Sarilho means knot, entanglement or a twist.
An alien gets shot in the face four times and for some reason that starts a war.
A Ancient satellite falls into enemy territory. The Kirchhoff brothers, Mikhail and Nikita, are dispatched along with a small team of soldiers to collect the remains of this relic, thought to be in space for over five hundred years. But did not consider that, just beyond the edge of the empire, their enemies would be interested on that technology as well…
As they arrive on the location, they quickly realise that the satellite is the least of their problems. Turns out an unknown, extraterrestrial artifact has crashed alongside it. And the thing thinks.
O Sarilho[1]
means knot, entanglement, or a twist. It also means trouble. It is a story of war, conflict, and facing the unknown.
General Tropes:
- Ancient Astronauts: Well, an ancient satellite crashing down starts the story off. But the thing inside it could fit this trope.
- Assimilation Plot: Judging by maps, The Mediterranean Empire has already conquered most of the continent the story takes place on.
- Artificial Limbs: Filipa has a prosthetic leg after an incident in chapter 3.
- Bilingual Bonus: The entire comic is presented in both Portuguese and English versions, but often documents, posters and other pieces of background media are in something that resembles Italian.
- Blue Blood: Strongly suggested to be the case of the Vera Italica Houses.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Shizuka Nakamura. Not once has she been seen dressing up her part, but Nikita vouches for her skills as an augur.
- Child Soldiers: Mikhail and Nikita were sold into the military at a very young age.
- Color Codedfor Your Convenience: The Régula II Divison wear bright red, white and gold uniforms. The Lusitanians wear more dark earth colored tones, possibly to blend in more with the surrounding forests. The different Lusitanian Schools, however, sport different colors according to speciality and these can be spotted in the Lusitanian outfits, although in small amounts.
- Conlang: At least the written language of the Mediterranean Empire. The spoken languages seem to be fairly close to their modern counterparts, though.
- Conscription: Heavily implied to be the case for most Meditans, except for the cases in which people are effectively bought by the military.
- Deus Est Machina: The Gods the Meditas refer to are apparently this, with the augurs effectively acting as their priests through some sort of psychic link.
- Eldritch Abomination: Now crashlanded in AROUCA!
- Everybody Smokes: the augurs.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Lusitanians. They call the Meditas Spaniards often, to the point of considering kicking them back into Spain.
- Fingore: Victor's deslusos all sport nine fingers, just like him. He also orders them to bite the fingers off people they may capture, as they do with Daria. Eurico and Estanislau seem to share his taste for the practice, as they cut several of the Foreigner's fingers during the torture scene. They grow back.
- Fictional Political Party: Two political parties are named on the Meditan Empire, the Efficientists and the Expansionists. Not much is known about them, except that members of the Corvo House are usually Expansionists. If Franq's words are anything to go by, the Efficientists are the reason there has been a peace treaty between the Meditan Empire and Lusitania.
- Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: The Meditans are not afraid to be spotted in battle, apparently.
- Hit So Hard, the Calendar Felt It: Something drastic happened 508 years before the story starts, enough for the Meditans to have changed their calendars. The Lusitanians don't seem to give it the same importance and continued to count the years as usual, so by the time the story starts they are in the year AD 2805.
- In-Series Nickname: Shizuka is nicknamed Shizamura. She hates it.
- Limited Wardrobe: They're soldiers.
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Averted. Both sides of the conflict seem to employ people of all genders and they seem to fall in similar numbers.
- Master Computer: Árgon and Xénon.
- Mind over Matter: Seems that a lot of people in this world have some sort of Psychic Powers, although their usage seems to be very contained.
- Multiethnic Name: Common in the Mediterranean Empire.
- One-Way Visor: It sure is nice when the meditans put up their helmets and their faces are no longer visible and they're all wearing the same uniform...
- Painting the Medium: the webcomic's site design often changes in particular scenes, with the comic's pages (or elements of these) taking the entire screen. The Foreigner's speech bubbles, whenever it speaks telepathically, are also represented different.
- Playing with Fire: Pyrokinesis is associated with augurism.
- Prescience by Analysis: How augurs see the future. That's not future sight, that's... Probability! [2]
- Real-Place Background: several locations along the Douro valley are mentioned by either their real names or bastardized versions of these. Nonetheless, there's a certain level of Istanbul (Not Constantinople) going on.
- Ruins of the Modern Age: The Mediterranean Empire's main endeavour is to recover and understand ancient technology, which looks somewhat modern.
- Schizo Tech: some people use normal guns and there's these guys with Microwave Guns.
- Straight Gay: Neither Nikita nor Steffano seem to fall into any obvious gay stereotypes.
- Superpowerful Genetics: According to the Extras, Talents have a genetic component to them, so they tend to run in families.
- The Empath: The Lusitanians in general and Fausta in particular. The Foreigner seems to be able to do it too.
- The Empire: A Mediterranean Empire.
- The Future: According to the Lusitanian timeframe, the story takes place in the 28th century.
- Unspecified Apocalypse: Something happened to the modern world, but the details aren't shown. Judging by the maps, this was either accompanied/caused by a raise in the sea levels.
open/close all folders
Chapter one
- Elite Mooks: We're told as early as chapter one that Nikita is very good at leading a team.
- Happinessin Slavery: Well kinda. Despite being sold to the empire and having no choice in what he does with his life, Nikita violently denies being a slave when the subject is ever brought up. He does say that Mikhail's totally fine with his situation though.
- Because I'm Good At It: How Nikita justifies his commitment to the army.
Chapter two
- Doctor's Orders: Maili says you can't connect to the computer right now, Franq [3]. It comes up again, later [4].
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: the Lusitanians big approach to battle is to raise dead soldiers to do the dirty work for them.
- First Contact Faux Pas: If one version of the events is correct, then Nikita has just shot the first alien on Earth in its face four times.
- Telepathy: The first thing The Foreigner does when it awakes is to read the thoughts/memories of everyone next to it.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Foreigner. Whatever it is, it's able of some level of mind-reading and mind-control, and its shape and size vary depending on who's looking at it. Could be a case of Starfish Aliens.
- An Arm and a Leg: Mikhail gets hit with a Microwave Gun from afar and part of his arm immediately explodes.
- Sheltered Aristocrat: Implied to be the case with Dária.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: SHUT. YOUR. MOUTH.
Chapter three
- Brick Joke: "I think I'm in for a medal!" [5]
- Darker and Edgier: There's decidedly a darker tone from here on, in sharp contrast to the lighthearted mood of the first two chapters.
- Eye Scream: Nikita gets a lot of shattered glass on his face as a result of breaking his helmet's faceplate.
- From Bad to Worse: It's the name of the chapter.
- Mind Manipulation: The lusitanians second big approach to battle, with Mind Rape undertones.
- Tranquil Fury: Nikita seems to hold his temper in battle, even more so after Mikhail's death.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: There are several casualities on both sides of the first battle.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Mikhail runs around after losing an arm for quite some time. Until he bleeds out.
- Boom, Headshot!: Implied in the case of Victor. Not so much for Jacinto. Twice.
- Your Head A-Splode: Jacinto gets headshot twice. Combined with Psychic Strangle in the case of Márcia
- What the Hell, Hero?: Clearly what's going on Aurik's mind after he catches Nikita executing Márcia with extreme prejudice.
Chapter four
- Affably Evil: While described as a Glory Seeker, Alexandro Corvo seem nothing but a normal and polite man, albeit one with a slightly sharp tongue.
- Anyone Can Die: Seems to be heading in that direction, if the first chapters are any proof.
- Anti-Climax: We never see the end of the battle that took place in the previous chapter.
- A Mother to her men: Olivia Mezzaferro may seem cold but she shows up for her boy's funeral.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Briefly: Nikita and Steffano's discussion NICE FOREPLAY, LOSERS!.
- Brick Joke: Daria gets her medal.
- Cigarette of Anxiety: Franquelim goes through a lot of cigars during his train ride to Salamanca until he's finally able to ask Nikita about the Lusitanians.
- Comically Missing the Point: Nikita can't stay with you, Steffano, because he did not bring enough underwear!! [6] (Or perhaps he get the point far too well!).
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Nikita goes through two different haircuts during this chapter alone, along with Eyepatch After Timeskip.
- Facial Markings: Meditans cover their faces with ash to display grief. Nikita has his face painted through the entire chapter.
- Kicked Upstairs: Nikita gets a surprise promotion.
- Laughing Mad: How the chapter closes.
- Made of Iron: What Nikita wishes he was and tries to be for the bigger part of the chapter.
- Motivational Lie: Nikita tells Alessandro what the general wants to hear as soon as he realises this may result in a declaration of war with Lusitania.
- No One Gets Left Behind: Averted, big time.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Things have taken a darker turn for many of the characters.
- Self-Deprecation: Whatever Nikita's got going on in this page. It might even overlap with The Chains of Commanding.
- Sharing a Body: Hinted that this might be the case of Fausta and part of the Foreigner.
- Survivor Guilt: Could easily be the name of the chapter.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: If this chapter's last page is any indication, this is what's to come.
- Scenery Porn: We see a lot of Salamanca and brief glances of the Douro Valley.
- Shout-Out: two characters from Of Magic [7] appear at the Salamanca train station.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: Not exactly to shut up but it sure ended the discussion.
- Webcomic Time: this chapter takes place two weeks after the previous ones.
- Written by the Winners: Steffano briefly discusses that it's odd that an empire that sports itself as the recoverer of the lost glory of mankind spends such an inordinate amount of time destroying the remains of the cultures it assimilates.
Chapter five
- Angelic Abomination: The Foreigner does get called 'Angel' a little too many times... And then makes itself perceived like this.
- Bespectacled Cutie: Ângela looks pretty cute in her big round glasses.
- Broken Bird: Ângela is hinted to have at least some sort of trouble going on.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Although that doesn't necessairly mean he loves them, Eurico does have a family that includes a wife and two young kids. On the other hand, Estanis seems to really care for Ângela too.
- Grand Theft Me: the Foreigner does this to Mikhail's corpse. Not exactly a case of Back from the Dead.
- Hunk: Estanis.
- Infinite Canvas: When the Professor makes a quick summary of the events on the night of the Foreigner's awakening[8], the canvas does this.
- Male Frontal Nudity: when Angela first enters the room after the Foreigner gets comfortable inside its new body, it looking like this... So she immediately assumes You Must Be Cold.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Help out an alien and automatically get on the bad side of everyone you love!!
- Our Zombies Are Different: The Deslusos work like puppets for their commanders, and can even speak for them.
- Shout-Out: Trigger from Ghost Junk Sickness appears briefly in the School of Medicine and Kate Blast calls for a Bishop.
- Torture Always Works: Averted, as no good information is extracted out of the Foreigner.
- Torture Technician: Both Eurico and Estanislau fit this trope, the first by performing mental torture while the second performs the physical part of it. They definitively go into Mutilation Interrogation territory.
- Unwanted Spouse: The way Estanis is dropped so quickly could really amount to this.
