Oh yeah, using this as an opening to an tabletop rpg, would be fantastic! And yes, it was like I was privileged to some documents that shouldn't have been in my plebian hands.
Tone and style are easy to miss and definitely come with just writing more. I find reading what you wrote aloud is not only a good way to catch mistakes but also helps in ensuring characters use their correct voices (if that makes sense).
Yeah, it's a good use of images, may as well utilise that!
Admittedly no, I didn't catch the history reference, but now I know, I love that. Drawing from history is always great, so many useful ideas to utilise too. pPrhaps if I listened more in class I would have picked it up, though I'm more familiar with English and Australian history being an Aussie. My knowledge past France in Europe quickly depletes, to my own sadness.
I've played one game of Grimdark Future, but I'm really familiar with "Warhammer 40k" (which GDF draws a lot of inspo from, having a lot of the same factions in it) so that I used that as a baseline, and I'm sure "Apocalypse World" is another good one to help with.