Could you clarify "actual changes"? Are you referring to the impact of the Crash not being covered in sufficient detail? To the changes that follow System Failure and play out during the 5 year gap between SR3 and SR4 not being covered? To the immediate fallout of the System Failure not being comprehensive? Or to something else?

For reference, the book was only ever intended to cover the events in 2063-64 leading up to the System Failure in November 64 and then the immediate aftermath (fallout and ramifications within about 6 months of the event). Plus we intended to leave enough leeway for gamemasters to scale the impact of the Crash on their campaign to suit their needs.

Thus providing more oportunities for the shadow communitities

If that's what a GM wants, why not? Or if it's more interesting to have Mr. Mercury off on a secret Assets Inc mission when the Crash hits and his lady love gets in trouble, why isn't that just as feasible? Or if the GM hates the character have him die a stupid death and vanish as barely a foot note in bigger events? Or if a GM prefers to have Mercury blown off the face of the earth while heroically saving Washington from it's nuke, why not leave that open too?

Mercury is one of the those elements of the Shadowrun universe I never cared for or understood, however I know for a fact that while there are fans who despise Mr. Munchie, there are plenty of fans out there who like the character. Since it wasn't crucial to the storyline, FanPro decided to leave it up to GMs. System Failure gives GMs the basics to handle this as they want. The (canon) end result is identical (and detailed in SF and SR4).

Do not underestimate the Metahumans of liberated California - they aren't going to repeat Calfree's terrible mistake of inviting the Japanese to "their help" after their secsession. And after finally getting rid of Saito's tyranny, they aren't likely to sit quitely and watch another tyrant step all over their land, to say the least.

On the other hand, the CAS would probably be able to unite with the UCAS without any major violence, especially against an external threat (Aztlan, the NAN, Calfree-inspired Metahuman guerillas or something else). Unification will also annul any existing export/import tariffs between the nations, which will be quite profitable to the smaller corps (the larger ones don't play them IIRC if they are extraterritorial).

Just my two .

Because for a group of writers who seem to insist on "realism" they managed to completely fumble the situation.

Let's start with the obvious. The New Revolution went from a coordinated terrorist operation to effectively controlling not just large parts of the UCAS military, but as the Game Information suggests large parts of the militaries of many or most of the North American countries with no explanation for how that happened.

When the counterinsurgency "wins," there is no massive (and *ahem* integrated into the rest of the book or SR4) purge of the militaries, security services and general populace.

Likewise, there is no ongoing insurgency ongoing in the UCAS or any other country to any appreciable amount (aside from the Haida taking over Tsimshian) past November 3. Apparently like all video game and James Bond anonymous henchmen, the revolutionaries on the ground just gave up when they "lost." They especially did so even though they "lost" because of betrayal within at least part of the leadership, which benefited someone who they all apparently secretly deferred to "because." In a stunning feat of unity, there are apparently no factions in the New Revolution.

And on that note, the civilian counterinsurgency and popular resistance melted away into the shadows to let the governments which just proved that they were so incompetent that they let their militaries be usurped by terrorists go back to governing (note, this may not be true in Sioux. TT is a total mystery, but I bet there's a Great Dragon and/or Immortal Elf or two involved).

Why did they kidnap Haeffner and kidnap (and kill) SecDef Stratta to invade the NAN when they had overtaken at least parts of it already? If they were that deeply entrenched and involved, they would have already ensured the Continuity of Government in the UCAS and elsewhere they wanted, and taken care of it without involving either man.

Let's not also make any leaps or questions which apparently no one anywhere asked, such as:

• Why was Maj. Gen. Colloton in DeeCee during the Crash?
• Why was a two-star general made the Commanding General for the UCAS's entire counterinsurgency?
• Why did said general make--alone, mind you--the announcement from the White House?
• How did the militaries become usurped?
• How did the security services become usurped?
• How did the intelligence agencies become usurped?
• How did those that were not, and those people who were not, miss the kind of warnings that would cause most people in such positions to be running around "with their hair on fire?"
• What, if any, role did Ares Macrotechnology and/or Knight Errant have given its involvement in the Sioux and UCAS governments before the coup?
• Where there any, and if so, how effective were the "Oh, my God. How did this happen?" Committees/Commissions/Boards/Panels/Criminal Investigations/Etc.
• Noting one very likely failure, how did they not miss X's or Y's involvement?

Finally, and you can ask others about how this specific thing drove me batshit crazy all week:

Maj. Gen. Colloton made an announcement declaring that the UCAS counterinsurgency was victorious within hours (which is pretty impressive, BTW). All suspicions and acknowledgements by certain freelancers aside, in this speech lauding the victory of the government over an insurgency and rebellion which tore the UCAS and other North American countries apart (at least for a few hours), this women who was smart enough, ambitious enough and ruthless enough to become a Major General, to command JTF Seattle, to ostensibly backstab the other coup leaders, to cover her ass so thoroughly is she was involved that no one has caught onto it a year/year and a half into her Administration, and generally became a national hero overnight does something embarrassingly and politically unconscionably as give the speech she did. She did not evoke Abraham Lincoln, did not quote from the Gettysburg Address or his Second Inaugural or any of his speeches on the matter of the sacrifice of securing the nation against a rebellion. She didn't evoke imagery of Shays' Rebellion or the Whiskey Rebellion, acts that helped Washington's career and justified the more powerful federal government the Confederation could not produce.

She steals Ed Harris' quoting of Thomas Jefferson from The Rock, and didn't even have the decency to add Sean Connery's clever little retort where he quoted Oscar Wilde.

No one as savvy as she clearly is would do something so stupid, and so inappropriate as quote that line to justify the success and announce the victory of a counterinsurgency. It's a great line, perfect even, to justify your having engaged in a massive multinational coup. It evokes the sacrifice, attacks the status quo, and just sounds patriotic (So patriotic even that Timothy McVeigh had a neat little t-shirt with the quote printed on the front [with a dripping tree backdrop, IIRC]).

Please explain to this lowly student of government and history and political thought how the quote, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" has anything to do with counterinsurgency and putting down a rebellion. Who were the patriots? Who were the tyrants? The terrorists? How do terrorists become tyrants when they never actually controlled the government because at least part of it was fighting them? I mean, did anyone at Fanpro even have an understanding of the context from where that quote comes from? When, where, what preceded and followed it? Did anyone seriously believe that years later no one would ask, no one would think that it made no sense for the commanding general of the counterinsurgency to take a quote which espoused the cyclical razing of government by the people and put it into a speech declaring government's victory? Did you think so little of the people of Shadowrun, of us, the consumers?

Did you think? Or did it just sound cool when Ed Harris said it?

Yep, it's amazing what they got away with back in the mythical golden age of FASA when devs and writers could do no wrong and everybody was really into playing the game to have fun.

Oh don't take me so seriously. Heckling is how I have fun.