Prydanian News Section

Johannes Jaanovits, a Member of Parliament for the conservative Union Party in the Commonwealth of Scalvia, penned an article where he lamented the state conservative politics. I was kind of shocked to see anyone from the Union Party being so doom and gloom, given their comfortable majority in the Scalvian Parliament.

I read it through, though, because the subject matter means a lot to me. I was shocked to see him mention the ÞLD* by name, as he pointed to it as one of the few conservative movements in the world that seems able to escape what he deems "the conservative death cycle." This is made up of, in his words, "fear of change, lack of answers, and hopelessness."

I have decided to write this response to Herra Jaanovits for two reasons. The first is, to touch on what I said earlier, talk about something that means a great deal to me. Conservative politics are, I believe, central to my nation's recovery and survival. I don't want to see them fail, here or elsewhere. If I can help prevent that, I would like to. The other reason is to examine why the ÞLD is able to succeed, and hopefully explore how those methods can be exported, so to avoid this so-called "conservative death cycle."

The Problem is a Failure to Understand Youth

Every element of the "conservative death cycle" Herra Jaanovits mentions all comes back to one key, inescapable problem, the inability of older conservative politicians to engage with the youth.
This was evident here in Prydania. The 2018 election, the first free national election in Prydania in thirty-three years, saw the Conservative-Agrarian Alliance drop what should have been a sure electoral victory to the Free Democrats. William Aubyn is a hero who deserves every ounce of praise he has coming five times over for his leadership during the Civil War, but his instincts for electoral politics were typical of conservative politicians the world over. He assumed that because he'd done great things- leading the FRE to victory during the Civil War- that the youth of the country would recognize this and support him. This did not happen. Magnus Brandt managed to wage a come from behind victory on the strength of a dynamic platform that promised new ideas and modernization, whereas Aubyn only promised a steady hand.

A steady hand does not inspire youth. It never has and never will.

In the end, Aubyn's Conservatives were subsumed by a party I helped found, Peace not Blood. And with it the NDL was born.

The inherent problem is that older conservatives assume that because they eventually came around, then surely the youth of today must. There is no willingness to engage with the youth, or appeal to them, because of course they'll come around.

Maybe they will. And by the time they do they're not young anymore, and a new generation of young left wing voters has replaced them, starting the cycle anew. As I said, a steady hand does not inspire the youth. So what does?

Finding Young Voices

I have heard of the ÞLD being called a special case, because of Prydania's recent history. The current generation of older teens and young adults in this country came of age in the midst of the Syndicalist Era, and we rejected it. The glorious progressive left wasn't a trendy cool thing to annoy our parents with- it was the authority that was hauling our parents and older siblings off to camps. It was the authority that chastised us for daring to dream of a better future, it was the authority that appropriated our family's livelihoods in the name of "the people," a term so vague it could be, and was, as selectively defined as Nielsen and his cronies liked.

In this environment, I have heard it been said, it makes sense that the mass movement of the youth would be conservative. Yet this is always stated with the addition that it cannot be replicated elsewhere. Prydania's unique recent history created a scenario that cannot be replicated in Predice, Scalvia, Andrenne, Sutherland, or anywhere else.

And I find that to be nonsense. The youth of this country supported the Liberal Free Democrats in 2018 because they were the party offering new ideas. If the youth of Prydania are naturally inclined to conservatism, it was still an inclination that we had to earn.

In Scalvia Herra Jaanovits' Union Party skews older and middle class. The youth, however, support the Farmer-Labour-Socialist party, a name that I admit makes my Kiojaleit born-and-raised head explode. This seems like one of the causes of Herra Jaanovits' dread. That sooner or later this left wing student movement will mature and push aside the Union Party.

If this is to happen, it's not the result of a death cycle, or if it is it's not inevitable. Too often we think of cycles as beyond us, that we are just floating down a pre-ordained stream, but that's not true. I think many older conservatives assume it is, and assume that stream must bend back towards them eventually. There is no stream though. No inevitable turn back to their old, outdated ways of thinking, and no invisible hand making the youth socialists inevitable. There are just choices.

If the FLSCCF is ascendant among Scalvian youth, it is only because the Union Party allows it to be. Rather than write off the passionate and young crowd as hopelessly spoiled or misguided, the conservative needs to convince them that they are a viable alternative. And you only convince the youth that you are viable by being dynamic.

This all ties into what I said earlier, about needing youth voices. To appeal to the youth you need to take risks and be experimental, and to do these things you need youth voices. It feeds back on itself.

I suspect that the Union Party in Scalvia has written off large segments of the youth vote. This is, fundamentally, a mistake. The Union Party has youth and student wings. There are people in the system who are poised to provide the Union Party with new ideas, and who know how to talk to their peers and classmates on university campuses.
It may take a while. Likely two election cycles at the very least, given the ground already conceded to the left in student spaces. I can say, with absolute certainty based on my own first hand experiences, however, that putting in the effort to reach out to students via students themselves will yield results. In turn this brings more young people into the party, which injects youthful dynamism into the party's makeup, which makes appealing to the youth easier.

Be Unapologetic

I've said a lot about being experimental, being dynamic. Herra Jaanovits said "[m]ainstream conservatives seek to preserve the past and mistake tradition for conservation. They fundamentally fail to understand that tradition requires renewal," and that is correct. What traditions and morals are conserved and renewed vary from culture to culture. I wouldn't expect every policy plank the ÞLD has adopted as a result of its younger life-force would work in Scalvia or be appealing to Scalvians. Rather than suggest specific party policies to the Union Party, I would offer two pieces of advice.
What about the traditions you seek to preserve are actually valued by the youth of Scalvia, and how can Scalvian conservatism adapt to fit that? Secondly, once you have you have your answers, unapologetically defend them.

I admit I don't watch much news on foreign politics, in part because I find it frustrating. In Andrenne, where my ancestors hailed from in the days before Osvald, I watch as conservatives are always backpeddling. In Predice I see a conservative coalition that tried to overplay its hand react with overhwelming moral cowardice.

This is how the left triumphs if left unchecked. They frame the debate as one of progress vs stagnation, and demand the conservatives account for being for stagnation. The conseravatives hem and haw, and blabber about how they're not. They conceed on policy positions the left has framed as being "backwards." Well the left here once called the right to disagree with the government at all "backwards," so such rhetoric has no affect on me.
And frankly maybe the Andrennian, Predician, and Scalvian conservatives need some of that Prydanski backbone.

Do not let the left frame the debate. Once they do, you are on the back foot. At best you can retreat slowly, at worst you scramble trying to seem "respectable" and the youth vote you need will see you as craven.

The youth are not a monolith. There are those in their number that believe in the sactity of life, of traditional family values, of the promise of the middle class, of the value of the free market. I know. I've met them. I am one.
But when you let the left frame the debate these people become unsure of their own beliefs. They see you get bullied away from them, and they lose respect for their own convictions and you.

If only one thing I say resonates, let it be this- never apologize. When the socialist tries to suggest you suffer some moral failing for being pro-life, you stand by your convictions. You remind them that no, it is not a moral failing to stand up for the rights of the most vulnerable amongst us. You empower yourself. And you empower the young people watching who share your convictions. In turn this drives more of them to the party, which makes the party more dynamic... and you know the rest.

Maybe the Civil War made Prydania unique in that it empowered the right to be more willing to stand up for itself in the wake of Syndicalist diaster, but all that proves is that we are an effective proof of concept. If it works here, it will work in Scalvia. In Andrenne. In Predice. Because we see the alternative in action. We see the conservative coalition in Predice scramble to play by the left's rules and they have been denied electoral success. We see the conservatives in Andrenne subject themselves to the rules of public debate set by the Social Democrats, and they wallow in irrelevancy.

So perhaps actually standing up for your values, and pushing back on those who try to frame the debate from the left, might work? It's worth a shot. You certainly can't do worse then you are right now.

Conclusions

I think the Union Party in Scalvia is a car heading towards a wall. Maybe they've seen the Andrennian conservatives and Predican conservatives crash into that wall. And the Union Party assumes they too will crash.

Well I'm here to them the wall is still some way's off. There's enough road between you and it to swerve out of the way. So stop assuming the car will crash, and give stearing a try for once.

---

*ÞM- MP
*ÞLD- National Democratic League

November 2024




Býkonsviði- Prime Minister Kjell Svane called it "a win for fairness, a win for the victims of Syndicalism, and a win for our country."

The Fairness in Restitution Act of 2024 was passed by the Alþingi in a rare unanimous decision, aiming to ensure that land and companies still managed under government trusts search for any and all remaining heirs of consanguinity before the 2027 deadline set by the provisional government in 2017 following the collapse of the Syndicalist Republic.

Re-compensation
The Syndicalist Republic dispossessed millions of Prydanians of their land, business holdings, and private property in the name of left wing collectivization following the Civil War. The Provisional FRE government of William Aubyn established after the final Syndicalist collapse created a committee to oversee compensation and restitution of all government-owned assets that were illegally seized by the Syndicalist authorities. Land and companies were organized into government trusts to manage and rebuild until such time as candidates for restitution were found or came forward.

Millions of Prydanians have been re-compensated, but the ten year deadline the Aubyn government instituted is approaching, set to expire in close to two years, and there are still outstanding claims. If these lands and properties are not claimed by the deadline the state will auction them off to investors.

NDL and People's Party Co-Sponsor New Development
In a twist, it was a rare bi-partisan effort to address the approaching deadline. ÞMs* Ísgeir Aðaldal (ER-7 Kopanes og Bæjum) of the NDL and Sigewulf Reiten (BY-12 Býkonsviði Miðborg-South) of the People's Party co-proposed a bill that would require the government itself to search for any remaining heirs who might not have applied for restitution in the case of land trusts, and the government trusts for companies themselves in the cases of corporations. The bill breezed through the Alþingi, with only some minor debate on finer points, before being passed unanimously. His Majesty the King's office has indicted he will sign the bill into law at the earliest oppertunity.

Under the law an independent certification board will have to accept that each outstanding case of property held in trust by the government has been thoroughly investigated regarding living heirs. Only when it is determined that every effort has been made, will the board certify that the trust is approved to be auctioned by the government.

Government Control of Industry
Prydania has never shyed away from a government presence in business. The RÚV has always been state-owned and operated, as have Prydanian power and utilities, and Prydanian Railways. Still, the Syndicalists introduced collectivization on a level never seen. The government took over control of these nationalized assets after the War, but made it clear that the preference was to re-compensate victims of the regime who had been dispossessed or their descendants. The ten year limit put into place by the Aubyn government was done because the post-Civil War government has no desire to own a wide range of what should be private firms and land in a free market.

The new law is meant to ensure that every effort to find viable candidates for restitution is exhausted before auctioning off these assets.

---

*ÞMs- MPs

In 2017 FRE, Andrennian, and Gojan tanks rolled into Býkonsviði. FRE soldiers took the seat of the legislature and deposed the head of the government.

I don't say this to denigrate the FRE, but rather to make a point. The end of the Syndicalist era was ushered in by military action and the soldiers of the FRE are- rightfully- held up as heroes and martyrs who sacrificed much, including the ultimate sacrifice in some cases, to free our country.

It lends itself to idolization. And that can turn dangers when the military is involved.

Prydania has traditionally seen its military in idealistic, pastoral terms. The landed gentry rising to the banners of their liege lords and king gave way to the citizen farmer soldier, who grabbed a musket and joined the struggle whenever the need arrived.

This citizen farmer soldier exemplified Prydania in both Nordic-Imperial Wars, and the Wars of the Callisean Republic, where Prydania's ragtag military delivered the country salvation from Chavalier's hordes.

When the first fascist regime was dismantled in 1954 the new government wanted to return to this tradition, shedding the militarized buildup and fetishization of the fascist years.

Even today, the National Service program plays into this "citizen soldier" archetype. The idea that reservists can return to civilian life and rally back to the military to defend the country is what makes the still-new program so palatable.

All of this, however, comes with a risk when mixed with the adoration that has surrounded the armed forces since the end of the Civil War. This isn't theoretical either. We only need to look at the Crystal Kingdom.

The Crystal Kingdom is the name given to a sprawling eye-shaped building made of darkened glass that serves as the building for Eiygland. How is a building a kingdom? It's called that because the Eiyglo-Kaxon military is famously a "state within a state." It lacks sufficient civilian government oversight, and operates on its own terms, irrespective of the elected government or its policies. And while they swear an oath to the Eiyglish Queen it's doubtful even she has a hand in its practical governance.

I will not mince words- this is dangerous. It's dangerous for Eiygland, and their democratic institutions aren't less than ten years old like ours.

Yes, of course democracy in Prydania goes back a long ways, but we suffered through thirty three years of dictatorship and one year of a provisional government before open and democratic elections were called in 2018. It's been seven years. It's been four since our current constitution.

Allowing an Eiyglo-Kaxon-style military, unencumbered by civilian or even Royal oversight is a recipe for authoritarianism in the making.
Of course this is not meant to disparage Field Marshal Eiderwig or anyone else in a leadership position in the Armed Forces. No one has made any alarming demands or moves, and I don't believe anyone is planning to install a junta in waiting.

This sort of thing doesn't happen by scheming though. There are no shady meetings where a military culture like the one we see in Eiygland is established. It happens over time, as the military is revered and given more and more autonomy in the name of patriotism.

We revere our military. And we should! Still, we need to keep our own past in mind, and treat Eiygland's Crystal Kingdom like a cautionary tale. We must revere our military because service in it is a sacred duty to defend our country and institutions, and not let that responsibility turn into an unchallengeable right to power and autonomy devoiced from the democratic powers of the people our our King who guards and protects those rights.

Haland – Förpack, Prydania’s largest packaging company, is set to be restituted to the heir of its previous owners.

Company
Förpack, which had 3.9 billion krossar [600 million IBU] in revenue in 2024, is a Haland-based company that manufactures paper- and cardboard-based packaging such as boxes, crates, and wraps. It counts a wide swath of Haland’s and Austurland’s industries as clients, for which it makes packaging for products ranging from mugs to laptops to refrigerators. It also has a significant export market, making packaging for Santonian, Scalvian, and Khastenian products, among others.

Starting initially as a paper mill in the early 20th century, Förpack was owned and operated by the Gunstveldt family for three generations. A champion of Prydanian technology, Förpack pioneered the QuadriPak, a carton package that used the aseptic packaging technology that enabled the distribution of drinks without the need for a cold chain. QuadriPaks are ubiquitous as juice boxes and milk cartons throughout the world.

In the 1990s, after a highly public spat between Förpack’s two co-owners, half-brothers Harald and Henrik Gunstveldt, the company was split into two. The immensely successful QuadriPak was spun off as a separate company in 1995 and was to be owned by Harald Gunstveldt’s family. Förpack remained in Prydania at the hands of Henrik Gunstveldt.

Harald Gunstveldt’s family fled Prydania in 2002 after the Syndicalist coup. While the Syndicalists were able to nationalize part of the QuadriPak that was in Prydania, its global reach meant that it was able to continue operations elsewhere. QuadriPak transferred its legal domicile to Saintonge in 2003 while Harald Gunstveldt and his family lived in Goyanes.

Förpack proper, being based in Prydania, was completely nationalised by the Syndicalist regime in 2002. Henrik Gunstveldt disappeared in the autumn of 2003, and the rest of his children and their families also disappeared one by one.

Liberation
After the Syndicalist regime was toppled, Förpack was placed in trust by the Prydanian government, which continued to run the company. The boom in manufacturing in Haland, coupled with the general recovery of Prydanian industry, meant that its products were met with surging demand. Under the leadership of Davíð Bendt, Förpack became a multimillion-krossar vertically-integrated company, producing its own paper and cardboard for packaging. It provides employment for about five thousand employees throughout southeastern Prydania.

Restitution
After Prydania’s restitution law was passed in 2017, the Harald branch of the family initially did not lodge a claim for the company. However, as Förpack boomed and became a valuable, profitable company, Harald’s side of the family put in a claim for restitution on November 2023. Led by Harald’s eldest son Holgeir Gunstveldt, Harald’s family brought evidence that Henrik Gunstveldt and all of his descendants were either dead or missing.

The claim initially stoked apprehension and controversy, as QuadriPak was now considered a foreign company. Merging Förpack with it might mean ‘giving away’ one of the emerging examples of Prydanian recovery. Legally, the 2017 law requires restitution. However, Bendt, supported by the city council of Haland, used the newly-passed 2024 law to apply for a two-year ‘extra diligence’ period to confirm the restitution claim by Holgeir Gunstveldt.

Discovery
Förpack started its restitution process in 2018, in which the company tried to find direct heirs to return the company to. However, this was complicated by the disorganized archives, sealed documents, and the general chaos of vital records after the liberation.

According to the company’s research, Henrik Gunstveldt himself was executed on December 2003. The entire family of his eldest son Adam was sent to a Syndicalist work camp in Krummedike in 2004. Camp records reveal that the all of the family members died in the camp.

The second son Alexander Gunstveldt was arrested and executed in March 2007. His wife Katrín died of illness six months later. Their daughter Hanna was forcibly sent to an ‘orphanage’ in Jorvik, where she apparently died in 2012.

Alexander Gunstveldt’s twin sister, Alexandria, and Alexandria’s husband Freybjörn Refslund, were arrested on March 2011 for charges of collaborating with the FRE. Their only son Styrbjörn was reported missing in 2011. Of all the direct heirs of Henrik Gunstveldt, only Styrbjörn Refslund lacked documentation of death in the Syndicalist archives.

Henrik Gunstveldt’s youngest child, Annika, along with her mother Anna, was sent to jail on fabricated charges on September 2009. Anna Gunstveldt died in a Keris prison in January 2010, while Annika Gunstveldt was executed in 2013.

Heir found
Holgeir Gunstveldt also carried the same documentation. With regards to Styrbjörn Refslund, Holgeir submitted an eyewitness certification from a former neighbour of the Refslunds that the then ten-year-old boy was also taken by the Syndicalists and was likely dead.

After a simple chercher search turned up a Styrbjörn Refslund living in Saintonge, Bendt and Förpack requested for information from the recently-opened and recently-declassified archives of Santonian legations in Prydania. Contrary to the information that Holgeir Gunstveldt held, Styrbjörn Refslund escaped to the Santonian consulate in Haland on March 2011. He was sent to Saintonge in 2012 as an orphaned, unaccompanied minor. Refslund was not adopted and aged out of the country’s foster care system.

Now a naturalised Santonian citizen, Styrbjörn Refslund, 23, has recently graduated from university and currently works in information technology and creative spaces. Apparently Refslund also appears in a few Viédeo productions. Bendt and Förpack informed Refslund of him being the heir to the company last February 2025. Förpack is assisting him in the paperwork and restitution claim. With a direct heir found, the claim by Holgeir Gunstveldt is moot.


Plans
Förpack avoided being absorbed by a foreign company, but now faces being owned by a foreign citizen. According to several insiders, Bendt and Refslund assuaged those concerns at a union meeting last month. Bendt and Refslund assured Förpack’s workers that he will be keeping the company, the workers, and the industry in Prydania. How involved Refslund would be in the company remains to be seen, as the restitution process is still ongoing. Förpack announced that the company is set to be restituted to Styrbjörn Refslund by the end of 2025.

---

OOC Note: Post approved by @Prydania Also he made the logo!

Why a stag, or "hart" if you're being poetic? Did you know that "the Stags" is considered the proper nickname of the Prydanian national football and basketball teams, but it's "the Harts" in hockey? Who knew hockey players were such poets?
Regardless? Why a stag, or hart, or deer? Why is this ruminant ungulate the symbol of our country? Why did millions rally around it during the Civil War as the Syndicalists shunned it? What made it such a powerful symbol? The answer goes back a long ways.

Back in Gothis the Kings of Heorot revered the Thaunic god Jægdar as their patron deity. Jægdar is the Thaunic god of the hunt, and is associated with a number of forest motifs, including deer and wolves. Deer seems to be the most prominent of these associations, however, as Jægdar (or Jägdar in Andrennian) is often depicted with stag antlers.


As the ancient Loðbróki Kings of Heorot revered this god, his stag antlers came to adorn their banner.


For centuries the assumption was fairly straightforward. Jægdar remains a very relevant symbol to this day. Around five percent of Prydanians still practice Thaunicca, Jægdar continues to be used as a fairly popular personification of Prydania, and the title "Sword of Jægdar" is one of the King of Prydania's titles. It's not a stretch to assume that the old Loðbróki clan of Gothis simply adopted the deer as a symbol of their patron diety. Recent archaeological evidence from Heorot in Andrenne, however, challenges this assertion. It seems like the stag, along with a winged lion motif, was an early symbol of the region and may have evolved as a clan symbol alongside the evolution of Jægdar as a deity.

Not only did Jægdar's stag follow our ancestors from Gothis to Craviter, but it played a vital role in the adoption of Messianism. Kaldor Loðbrók, Lord and (ahistorically referred to as) King of Stormurholmr, is said to have kicked off the conversion of the Nords in Craviter when, during a hunt, he came across a stag who displayed the cross of the Messianic god between its antlers.


Kaldor took this as a sign, and converted to Messianism. The new religion had already won a number of minor Nordic lords over, but the liege lord of the entirety of Austurland gave Messianism the edge in this emerging culture war. And that he saw the cross in a stag's antlers was probably central to the success of the message. Dr. Synne Mehle, a professor of religious studies at the University of Haland, explained it as an effective use of religious syncretism.

"The Viking Era placed a lot of social capital on honour," Dr. Mehle explained.
"Honour came from fulfilling your social obligations. For the Thanes, Jarls, and Hersirs of the era that meant loyalty to their liege lord, but also to the gods and goddesses they had pledged themselves to. For many the emergence of Messianic Gojan missionaries and monks was an attack on these ancient bonds of honour. Kaldor, as the most prominent Thane of his era, not just seeing a vision of the cross, but seeing it in a stag's antlers, was vitally important. Jægdar was associated with the stag. If a stag is showing the Thane of Stormurholmr the Messianic cross, it's an endorsement from Jægdar to embrace the Messianic god. It's Jægdar freeing the clan leaders from their religious oaths and allowing them to embrace the new religion without sacrificing honour."

I asked Dr. Mehle if this was the source of Prydanian Messianism, a rather loose and informal name for the fact that Prydanian society has long had both Messianist faith and Thaunic theology coexisting side by side with minimal conflict.

"Absolutely," she said.
"To this day most farming families will have statues of Thaunic fertility and harvest gods and goddesses in the house despite saying grace every night at dinner and going to church every Sunday. The central tenant of Messianism, inherited from Shaddaism, holds that there is only one god. Strictly speaking you reject the existence of other gods when you accept Messianism through Jesus as an aspect of the singular god. Yet in Prydania the acceptance of Messianism following St. Kaldor's conversion didn't really mean a rejection of Thaunica. It was very common to see art depicting Thaunic deities and Messianic saints together all the way through the 20th century."
When Kaldor converted he adopted a new crest, which combined viking symbolism with his new Messianic faith. The deer with the cross between its antlers, was the central element.


This was the same crest that Kaldor's descendent Vortgyn would carry during his fifteen year campaign to conquer the Bayardi. His son, Tobias I, would establish peace between the Thaunics and Messianists by promising the Thaunics freedom and protection in religious matters if they pledged their loyalty. Kaldor, Vorgtyn I, and Tobias I were all eventually canonized by the Messianic Church at large, speaking to their importance at solidifying Messianism in northern Craviter.

As time went on and heraldry as an art style evolved, so too did the crest. The viking styles of Kaldor's crest were eventually supplanted by more heraldic styling.


As the unified Kingdom of Prydania solidified under House Loðbrók, their stag emblem carrying a whisper of Jægdar came to be seen as the national emblem. Baldr III's decision to not quarter the Loðbrók stag with the Scylfing arrows of his house when he took the throne in 1511. He was making it clear that the emblem was a national emblem by that point.

The Syndicalists rejected the stag, seeing it as a symbol of royalty, of religion, and of the entire "old social order" they wished to reshape. The stag was embraced by the Front of National Unity (FRE) in their insurgency against the Syndicalist regime.


The stag returned with the royal arms when the War ended and the monarchy re-established, which means it once again adorns everything from Prydanian national team uniforms to passports to anything else under the sun.

"I don't think you can separate the stag from Prydania, or say it's just a royal or religious symbol," Dr. Mehle said at the end of our conversation.
"It's a symbol of Prydania because of those religious, clan, and royal related ideas. Society is an organism. It grows, and it carries its past with it. Things that were important to our ancestors have a way of sticking around, even if they pick up new meanings along the way."

I couldn't end our discussion though, without asking her a question that had been nagging me. I asked her about the winged lion that seemed to show up alongside the stag during the very earliest archaeological digs in Andrenne.

"Oh the winged lion is giving us fits," she laughed.
"But it seems that whatever its meaning was, it didn't endure like the stag did. Which means we'll be arguing about it for a very long time."

Winged lions aside, the journey from tribal to Thaunic to clan to Messianic to royal to national symbol has ingrained the stag- or hart if you're being poetic- as one of our national symbols. Consider looking up the next winter night you hear Jægdar and the wild hunt. And give a tip of the hat.

Býkonsviði- The Alþingi has voted to approve the establishment of a separate Royal Prydanian Air Force Academy on the recommendation of the Chief of the Defence Staff Field Marshal Stig Eiderwig and the Chief of the Air Force Air Marshal Alrik Prestegard. The decision formally splits the Air Force Academy from the Army Academy after nearly a hundred years.

The Joint Military Academy
Prydania's first military college was established in 1711, when King Harald II approved of the establishment of the Konunglegur Prydansk Sjóherakademían, or Royal Prydanian Naval Academy (KPSHA). The Army received its equivalent in 1724, the Konunglegur Prydansk Landherakademían, or Royal Prydanian Army Academy (KPLHA). This arrangement lasted until 1927, when the Royal Prydanian Army Air Corps was spun off as the Royal Prydanian Airforce. As air corps officers were already being trained at the KPLHA, it was decided to continue doing so. The KPLHA became the Konunglegur Prydansk Herakademían, or Royal Prydanian Military Academy (KPHA), training both Army and Air Force officers while the navy retained its own academy structure.
When the Syndicalist coup overtook the country, the Syndicalist government retained this system. The names and crests changed, of course, but Army and Air Force officers continued to be trained at the same academy.

Now, finally, the Royal Prydanian Armed Forces has made it known that the Air Force needs its own dedicated academic structure.

National Service and the Reorganization of the Armed Forces
Prydania enters its third year under the defence-inclined National Service orientation of the Armed Forces on the Santonian model. The Defense Staff, the decision making body made up of the highest ranking officers of the Armed Forces, noted that as the system took shape the need for a distinct Air Force academy would only grow.

"The arrangement with the Army in the Military Academy was always slightly awkward, but our current military system has highlighted the need for a distinct Air Force service academy sooner rather than later. We feel now is the ideal time, where the need is apparent and we have the resources on hand," Air Marshal Alrik Prestegard said.

"Our military has taken tremendous strides not only since the introduction of national service, but since the end of the Civil War," Field Marshal Stig Eiderwig added.
"This will only increase the effectiveness in training KPFH officers."

The new Royal Prydanian Air Force Academy will be established in Mjölby, North Austurland. The decision was made due to a number of factors, including the availability of land needed for air fields, the existence of exiting air fields via the North Austurland Air Force Base, and the desire to give Austurland a service academy. The former Military Academy, renamed to the Army Academy in light of this development, is located in Býkonsviði, while the Navy Academy is located in Leiolfsstaoir, Fölurpunktur.