Freedom's Ring Asides

(Please read the Author's Notes at the end of the chapter)

Useful Information- By Ilse Langnar

Journal Entry of Ilse Langnar, year 844.

Useful Information: New York.

Upon arriving the first thing anyone will be able to notice is the size of the buildings. The sheer scale of their construction is unlike anything we can imagine. The buildings, skyscrapers they call them, stretch farther than the walls; those building them could see the entire island!

Yes, this is just one island.

I doubt anyone back home would believe it, what islands we see in those lakes back home are small, more like little hills with a few trees at most.

The best way I can describe it is if you imagine two districts put together just floating in a gigantic lake.

Which reminds me… The Ocean.

From what some of the agents told me, this world is mostly covered in salt water. I had no idea that was even possible, but it's true! Without the threat of titans, the humans in this world have developed ways to see far into the sky and place things up there to look at the world with the view only some birds have the privilege of.

There is much I still don't know of; the people asking me questions mentioned that they have a different governing body than out king and his advisory.

They describe a "President" and a "Congress", which seem to be the ones in charge, but the way the agent spoke, it wasn't quite like that either.

There is also talk about "governors" and "mayors", specifically for this large island called Manhattan, and this "state" known as New York.

I must look further into this.

Useful Information: Weapons.

The first bit of information I think the Survey Corps command and Military Command need to know most right now is how deadly the weaponry is beyond this gate. Firearms are far superior to what we have anywhere in the walls, a single shotgun was able to fully blind a fifteen meter titan in two shots, and the variety of weapons is staggering. They were able to halt a titan invasion in mere hours once I informed them of the weakness behind the monsters, and it is this scout's belief that they could retake Wall Maria from titans in mere days if allowed to go all out.

I am currently learning of tanks, aircraft, machine guns, missiles, warships; and those are just some of the weapons they have that we have no reference for.

Bombs and artillery are clearly far more powerful here than anything we have back home.

They have bombs powerful enough to level buildings, which may not sound like much until you take into account the deadly application of such a weapon when combined with the ability to drop it from the air, and the size of buildings here.

Will look further into it.

Useful Information: Earth

Earth: the name people give this world, similar to our own.

This world is both gigantic and small.

Perhaps due to so much knowledge being available it just feels smaller?

For starters, they say the year is 2018, but there is also talk of other units of telling time, with some saying the year is actually 1440 or even saying that the year belongs to certain animals!

That's one thing any visitor from the walls must get used to when visiting this earth.

There are a lot of people, all of them different, far more than what we see in the walls.

I hadn't noticed that first day, but the amount of people with dark skin surprised me. I first thought they were burned, but that didn't seem right either, so I asked one of the people looking after me. He said "there are a lot of different people living here" and suggested I look for information on the different groups of humans living in this world.

To put it simply, there are many different types of people, not only those we know back home as Orientals, and even those groups split up into different groups with their own histories and beliefs.

Do they coexist peacefully? No, not always.

But I will be the first to say, whatever system they have going on right now seems to be working.

Useful Information: Earth Nations.

Unlike our own little civilization, and like I said earlier, the other side of the Gate holds many groups of people, and these groups are often times divided by "nations" similar to how the three walls work to divide the parts of land within our little slice of the world.

However, these nations do not function as one, and yet they do.

It is somewhat confusing as a nation that may hate another one will often trade with its sworn enemy, and some nations are sworn enemies despite neither of them actively fighting the other in any way.

According to journalists over here, many nations in the world are concerned with this smaller nation far off to the east known as "North Korea". I do not understand what the fear is, but the history behind its existence is relatively interesting.

They exist on their own, mostly blocked from the world, with only a few other nations around them.

They do not allow visitors to walk freely, they don't really have an open trade system with other nations, and they all follow a supreme leader, who is similar to a king, but also not at all.

I thought it was similar to our situation, but from the looks of it, North Korea is considered one of the worst places to live in.

I am not sure why, many moving pictures that recorded the inside of the country show a relatively happy and welcoming place.

I guess it isn't as good as the place I am right now, though.

Useful Notes: The United states of America and Continents.

The Gate opened in one of its cities, which I first thought was a nation on its own.

The City of New York is just one of many, many cities and towns that makes up the United States of American, a large nation that lies in what the people call "the North American Continent". A Continent is a large mass of land much larger than any island, and from what I have seen there are only seven continents in this world.

North America.

South America.

Africa.

Asia.

Europe.

Australia.

Antarctica.

From what I understand it, both North and South America are relatively diverse lands with deserts, icy mountain ranges, forests that stretch forever and have rain every hour of every day.

Africa is similar, although the animals and plant life are somewhat different, as well as the geography. The same can be said about Asia and Australia.

Europe is the closest to home from the photographs and moving pictures that I have been shown.

The point is, continents hold a large diversity of land, and America is no exception. Oh, except for the continent of Antarctica. That place only holds snow and ice and very few people live there.

As for the nation of the United States of America, it holds most of the North American continent and is apparently the most powerful nation on this world, with a large military and industry to back it up!

If anything, this gives me hope that they can help us defeat the titans.

Useful Information: American Holidays

It is now the first day of the month of January, a new year has started according to the Americans.

They are very fun.

It was not frightening at all.

Useful Information: American Politics

I got to speak with the American president.

He seemed kind and caring, but then the people with me mentioned that is how politicians talk and not to trust any of them.

That then started an argument between two of them where they yelled about "trickle-down economics" and "Benghazi" and "fascism" and "communism" and a lot of other things.

I asked them what they meant but they said that they weren't supposed to impose their beliefs onto me.

So I searched each term individually.

Trickle-Down Economics- A made up term used to derive a theory of economic policy known as "supply side economics". Supply side economics is a policy where people are allowed to keep more of their money, which should theoretically allow them to invest it into more useful things to make more money. I don't know if it works or not because many articles mention an old American president called "Reagan" and one group seems to hate him while another seems to love him and I cannot say for certain if either of these is accurate.

Benghazi- the location of an incident where American soldiers fought to protect a compound of sorts, resulting in the deaths of several Americans. The subject is incredibly sensitive as some Americans believe one political side downplays the damage while the other political side believes their opposition is exaggerating the damage done. I will not delve in further.

Fascism and communism- political ideologies native to this world.

Warning: DO NOT BRING UP POLITICS IN NORMAL CONVERSATIONS!

…

Commander Erwin put the notebook down and glanced at Ilse.

"Why the lack of detail on the holidays?" he asked.

"None of the information was particularly useful, commander." Ilse said matter-of- factly.

Erwin nodded.

"Well, I'll be sure to review this information as move forward. Thank you, you are dissmissed."

The girl beamed, offered up her heart and ran back to the carriage that would escort her and Team Levi.

Said short captain walked up to the blonde commander and asked "What did she want to see you about?"

"She asked me to read her journal in case I had any questions about the other side of the gate. Not a lot of details here, though."

"Suspicious?"

Erwin scoffed.

"No, odds are she was too busy trying to help organize all of this." he said, glancing at the American jets flying low before strafing a couple of ten meter titans walking over some hills.

…

Ilse sat down on the Humvee and let out a relieved breath.

"So, did you tell him about your little trauma with the New Year's fireworks?"

Ilse remained stone faced as she eyed the Army private.

"Jake, the blades the Survey Corps carry could cut through Kevlar like butter. Do. Not. Tempt. Me."

Jake was silent.

Matt was silent.

Dave was silent.

"Hey, commander Erwin! New Year 2019 was the day Ilse discovered the concept of a brown no- urk!" Matt shouted suddenly before getting pulled down.

Ilse grabbed his legs and dragged him back into the Humvee, screaming "You bastaaaaaard!"

A/N: Okay, so basically this is just going to be some extra chapters, ideas I had that didn't make it on the main fic, or stuff I wanted to add but wasn't sure how or where I could add it. Figures I could aslo use this to add some things you guys might want to see if I can, too. Anyway, this is a segment focusing on Ilse and her experiences on earth. Not sure if there's much I can add to this, but let me know if you want to see more of this or if there is something you would like to see specifically. Thanks for reading!