Okay, but what the hell is that Marlon Brando does Batman thingy in the bottom right corner?

It's the new SR pet

Really? Cool. Okay, who wants to try flushing it down the toilet first?

Hey, just wait for the action figure w/ audio. You push a button in its back and the doll says "SoE will come out this week"

Another SOE crack and I'm flying to Uruguay and conking you on the head.

Snow Fox - My thanks for your patience.

@Wong & Flakjacket:

Honks, it's the logo of the Fantastic Shop(that's where the link goes), which will not appear on the actual book.

What? No shadowrunning Beanie Baby?

Oh deary me. Looks like it might be time to get that flight to Japan, train industriously in the art of Kenjitsu, pick up a hand-made katana (Dikoted of course!) and then pop on over to the FANPRO offices for a little tete a tete.

Que Tarentino action and bizarre 60's psychaeldelia. May be even add Batman camera angles and POW effects too...

PS> Howdy-do thar Guys & Gals.

Of course he could send an email but I think the Tarantino style approach is a little more impressive

Just more impressive than an email...

An e-mail can be very impressive. Just remember to attach the pictures of the recipient doing his daily chores, sleeping, his children/SO/parents sleeping, etc.

nevermind

Well, you could also offer payment to Dumpshocks local residents to pay a visit to Fanpro. Germany is a small country after all. Not that it will speed up delivery.


Michael (In range of a PzH 2000 to FanPro but lacking the tube)

And, well, being in Germany doesn't help much when FanPro LLC's office is in Chicago.

It may be a vague allusion to the blaming of Germany for WWI.

And, of course, the current joke about letting Germany slap France down (again).

-Siege

I was unaware that was a common German practice, to blame others.

I thought Americans had cornered that particular market years ago.

-Siege

Hey, hey. Can't we all just get along and agree to blame the French?

Aren't we a bit off topic now?

So if we all spoke french like civilized people there would be no war and we'd all be discussing food, wine, clothes ands love? I'm looking for a down side here.

That's true.

As for the emails, well, I decided to hold back until we heard something through official channels. No point in hasssling Rob, who by all accounts is a very busy bloke ATM.

I'll freely admit that it's disappointing to be left out in limbo as to what's happening and then hear about it secondhand via a product release announcement, but hey, it'll be ready when its ready. At least its going to happen. And if the additional time means a good level of proof-reading and an overall high-quality result, I'm not going to argue.

Besides, gives me more time to get my act together and finally buy that computer. When it comes to professional writing, hardcopy sucks...

PS Snow Fox, the downside to speaking French is that your breath smells of onions and garlic.

SoE is going to come out first. SoE had at least a second draft done by the time that Cyberpunk 2030 was put at square one. Unless something significantly retarded happens, SoE will be out first.

Personally, I'm waiting for mJLBB.

I think he's talking about the "all Germans/Aryans/whatever-fits-me-this-week are mine" syndrome that a certain dictator had in the 1930-40s...

Which reminds me of a superb cartoon by John Low, a british artist from that time. Now, if I could just find a link... :

In defence of lower class Britains everywhere:

"We ain't that bloody polite - if someone stinks I'll damn well tell 'em so, especially if they're some prissy french queer!"

I, however, am classy - I love the French. Especially the not-male ones. They make good plonk, too, and their language is, as you say, designed for love not war. Which is probably why they are such abominable combatants. I think.

The French get a bad rep, but they're not a singularly bad combatant -- they held their own with the English from time to time and Napoleon did threaten the whole of Europe.

Granted, they didn't do well in either of the two World Wars, but still...

-Siege

Nobody did well during the First World War. The French commanders just get more desesparate than the other because Paris was the only capital directly threatened. The three big defeat were:
- the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Invading Russia was really pushing luck too far. Considering all of Europe had to unite, it stays an honorable defeat. OTOH, on the seas we got beaten everytime by the British alone.
- the 1870 Franco-Prussian War, which was a perfectly designed trap from the provocation telegram to the secret alliances with the Southern German states, Bismarck being overall smarter than Napoleon III
- the Second World War. The government shouldn't have surrendered and go into exile, but from the military point of view France would have fallen anyway. If you ask me, the French didn't lack any "fighting spirit" the Brits and Americans had, they lacked a body of water preventing Panzer divisions from rolling onto their homes.

But at that point, the French lanauge was well established. It derives from latin, brought in the area by the well-known "Roman Legion of Love". It starts becoming a language melting with the language of the Franks ("Francs") who invade and makes their own the territory of "France". In 732, Charles Martel, aka "The Hammer", defends French poetry against the Arab culture in Poitiers. French became a litterary language to told tales of love stories such as Charlemagne's paladins battles. After a few generations who lived in France and spoke French, the descendants of the Danish vikings installed in Normandy goes to haggle beer price at Hastings. It gives limited results and Richard "Coeur de Lion" still use French when he led with Philippe II de France the Third Crusade after two ones already led by French noblemen. Following Du Guesclin in the history of famous military leaders, Joan of Arc is called to war by holy voice dubbed in French. Francis 1st makes French the official language, instead of Latin, which might show up on records of Knight Bayard victory in Marignan. Richelieu gives the reponsability of the French language to the Academie Francaise but keep the one of having France staying involved in the Thirty Years War until the end. However French is unadapted to war that Louis XIV motto "Ultima Ratio Regnum" is embedded in latin on his cannons. Royalty comes to an end through a peaceful revolution... soldiers sings about watering fields with blood and "Terreurr" takes a meaning in every language. BTW I'm wondering which language Washington and Lafayette used to communicate during the American War of Independence... Pass on, finally Napoleon greatly develops the teaching of French to create an administration able to govern the little part of Europe that fell under is control for a short time.

English ? Ain't that the language Romeo & Juliet was wrote in ?

No, you're thinking of "Shakespearian." That's another language altogether, as any school child will tell you!

Additionally, the bulk of WWI was fought on French soil while during WWII, the Nazis overran France, neutralizing it's (by German mechanized standards) outdated military.

All I said was, they didn't fare well. Had Nazi Germany launched a land war against either Britain or America (provided they had been in a position to do so), the results would most likely have been similar, if not identical.

In those two scenarios, it was mostly luck of the draw than any real lack of will or skill. That and outdated equipment.

-Siege

As my history teacher used to say... when Germany invaded Poland, the best cavalry in the world got beaten by the best tanks in the world It has nothing to do with the value of each soldier or of their people, it's just the situation at a given time.

I disagree with some of your conclusions. The infantry support doctrine was military. So don't blame the politicians. Don't worry, there's plenty of that.

The French army at the beginning of WWII was rife with incompetence and barely restrained revolution and rioting. Officers had little or no control. In some units it was dangerous to give orders contrary to what the men wanted to do. It didn't help that in 1937(?) something like 80% of appropriations were returned unused.

I know that all that should have support, but I really should be working. I might get around to that at some point. But you do have quite a few good points, Birdy.

Actually Birdy, Rommel used that tactic on the British in Africa repeatedly.

Nasty but effective work.

-Siege