*tap, taptap* Is this thing on?

[Ed Piazza]

Dammit, Mike Stearns never should have- oh. Oh, there we go. *ahem*

 

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Edward Piazza, president of Thuringia-Franconia. I'm here to do two things: kick ass and chew bubblegum.

 

And since the Ring of Fire kind'a cut off our bubblegum supply, we're all out of gum.

 

(Also, for those of you who may be interested in alternate history... yes, I drew inspiration from Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series. It's an awesome look at what might have happened if Gustav II Adolf hadn't died at the Battle of Lutzen; in the case of Ring of Fire, his survival is partly due to the fact that a small American mining town from Virginia got hurled several centuries back in time and several thousand miles across the world to the middle of Germany during the Thirty Years' War.)

[Das Bell]

Alright then......

 

(o_o )

 

( o_o)

 

_____

[Ed Piazza]

Alright then......

 

(o_o )

 

( o_o)

 

_____

...What?

[Das Bell]

...What?

I...... Don't know......

This sounds interesting though:

small American mining town from Virginia got hurled several centuries back in time and several thousand miles across the world to the middle of Germany during the Thirty Years' War.)

[Ed Piazza]

Yeah, that's the basic premise of the Ring of Fire books.

 

What I like most about the series is twofold:

 

One, they're relatively accurate from a historical perspective; for example, while not all of the "down-time" people are actual people, a lot of them are based on real people and families; for instance, Rebecca Abrabanel herself didn't exist, but the Abrabanel family did, and they were a well-known line of Jewish financiers.

 

Two, they pay attention not just to the big names in the conflict (e.g. Gustav II Adolf, Axel Oxenstierna, Johann Tsercles, and General Wallenstein), but to how the actions of the big names affect the little guys.