Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II

I don't see what the fuss is about Freddy's pure breed Akita dog which by the way was a personal gift from the Imperial Family of Japan, mating with the pure breed Akita of the Ambassador from Japan

It wasn't the Ambassador but the Ambassador's assistant, and that individual milked the situation for all it was worth.
 
Is the government going to compensate the Hohenzollern Family for the lands or was it a "donation"?
Did one of the pups to go Graf von Richthofen?
 
Is the government going to compensate the Hohenzollern Family for the lands or was it a "donation"?

I suspect it was a donation rather than a "donation", but one with some sense.
The land will require upkeep and guardianship, by donating the land, the burden of that transfers form the Royal family to the Government.

So it could be termed a "donation", but one where it's given and the receiving feels obliged to accept it, even if they don't necessarily want it.
 
I take it that Akitas' are similar to foxes. Dog hardware running cat software.

Pretty much. My one is at 11 years old now so she isn't as jumpy and energetic as she used to be, but she still does the going to ground if you have a ball, or exist and she wants to play.

She also sleeps on her back with all four legs straight in the air sometimes and scares the crap out of herself by sneezing in her sleep, waking up, falling over and scrambling to come to terms with her surroundings.

Also petting her belly, no matter how exposed, is a trap.
 
If it was a metaphor it would have been way more appropriate if it was the kita and an actual german dog.

Not to turn this into the "Pictures of Dogs Thread" but they exist, and they are adorable.

Akita-German-Shepherd-Mix.jpg


Half Akita, Half German Shepard.
 
Not to turn this into the "Pictures of Dogs Thread" but they exist, and they are adorable.

Akita-German-Shepherd-Mix.jpg


Half Akita, Half German Shepard.

Fairly sure that picture is a 'shopped one, if you look closely at the root of the tail and more obviously on the dogs larger neck area it's quite obviously a blending of 2 images.

have a real picture instead :)
Akita-Shepherd-Pictures.jpg
 
Part 92, Chapter 1451
Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-One


1st June 1961

Mitte, Berlin

Say what you will about the Germans, Jack thought to himself as he walked into the hotel bar, they were certainly as a group, punctual.

He was meeting Franz Richter and the Lawyer was already waiting in the bar though Jack was a few minutes early. Back in Dublin the time to start an informal meeting like this would have been considerably more nebulous.

“Herr Kennedy” Richter said.

Jack just nodded in return before sitting down across the table from Richter and waited in silence until the waiter came for his order.

“This case isn’t what it seems” Richter said once Jack’s drink arrived.

“I could have told you that” Jack replied, “Berta Beck lacks the means to pursue a case like this, so someone with deep pockets is backing this.”

“Yes” Richter replied, “It reads like a who’s who among the leaders and financiers of the far-right Monarchists and Nationalists.”

“You know this?” Jack asked, a bit bewildered.

“None of this is a secret” Richter said, “While Gräfin Katherine has a generally good public image, it is largely because most of the people writing about her are sympathetic to her. Those who hate her and what she represents have a very different take. They see how she has steadily amassed wealth and power. Not only can they no longer dismiss her, but they can see that she is still a relatively young woman and they fear what she might become over the next decade.”

“If that is true, then they cannot think that this lawsuit is the means to stop her” Jack replied.

“You work Criminal Law in Ireland” Richter said, “How often did you encounter people who bought into their own garbage?”

“Nearly every day” Jack said. They believed the sorts of things that they told each other about Kat behind closed doors and implied in the newspaper columns that they wrote. They were wrong about what she was, Kat was better than that while at the same time being far worse than they imagined. They might fear what she would be in a decade, if they knew the truth then they would be petrified about what was coming at them as soon as this lawsuit was over.


Munster, Germany

Months as a Staff Officer in Wunsdorf and Kurt finally got himself reassigned. However, it wasn’t to command a Panzer Brigade. Instead, he was sent to Munster to teach Junior Officers tactics in night fighting. It seemed that with a new generation of Sperber devices becoming standard equipment in all armored vehicles in the Panzer Corps, Kurt was seen as an expert in the field. When he had conducted his own evaluation of the latest device, he had discovered that the photoreceptors were less likely the burn out and the shock that came from the main gun of a Lynx didn’t knock the Sperber device out of action. Kurt knew that he really could have used this version of the Sperber device two decades earlier in 1943. Hell, he could have used the rest of Lynx for that matter, back then.

“Blue Six, where the Hell do you think you are going?” Kurt yelled into the microphone as he watched the movement of the Platoon that he was commanding tonight. Blue Six, or Lieutenant Michael von Preussen, or was it von Bohemia these days, was a bit of a surprise to Kurt. The young King of Bohemia was one of the young men who Kurt had been tasked with teaching to lead Companies.

“Sorry, Sir” Blue Six replied, “Could you repeat that?”

It shouldn’t have been a surprise to Kurt, but Michael was proving to be an aggressive Panzer Commander along the lines of what Kurt himself had taught him to be. The result was that Kurt was getting a dose of his own medicine. He could think of dozens of times when he had charged ahead after ignoring his commander’s voice as it had come over his headphones. Frequently, it had been the fact that Kurt had come out ahead alone that had prevented him from being disciplined in the wake of such occurrences. “Yeah, it worked this time but if you do it again…” Kurt had found himself using those words. None of this was helped by aggressive PCs being popular with the crews.

Tonight, how that was working was that the Platoon was in position to ambush an “enemy” column. Michael had grown impatient in exactly the same manner that Kurt himself would have a couple decades earlier. He could either let Michael come to grief or else he could back the play in hopes that he could salvage something from the bloody chaotic mess that was about to happen. He had about five seconds to make up his mind because even at night a Lynx wasn’t exactly inconspicuous and unless whoever was in charge of the opposing force was asleep, they would see it. In this were a real battlefield then he couldn’t afford to just let a Panzer get destroyed.

“Hell” Kurt muttered to himself before yelling “Everyone forward, form up on Blue Six!”

Kurt would give Michael the ass reaming that he deserved once this was over and the after action would reflect that Kurt was forced to improvise once Blue Six was out of position. No matter how this turned out, he already knew what the subject of the next lecture was going to be.

Kurt could hear the sounds of the various Panzer crews over the radio net. A charge like this might be stupid and wasteful, but it was thrilling. This happened to be exactly what they had signed up for.
 
General Wolvogle is having a good laugh, where ever he is, about this. Kinda like when you have kids and your parents remind you how you were at that age. Also is Ollie gonna be Kurts senior NCO at the school?
 
Part 92, Chapter 1452
Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Fifty-Two


14th June 1961

Mitte, Berlin

Outwardly, Kat was calm, and her face was expressionless. Jack however knew better than take it at face value. The rigidness of her posture and a cloud of pure malice that Jack could sense radiating from her clearly suggested otherwise. He knew better than anyone what Kat was capable of and at this moment she was like a bomb that was about to explode. Jack knew that would be a disaster. He hoped that she would hold it together when this had started, after today he worried that several people living in the Berlin area would find themselves suffering a series of “accidents” of some kind in the near future. A Generalmajor was not without means, there were rumors that she had done it before and there were secrets of this city that Kat von Mischner alone knew.

The Plaintiff’s Lawyers had just gotten through voicing their theories regarding Kat’s moral depravity and why she was now lying about what had led up to the murder of Merten Beck. They were careful to avoid bringing up later events that would give the German Government cause to invoke State Secrecy, squelching the entire case. Everyone in the Courtroom knew that BND, BII and OKW were all itching to do that, and they would have the full backing of Emperor Louis Ferdinand if that happened. They included a series of sworn affidavits of individuals who had been on the receiving end of Kat’s frequent use of violence and deceit. Then came the theory that seemed designed to bait Kat, that she had really been in a relationship with Beck. It was absurd on its face and it was a perfect example of what Richter had referred to as believing their own garbage.

Finally, the Plaintiff’s Lawyers concluded and there was a brief recess before the Defense would start to make their case. As Jack and Richter spoke with each other about what exactly they were going to do with Kat, it became an issue if she could control herself because what Richter was about to say was exactly the sort of thing that would make her see red. It took the entire recess for Jack, Douglass, Ilse and Gloria to convince Kat that she needed to keep herself under control. As the session resumed, Kat sat there fuming.

While they had prepared to make a case if need be, Richter asked the Judges to dismiss the case. The logic was that even if the case by the Plaintiff’s was true, a twelve-year-old could not legally consent to relationship of that kind with a man fifteen years her senior. The case of slander being made against Katherine von Mischner was that she had said that Merten Beck was a criminal and had been lying about the sort of person that he was after her father had killed him. The Plaintiff’s lawyers themselves had confirmed that detail. It was obvious why Kat didn’t like that argument. It could be said that this could be seen as validating the sort of malicious rumors that were spread about her to a degree.

It worked when after consultation the Judges dismissed the case.

Still, it was obvious that no one felt like celebrating afterwards and as the Berta Beck sat there looking poleaxed it was obvious that someone had built up her hopes about justice for her son. Jack just hoped that his fears about Kat’s reaction to all of this would prove unfounded, or at least Berta wouldn’t be a primary target of Kat’s wrath.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Every muscle in Kiki’s body ached as she lay on her bed and looked out the window at tall television tower with the stainless-steel dome that was taking shape. Already, the reflection taking the shape of a cross had been noted and a comedian had quipped that the Patron Saint of Television had not been named yet. The Vatican had shot back that he was wrong, Saint Clare of Assisi had been named the Patron Saint of Television in 1958, her feast day was on the 11th August. The Catholic Church was perfectly happy to tell more to people who were interested. That was a rare bit of savvy from the Church considering the ham-handed manner in which it had handled the series of scandals that had engulfed it in recent years. Charlotte, who was Catholic, had told Kiki that perhaps the Church would come around and make the changes that it needed to eventually. Kiki wasn’t optimistic. The Catholic Church was only just barely starting to address the problems presented by the reformation, a few centuries late.

For Kiki herself. She was putting herself through everything she remembered from basic training and the additional training that Kat had put her through prior to her departure for Korea. All in the hope that it would at least prepare her somewhat for where she would be going in just a few weeks. The General had been quietly encouraging that. While she didn’t know his actual opinion of women taking on the roles that she was trying to, he had done nothing to discourage her. Kiki knew that in a very short time she would be surrounded by men who would be bigger and stronger than she was. Her understanding was that she would have to push herself past what she might have thought were her limits to merely be good enough.

Not for the first time did the nagging voice in the back of Kiki’s mind tell her that she had painted herself into corner and that she was setting herself up for an epic fall.
 
That was a good update, what were the plaintiffs thinking if they thought that a twelve year old could have a consensual relationship with an adult.
 
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