Traffic Report by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)

My seventh submission to DYOS VIII.

I'd hinted I didn't much like Putin back in DYOS 6; here I was setting him up as a prospective arch-nemesis, although as later issues would take the Union as a given fact, a true power struggle never materialized. While the later impression is that the heads of state have all been brought to heel through a combination of carrots and sticks, if recent history is any indication, you just know he's biding his time in the sidelines... I've actually brainstormed it as a Balance of Power feature in the prospective HoI4 DYOS mod.

The original comic featured a functional, if clumsy, machine translation for the German that has been redone for this upload. Translated to English:

An important message has arrived from High Command...
...
Attention all agents! This is a direct order! Project is at level 3. Come on and retreat to command headquarters. All effort must be used to reach necessary energy quotas. Repeat, come on and pull yourself together! That means you, Mysterious Guy.

This was the first suggestion that Stylesrj's Mysterious Guy wasn't the top dog in the emerging conspiracy; despite later declassifications, at this stage I was playing everything by ear and I don't think I'd yet had a Biggest Bad in mind, making the German localization entirely coincidental.

[Originally submitted to DeviantArt December 2022.]