Publisher's Note

March 2063

        Two years ago this publishing house anonymously received a handwritten English manuscript. The note with it stated that it was found among the possessions of a deceased elderly woman -- the purported author. She lived out her final years on an isolated farm somewhere near the Sierra Madre mountains of Sonora, Mexico.
        The contents of this manuscript -- now known as the Veronia Manuscript -- appear to present a record of the events that led to the Great Uprising that occurred during the first quarter of this century. The outcome of this tumultuous period is undeniably known to all. Yet, the exact genesis of it is buried in the ashes of the strife itself, the forty years since its conclusion and the dramatic social changes that resulted. As such, it is reasonable to question the veracity of the Manuscript's contents.
        Despite the Manuscript's rather recent appearance, scholars have already devoted considerable effort towards assessing its accuracy. The destructive intervention of the Great Uprising and the many years since its formative period late in the 20th Century make unequivocal authentication of all the information impractical. Despite this impediment scholars have worked diligently to compare the Manuscript with extant archival sources. Additionally, interviews have been conducted with the few people still alive who might have knowledge of the events of the period.
        The least scientific of the information available is the immense body of un-substantiated folk lore that surrounds the origins of the Great Uprising. Much of this lore involves the role of Veronia. The manuscript's content has been compared to the lore.
        The summary result of these studies is that, when taken against the body of available information and factually recorded history for the period, the most reputable of scholars find nothing in the Veronia Manuscript that would cause them to take exception as to either the existence of the people or the occurrence of the events as documented therein. Of course, proof by lack of exception is tentative proof at best. Yet, the critical scrutiny given to the facts reported in the Veronia Manuscript leads this publisher to conclude that there is substantial basis for accepting the material provided therein as true. The reader must form their own judgment.
        The text that follows is the unabridged version of the Veronia Manuscript.
 

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