has taxes), but, on the other hand, because the artbook finds it important that we know that Gallia is unique, because it insists that Gallia is a country that is different, we cannot simply assume that all these normal kingly, governmenty activities are (or aren’t) actually happening offscreen. Maybe he does tell people to pay taxes, maybe he doesn’t; we simply don’t and can’t know.

We can, however, look at what else the games do think is important enough to show us.

Even if we put aside things that are presented as personal actions or personal favors (such as trying to visit Greil the night he was killed or the assistance he lends to Elincia when she decides to leave Gallia) and not things he does as the king of Gallia, Caineghis still manages to do a few things:

This reveals to us his role and the role of any monarch in Gallia: they are the individual who represents Gallia during diplomatic exchanges. If we assume that Gallia only has political institutions that are absolutely necessary, that means that having a representative is an unavoidable part of what is needed for Gallia to exist.

That then begs the question of why a representative is needed for Gallia to exist, but let’s answer a broader question first: why must Gallia exist? While it sought to be separate from Begnion, why couldn’t it just be part of Goldoa?

Let’s start from the beginning. Most of this will come from page 8 and page 9 of the first volume of Tellius Recollection.

Gallia was the third country to form in post-flood Tellius, after Begnion and Goldoa. In the years leading up to its formation, many beast laguz gathered in the forests of what would become Gallia to escape persecution from the beorc in Begnion. They eventually declared themselves separate from Begnion.

Begnion, notably, had claimed all land in Tellius aside from Goldoa as part of its empire, so a group of people trying to be something other than Begnion was a bit of an issue for them. They sent military forces to crush the dissenters and try to reclaim the land, but they struggled to adapt to the terrain and were recalled within two years. With the backing of Goldoa, Solhaut then “established Gallia as a nation”.

This is one of three things that Goldoa does on the big Tellius timeline on page 9. The other two things are when they protested the mistreatment of laguz by Begnion in 160 (when Begnion adopted the human/subhuman terminology) and when they acted as a mediator between Kilvas, Daein and Begnion to facilitate the end of the war in 478. Goldoa has been, aside from those three incidents, more or less sealed off from the world.

Dheginsea has a lot going on and is a multifaceted character, but that’s something far beyond the scope of this piece. Let’s sum up his primary motivation as the leader of Goldoa as a way to help us understand Goldoa’s role in Gallia’s founding: he does not want to break the pact made with Ashera, where she would awaken if there were another continent-wide conflict like the one that lead to the great flood.

Founding a state that refuses to engage with other countries is a way to minimize the risk of Ashera awakening, so it makes sense for Dheginsea to create Goldoa as an entity separate from Begnion. Mediating conflicts, like with Kilvas, Daein, and Begnion, is another fairly obvious way of preventing a conflict from spreading to all of Tellius. Requesting Begnion to treat laguz better, while also probably coming from a sense of injustice, also serves to keep Ashera asleep as an eventual laguz uprising (no matter how just) would plunge the continent into conflict.

Supporting Gallia serves a similar preventative purpose.

Begnion at this point had attempted to reclaim Gallia’s forests once, and there was no reason for anyone to assume that they wouldn’t try again (history shows that they did so within the next decade). If Gallia wasn’t separate from Begnion (either as itself or as part of Goldoa), these repeated conflicts could serve as the spark that sets off a broader laguz liberation movement, which is ‘bad’ from Goldoa’s perspective (it’s really just Dheginsea’s perspective until he actually tells anyone about this, but he’s the one calling the shots so the difference is minimal) because it could easily spiral out of control and wake up Ashera. Dheginsea, like the laguz in Gallia, has a vested interest in Gallia not being part of Begnion.

On the other hand, Gallia could not be part of Goldoa since that would draw aggression from Begnion towards Goldoa, pitting the only two countries of Tellius against each other and eventually waking Ashera. On a smaller and more immediate scale, Dheginsea was probably also not interested in governing a group of people who, as we know, are generally are not interested in being governed.

If Gallia were to be its own country, the oppressed beast laguz in Begnion are given an option aside from fighting back, and any conflict between the laguz that had gathered in the region of Gallia and Begnion becomes a conflict between nations rather than Begnion attempting to repress its own people and, crucially, becomes a conflict that doesn’t involve Goldoa. Since the other choices (such as things staying as they were) were options both Gallia and Goldoa were either unwilling or unable to pick, we can now confidently assert that, even at the time, the only option for the region of Gallia was for it to become a new country.

Goldoa “backed the founding of Gallia”. We do not exactly know how they helped, but we do know that Begnion did not officially acknowledge Gallia’s sovereignty until 50 years later, when Crimea broke off from Begnion and acted as a mediator between Gallia and Begnion. From that we can pretty reasonably assume that the support that Goldoa offered focused more on Gallia’s internal workings rather than improving its relationship with Begnion.

Now, let us ask ourselves a question. Would Dheginsea, while breaking his isolationist stance for the second time in his life and doing so specifically to reduce the risk of a continent-wide kerfuffle, let Gallia do whatever it wants without any plan?

Of course not! Goldoa is going through all of this trouble to defuse a ticking time bomb, why would they ever let Gallia become a new one? Goldoa would want Gallia to be able to stand on its own because Gallia needs to be independent from both it and Begnion, and while it has demonstrated the ability to protect its borders, it hadn’t demonstrated that it could run itself.

A nation in Tellius has a leader, and it has a government, and it has a military, and so on and so forth. These are simply fundamental ‘truths’ that people in Tellius would believe. Putting aside whether or not Gallia could exist without those things, Goldoa (and most people in Tellius, probably) would not believe a country could exist without those things. Goldoa would have attempted to force Gallia to have a normal government as a precondition for their support, but Gallia’s people, on the other hand, generally do not want those things. On the other other hand, they still need Goldoa’s support to assert their sovereignty and Goldoa needs them to assert their own sovereignty to keep the goddess from awakening, so they have to find a middle ground between Gallia’s desire for no government and Goldoa’s desire for some government.

This is how they end up with a monarch that does not have any direct powers, and how there are “ministers” for Ranulf to mention in chapter 11, and how there’s a royal palace and a capital, and how Titania ended up in Gallia for “a military officer exchange program” when she was younger (mentioned in chapter 9 and on Caineghis’ profile page in TR1). Gallia has just enough government so it is able to function as an entity that is 1) distinct from other countries and 2) able to interact with other countries, and not much else.

It is, from a certain perspective, a façade that works because laguz countries have no reason to antagonize or aggress Gallia and because the beorc countries are either an ally that by default will try to respect Gallia’s autonomy (Crimea) or are too geographically removed to interact with Gallia long enough to tear down the façade (Daein and Begnion).

 

Everything I’ve covered up to this point are things that I feel can be directly inferred through the text; we’re told a few facts about how Gallia was established and how it works and we’ve directly connected some of those puzzle pieces. I will not claim that what I’ve suggested thus far perfectly follows authorial intent because, among other things, I honestly refuse to believe that they thought this far (the text contradicts itself, after all), and I will also not claim that this is the only interpretation, but I do believe that given what we do know this is the conclusion that makes the most sense.

However, we still don’t have the full picture. We’ve taken the corner pieces of the puzzle and filled in a fraction of the border, but going much further will be tough; the games do not focus on the innerworkings of the laguz countries, so the information we have is incredibly limited.

We can still build off of what we’ve discussed thus far and go just a bit further, though.

To begin with, Gallia is a “collection of scattered tribal groups of various sizes”. ‘Tribal group’ is pretty vague, but our main takeaway here is that Gallia is comprised of a bunch of local self-governing groups; in simpler terms, Gallia is very loosely a federation (like, for instance, Lycia).

While we do not have any direct information for how these local groups are run, Caineghis mentions “elder statesmen” in chapter 9. This could refer to government workers, like the ministers Ranulf mentions, but I’ve chosen to interpret them as the leaders of those local groups for a couple reasons. Mostly because it’s convenient for other things I’ll explain in a moment, but, aside from that:

First of all, Gallians are not specifically opposed to having leaders or being led. Skrimir, who might be described as ‘uncontrollable’, seems plenty content to let Caineghis and Giffca lead him around, and Ranulf and Lethe are the commanding officers of a handful of other Gallians. Even Caineghis, who would otherwise be on the top of the food chain and has been described by Tibarn as being ‘worse than Skrimir’, still maintains a respectful tone if you choose to have him fight Dheginsea at the end of RD. While Gallia is (or tries to be) an anarchist society, Gallians aren’t necessarily opposed to listening to ‘authority’—it’s just not something that authority figures (such as Caineghis or Ashera) are able to take for granted, as a Gallian must be convinced that someone is worth respecting. If someone is liked and respected, why couldn’t they be the representative of the group?

Secondly, Caineghis is at least somewhat subordinate to them. Let’s look at the full quote about them for this one.

“In my heart of hearts, I would like to take guardianship of Princess Elincia and assist in the rebuilding of Crimea. However, anti-beorc sentiment is running high here in Gallia. If we were to offer safe harbor to Elincia, I feel many of our elder statesmen would protest. They would say that we are giving Daein an ideal excuse to attack.”

There’s a subtle difference between the sections that I bolded: the first is referring to a trend within the entire population, while the second is referring to a specific group of people within Gallia. Caineghis is obligated to follow the interests of the whole population, but he’s specifically presenting the “elder statesmen” as the group that he needs to care about the most.

Why?

It is impractical for Gallia’s monarch to be liked by everyone. Putting aside the fact that the people in Gallia probably don’t share a hive mind and probably have their own thoughts about how the country should work and who they should be friends with, it’s simply not physically possible.

Tellius is a fantasy setting that does not draw from modern conveniences and, because of that, information cannot travel quickly. They don’t have magic emails, they don’t have magic phone calls, and, even if some countries did have something resembling a postal service, Gallia wouldn’t have one (it’s a political institution). The groups that make up Gallia are scattered throughout its forests and the reality is that most of the people in Gallia will never interact with their monarch (this can probably be said about every country in Tellius, but TR1 places emphasis on how isolated each group in Gallia is). Caineghis also can’t force anyone to pay taxes or serve in the military or dig him a canal or hand over their firstborn; his existence does not affect them and they would not have a reason to care one way or another that Gallia has a monarch unless they are presented with new information that makes them care. This is a problem because it means that when Caineghis says he’s king there would be nothing actually backing that claim up, but it has a solution.

Gallia’s monarch is elected. An election through direct democracy (everyone in Gallia votes) is deeply impractical and would require additional political institutions that Gallia wouldn’t want to maintain, so who actually gets to pick? Tellius Recollection directly says that “these groups (the scattered tribes) acknowledge the most powerful among them as king”, and even if it didn’t tell us that it would be impossible to avoid involving Gallia’s local leaders as they form a critical bridge between Zarzi and the other parts of Gallia. I would imagine that the previous monarch and the ministers that the monarch would work with would also be involved (as who sits on the throne is directly relevant to them), but the local leaders are the authority figures outside of Zarzi and would also have some control over the narrative surrounding the monarch as a result, so it’s important to keep them enfranchised.

Provided that a monarch is selected without issue (which isn’t terribly hard to see happening, as the stakes involved in who gets to be the monarch are relatively low as long as they’re someone capable of doing the job), this generally solves a few the problems the monarch would otherwise face.

The first and most obvious is that the monarch’s rule is entirely based on the fact that people agree that they are the monarch and that it is difficult for people to say that anyone specific is the monarch when they are completely unaware of their existence. The beorc countries solve this issue though hereditary succession (so the question of who can or will become the monarch is usually answered well before it needs to be asked), but Gallia is to an extent reliant on word-of-mouth to establish their monarch as the person sitting on the throne. After the next monarch is selected, all the local leaders will head home and spread the news and now everyone in Gallia knows who the monarch is and the monarch is now the monarch because everyone believes that they’re the monarch.

The next problem that needs to be addressed is making everyone else agree that the new monarch should be the monarch, but this is basically already solved, as the local leaders (and former king) are in the perfect position to do that. They are credible and trusted, and Gallians have no immediate reason to distrust their village elder when they come home and says something along the lines of “Caineghis is a good choice for king; though he is young, he shows great promise and will certainly show the world Gallia’s majesty!”

This is not a failproof way of preventing someone else from claiming that the throne should be theirs nor does it stop them from trying to start a civil war or otherwise split the country in two, but so long as the current monarch doesn’t do anything particularly egregious (such as inviting Daein to invade Gallia), the local leaders have every reason to try to maintain the status quo by continuing to endorse the current monarch. Not everyone in Gallia has to like Caineghis as a ruler or as a person, but, like how Mordecai may be following Lethe at Caineghis’ request, people who aren’t huge fans of Caineghis would be more inclined to accept him despite their misgivings if someone they trust is hyping him up as an excellent king (or at least better than any alternatives).

This is manipulative (blatantly so from our perspective) and goes against the spirit of an anarchomonarcy, but Gallia is already making concessions in how it has structured its government and the important part for maintaining the status quo is that people don’t feel like they’re being manipulated. Since Caineghis and Skrimir are already well-liked, what difference does it make that people are also being told that they should be liked?

I think this is by design.

We don’t know what happened when Caineghis became king, but we do see a bit of the leadup to Skrimir getting crowned. While the events of Radiant Dawn couldn’t be more exceptional, Gallia does have to plan for the future and since Skrimir was already chosen as heir at the time, Gallia should be preparing for him to be king.

The exact process isn’t possible to pin down, but I imagine it goes something like this:

The current monarch decides that they would like to step down soon. Gallia’s bigwigs meet up, decide on who should be monarch next, and start preparing for the eventual transition of power. This would involve whatever training the new monarch needs, introducing them to the people they will have to get along with (both ministers and foreign diplomats), and turning them into a public figure that people will accept. After the previous monarch steps down, they probably stick around for a bit and act as a mentor that the new monarch can rely on (possibly resembling a diarchy at times), but eventually the new monarch becomes the sole ruler of Gallia and everyone lives happily ever after.

From how Skrimir acts… I feel pretty confident in saying that he’s very early on in his training to be king during Radiant Dawn.

During 3-1, Ike and Soren express their misgivings about Skrimir being both the general for the Laguz Alliance and the next king. Ranulf explains that Caineghis can’t leave Gallia, and Ike then asks a question that I’ve seen several people ask in real life:

Ike: “Well, what about Giffca then, or even you, Ranulf? There have to be other capable generals in Gallia.”

Ranulf: “No, I’m not strong enough. You’d think General Giffca would lead, but… Giffca has other duties to attend to, so really, that just leaves Skrimir.”

This is Gallia’s first military campaign ever. What could possibly be so important that Giffca can’t be here for this? From a metatextual perspective, the answer is that he is supposed to be roughly on par with Ashnard and therefore much stronger than what the game’s balance could really handle at this point in time so the game will not give him to us yet, but is there an in-universe explanation that we can be satisfied with?

Soren then remarks that this will be a learning experience for Skrimir, the conversation moves on, and then it very quickly turns into a learning experience for Skrimir.

Later, during a base conversation in 3-10, Giffca says nearly a third of the lines he gets as Skrimir and Ranulf report in near the end of the Laguz Alliance’s campaign. The important part of the conversation is this:

Giffca: “You persevered through many difficult battles. We are glad to have you back in one piece.”

Skrimir: “Each and every soldier in the army helped me. I couldn’t do anything by myself. Alone, I was powerless.”

Giffca: “That’s good. If that’s what you learned from this campaign, then it wasn’t a wasted effort for Gallia. Good work, Ranulf.”

Ranulf: “Thank you, sir.”

Soren was right! Of course he was. Skrimir was humbled by this experience and grew as a person and tales of his valor will be repeated for years, because now he’s a war hero! Everyone will know his name, and I think that beyond being a learning experience, this was the main reason why Giffca wasn’t the general. There was no guarantee that Skrimir would survive the war, but he fought on the front lines, he fought for justice, he fought for us and for Gallia and for all laguz! How could you possibly say that he doesn’t deserve to be king?

While Gallia participated in the war because Begnion kept killing the messengers they sent asking about the senate’s involvement in the Serenes massacre (and because of the massacre itself, of course), choosing to have Skrimir be the general makes sense as a choice meant to increase his recognition and preemptively manufacture approval for his reign. Caineghis didn’t have a war to fight in, but if a similar opportunity came up (such as border skirmishes), he was likely made to take it as well, and it feels reasonable to assume that this kind of promotion is a major part of the preparation to become king.

 

Of course, these aren’t the only ways to fill in the gaps Intelligent Systems has left. I’m stopping abruptly at least in part because the more and more I build upon the foundation that I’ve created, the more and more removed what I’m talking about is from what is explicitly canon.

I could continue to talk about how I think Gallia works and what its recent history looks like. I say that both as a promise and as a threat, but this piece is not meant to be all-encompassing. I’m trying explain why I think that Gallia is intended to be read as something similar to an anarchomonarchy (though I highly doubt that they had that exact word in mind), and I’m trying to broadly explain how that would actually work within Tellius, and I think that this is about as satisfied as I can get with that without getting into things that I am absolutely definitely completely making up.

I learned a lot of things while writing this, and it was equal parts fun and aggravating taking all of these things that feel completely intuitive in my head and try putting them into words. If you have your own thoughts on how you think Gallia works, I’d love to hear them.