Kick the Guard Dog by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)

My fourth submission to DYOS VI.

I'd forgotten just how snarky Bjørn was originally. You'd be hard-pressed to find such brazen contempt today, but he's certainly no less shrewd; he may be my Most Trusted Advisor™, but he's nobody's yes-man.

This comic is the beginning of the olive oil gag. I'd decided that until I got the Mods' Fridge, I couldn't drink any commonly recognized beverage, a rule only broken twice. The choice of olive oil was inspired by a National Geographic article that I think actually dates from the 1990s.

Something interesting that I'm not sure if anyone picked up on at the time, is that by immediately following the raid on Aberdeen with this comic, I-the-writer am putting my plot in CG's crosshairs. It was a fairly inconsequential episode and could otherwise be brushed aside, but I made a conscious decision to draw attention to that fact. Plot-wise, I was simply following accordant consequence, but I think it also speaks to how confident I was in my understanding of DYOS 5 that I was willing to tango with heavyweight @GenMarshall so early. Up until the formation of the Eastern Union, my rag-tag band was presented as technologically backward and politically ignorant; but I-the-writer was more than aware of the standing order.

Fast forward to the future where Harald is, ironically enough, acting head of state of my faction throughout DYOS XI.

[Originally submitted to DeviantArt May 2013.]