#specops clone wars

[tesalicious2]

Command Clone Currency

The clones are unpaid and therefore broke. They can’t really pay each other to do things since they have no money so they go for a new currency: favors

Now, the CTs don’t really do it the same as the Commanders because they have to be specific. They can’t return a favor between battalions quickly, due to fighting/locations/schedule. They’re at the whim of the war and pick and choose their repayment time.

The Comanders are different. They trade and barter like crazy. It’s favors with a few cases of alcohol. They can trade favors they are owed to others all the time, so anyone can cash it. They can pull the strings to get their payment quick.

For example, Cody needed a save from a small squad. He knew Delta was on planet doing some mission and he needed a detour but he had no connection or favor. However, Fox (for some reason) did. Cody offered a case of spotchka and a favor Monnk owed in return for having Delta do the detour. Delta owed fox one less favor, Cody owed no favors (which is the best outcome, since Fox WILL cash it) and Fox got something on Monnk and free (very expensive) spotchka.

Few CTs knew they did it this way, and the CT captains such as Rex and Keeli had to quickly adapt to this way of thinking. Rex made the mistake of owing Bacara before anyone told him. Keeli was lucky enough to meet the SpecOps CC Blackout, who clued him in on the difference but left him high and dry when it came to implementing his knowledge. (Keeli ended up owing Blackout two mini guns for his ‘friendly advice’)

Though, when times are tough and there is little time to barter, it is common to put off the payment until after the act is completed. Though many hate doing this as the trading can become unfair. What often happens is the party in need already has a deal prepared and states their need and their payment, it is hardly ever contested (however the helper may tack on another fee which is accepted or denied).

For example, Doom needed backup from Jet’s flame troopers. He quickly called, stated his need, and his payment of a case of charges. Jet had found the payment (though correct in price, unpractical for his squad) and changed it to half a case of fuel (easier for Doom to get a hold of and just as useful as charges to a Demolition team). Doom accepted the terms and Jet’s squad arrived right on time.

Though the bartering is mostly physical, many deal in the intangible. Perfect examples are all of the Coruscant Guard and the Special Operations teams. These are the only two groups who has everyone (including CT shinies) in on this system. They have the least to offer when it comes to normal ops, after all what GAR commander needs to know where a random Senator is going to be at what time or who slept with who. However, this trading info is perfect for the Guard who constantly works with/against (yay embezzlement and blackmail) these same Senators and for the SpecOps who need to know political climates and interpersonal relationships for recon and assassinations.

Most trading goes on between those two, and their prices are often higher since the missions are higher stake. Often Commando Squads are up for bids (who doesn’t want a four man 100% mission completion rate squad in their pocket), blackmail on natborn officers, republic secrets, senators schedules, crime syndicates favor and areas of interest, etc.

For the Guard, their trading goes further. They work with crime syndicates to keep it off the streets while keeping profit up. Those who do not work with them, go down. They’ve gain control of the lower 2000 levels through this and those who do not conform are forced to by the Guard or the citizens of the lower levels who don’t want to deal with the Guard, (peer pressure and bullying at its finest.)

The commanders learned this from watching the Cuy’val Dar, who would often trade on Kamino. The Alphas picked it up and used it but the CCs truly made it valuable beyond belief. The trainers traded for free shifts and booze, the CCs traded for mission successes and heavy artillery.

Many CTs attempt to learn how this system works. However, as few know it’s different, even fewer see the affects; those that do, know well enough to leave it be.

Despite there being no real difference in intelligence between the CCs and CTs, witnessing the speed and weight of the trades, makes even the Jedi’s head spin.

The Padawans are one of the few outsiders to see it in action. They do not really like it, but many pick it up for lesser trades (help with this paper or answers for this homework). Cal Kestis surprisingly picks it up the best. He’s the youngest so very impressionable, eager to learn, his CC Commander Steel, is very good at it, and Steel is possibly the only one to teach their General’s Padawan.

Steel sees that Cal isn’t going to be on the field much (Steel agrees with this and makes sure he stays on the Venator). So, if Cal ever needs help, he knows how to get it. Steel has made him be present for several trades and even made him come up with theoretical ones. Cal becomes very good at it, but is unable to flex his skills much due to the other Padawans unable to match his speed or skill. They are several years older, see it as in-Jedi like or are bad at it (or their Captains are bad at it and can’t teach them well), their concept of value is off (Jedi don’t often put a price on things and those that do have a habit of underselling due to being nice), and/or they do not know the range of what can be traded.

It’s very personal, with different Commanders wanting different things. Knowing who wants what can often make the payment cheaper for the offering party.

For example, the Marines often need heavy snow gear and blankets. So, offering a box of heating blankets in return for a case of bacta and blaster packs. This is a much better deal than offering a case of mini guns for the bacta and blaster packs. In the second case, Bacara may say no the mini guns or want a case of something else along with the mini guns.

[delkios]

For those of you RepComm fans that also like game dev talk, here's a podcast done by Brett Douville and Tim Longo (lead programmer and director, respectively) in 2020, playing through the game and also bringing in some of the other devs to interview. I'll put links and a brief synopsis of each one.

Part One (no guest/playthrough) Discussion notes: giving context around the time via other released games and consoles, what squad based gaming was like at the time, developing the idea for RepComm, discussing the opening sequence and lightly touching in Geonosis

Part Two (no guest/playthrough) Discussion notes: the lack of information re: clone organization/GAR structure, playing through Geonosis, discussions about weapons, the Prosecutor, details on scav droids, trandoshians and AI communication and scattered talk about difficulty levels

Part Three (no guest/playthrough) Discussion notes: George Lucas's input on differentiating between clones and lack of humor, talking about voice acting/recording process, going through Kashyyk, technology limitations, level flaws and working with a small dev team, difficulty level (particularly the bridge), using level design to make the AI seem smarter, some info on the books, toys/the game's surprise success, minor talk about plans for a sequel, Delta's cameo in the Clone Wars

David Collins and Jesse Harlin (voice director and composer) Discussion notes: the state of game music/composers/audio at the time, RepComm devs working with audio from the beginning, music changes depending on how you enter a room, sounds from the game being reused in other Star Wars media, Jesse and his girlfriend/now wife developing 'ancient Mandalorian'/Mando'a, 'kote' confirmed to be Cody (specifically Jesse's sister), battle sounds on Geonosis, questioning the use of Ash/no guitars in Star Wars, multiplayer a late addition

Harley Baldwin (level designer) Discussion notes: the unique culture of the RepComm dev team, a stealth level intended in Kashyyk, Prosecutor's atmosphere, difficulty spikes designed to emphasis squad importance/level designers are not good measures for difficulty, Kashyyk designed to be a culmination of the player's experience and knowledge, squad moving ahead of the player due to playtest concerns, easter egg in the texture editor

Greg Knight and Paul Pierce (concept artist and UI artist) Discussion notes: devoted concept artists weren't common at the time but proven to save development time, the entire team contributed to ideas for concept art, influences for the design of the HUD, decision to make the game entirely first person/immersion driving UI design, weapons as a 'character', differences in RepComm's design notes vs movies' games, enemies mean different things between Jedi and clone troopers, noting similarities between RepComm and Rogue One, RepComm's low profile allowed them to get away with more, hangars in Prosecutor meant to progressively make the player more desperate and AT-TE a reward for surviving, Kashyyk's bridge was meant to be the 'boss battle', the concept of 'the squad is your weapon/the squad is your health'

Dave Bogan (lead animator) Discussion notes: working title 1138, 'what is the enemy doing when they don't know you're there', aiming to compete with Halo, every enemy had to act and move differently, expanding on the SpecOps special feature video, game mechanics/logic vs how things are actually done, the wookie-kill animation that got cut, RepComm influencing the tone of Star Wars games/more non-Jedi games, book recommendation based on RepComm, a bug in multiplayer that didn't get fixed apparently allowed co-op???

Tim Longo and Brett Douville (director and lead programmer) Discussion notes: no real talk directly about RepComm that hasn't already been covered but some good conversations about communication and team work

Jeremie Talbot (character lead) Discussion notes: nobody knew what they were doing, just wanted to make it as cool as they could, the use of tiger teams who fixed various problems, all the devs wanted to make the game fun to play and shared ideas, BABY ARMS, raindrops on the HUD for a dollar, having people with knowledge between programmers and artists to communicate, talking about trailers, not being too devoted to following storyboards, talking about the opening sequence, fans often bring up the opening, despite LucasArts's shake up RepComm team felt distant from it, there for the team and the game first and the company second, needing a mix of veteran and new devs

Honestly I'd been trying to listen to these for, like, two years but I kept going through cycles of remembering it when I didn't have the time to listen how I wanted to and keeping it in the back of my mind until I'd forget and then re-finding it in my bookmarks. I don't really remember how I came upon it- rabbit hole falling, I'd guess -and thought I'd share it around to other fans that likely hadn't come across it, either.

For add fun, here's a RepComm stream Brett Douville did around 2015 where he also interviewed people that worked on it. Unfortunately I can't find the first part on either his youtube or twitch pages but there's still three others. Note that there's some repeated information so I'll only mention anything new

Part 2 w/ Daron Stinnett and Jesse Harlin (executive producer and composer) Discussion notes: (Daron's audio is pretty quiet in comparison to Brett's) talking about how and why RepComm came about, deliberately tucked the team away so execs wouldn't bother them, when prequels came out it seemed like LucasArts wanted a game in each genre, 'not Star Wars enough', pointing out a couple name drops in the Prosecutor briefing, originally had no John Williams music, setting music cues in levels/'here comes stinky', the thought process behind developing Mando'a, didn't have an AI to deal with non-commando clones which is why they're scripted to die, even though you love the game while making it you're sick of it by the time it's finished, original voices were sound-alikes, Fixer/Advisor's VA was the only one that didn't get recast, a cut level was a Geonosian church, talking of different instrumentation between levels,

Part 3 w/ Nathan Martz (enemy AI programmer) Discussion notes: (Nathan's audio is ESPECIALLY quiet) talking about how Geonosian enemies 'choose' points to jump to, good AI is about cheats/build the world so the characters can be smart, scav droids were originally more lethal and were nerfed to not do certain behaviors if you're not looking at them, it's very easy to make a difficult AI, it's harder to make an AI that's challenging and fun, setting up common AI behaviors to work modularly and wanting to make finishing moves for the wookies equals the squad being able to do finishing moves, 'the most important thing an enemy does is die'/making interesting deaths, talk about lighting challenges, LucasArts got a new president halfway through RepComm's production, didn't understand the game but allowed it to continue, sequel talk, devs wanted to have co-op but was unable to

Part 4 w/ David Collins (voice director) Discussion notes: (I am very jealous of the shirt Brett is wearing in this video) David did the all the Trandoshian vocalizations and the radio chatter, a lot of ideas behind RepComm went into the Clone Wars series, originally the squad didn't have names only numbers, talk about casting VAs and working with Temuera, squad banter/'if you want your AI to be smart you need to make them sound smart', special features existed in order to have unlockables, George Lucas was apparently quite fond of the game

[leahthebookworm]

Book 46 of 70

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next book 4)

385 pages, published 2004, 12 hours 44 minutes

Medium paced

Fantasy

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“To espresso or to latte, that is the question...whether 'tis tastier on the palate to choose white mocha over plain...or to take a cup to go. Or a mug to stay, or extra cream, or have nothing, and by opposing the endless choice, end one's heartache...”

― Jasper Fforde, Something Rotten

Detective Thursday Next has had her fill of her responsibilities as the Bellman in Jurisfiction. Packing up her son, Friday, Thursday returns to Swindon accompanied by none other than the dithering Danish prince Hamlet. But returning to SpecOps is no snap—as outlaw fictioneer Yorrick Kaine plots for absolute power, the return of Swindon's patron saint foretells doom, and if that isn't bad enough, back in the Book World The Merry Wives of Windsor is becoming entangled with Hamlet. Can Thursday find a Shakespeare clone to stop this hostile takeover? Can she vanquish Kaine and prevent the world from plunging into war?

- Description from storygraph

[kiwikipedia]

This is gonna get me thrown into the void but:

Muunilinst 10 > The Bad Batch

[stuffedeggplants]

Isn’t there an episode of the Clone Wars where a commander rewards a trooper who just did really well by telling him he’s part of their team now? Cute trope, but....

How does he have the unilateral authority to just do that? What about the team that trooper was originally part of? What are they gonna do now? 

For all the commander knows, the trooper’s unit was already undermanned and he just made their problem (and a different commander’s problem) even worse by poaching this guy.

So their Jedi just asked them to do something that can only be accomplished with the absolute minimal amount of sleep necessary to maintain life, the platoon sergeant was tragically eaten on the last planet, another guy’s in the med bay for the foreseeable future because he thought the “DO NOT STAND IN THIS AREA” sign was just for aesthetics, and one squad never even made it off the last planet to begin with as the last LAAT that was supposed to extract them 20 minutes ago wasn’t coming at all because spontaneous parts failure meant it hadn’t even left the hangar and wouldn’t get the chance to because the fleet had to fuck off and retreat immediately. And now some commander who doesn’t answer to you at all (because SpecOps is SpecOps apparently) just scooped up the only surviving guy who was flash-trained to operate a certain piece of equipment you can’t just not use, and whose signature you need for various mundane administrative tasks that are about to get a lot more obnoxious once you have to spend time explaining why this trooper suddenly fucked off to [LOCATION REDACTED] with [UNIT REDACTED] with zero warning and cannot be contacted by regular channels for the next 16 cycles. Bonus points for him leaving right before deployment to Felucia like his timing was intentional. 

[colehasapen]

(ONE SHOT) ranov'la STAR WARS

Fives hits the ground running, his heart pounding in his ears and the truth of what he had learned weighing heavy on his shoulders. It’s like a collar around his neck, dragging him down like he’s running through a bog.

When he’d first started his desperate investigation into Tup’s mysterious actions and death, he’d never imagined this.

The Chancellor of the Republic is the mastermind behind everything. He was pulling all the strings, and everyone had just been a piece in his game - all the brothers Fives had lost, all the death and suffering, it was all Palpatine. The Chancellor was behind everything. He was the one behind the War, behind their cloning, and behind the chip in their heads that would be used to kill the Jedi if Fives couldn’t get his intel into the right hands. It was all a game, one that had turned into a session of hunt-and-hunted as the Chancellor sends the Coruscant Guards after him.

They’d be aiming to kills, Fives knows, because to them he’s just a single renegade clone who just tried to kill the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. They’ll have been made aware of Fives’ rank as a highly skilled ARC Trooper, and Fives knows enough about their training to know what it will mean - the Guard will be shooting first and asking questions later because fighting an ARC Trooper head on, even one with a CT designation, would easily spell the deaths of them and their brothers if Fives was actually a threat. And that was without considering the possibility that Palpatine hadn’t already activated the chips in the heads of the Vode of the Guard to ensure that Fives would die on Coruscant and no one would listen to the truth.

Force, Fives had really stepped in it this time. Echo must be cursing up a storm in the afterlife over his recklessness. He should have gone to the High Generals first, like General Ti had suggested. He should have left the information with someone he trusted in case of this very situation. He should have turned on his comm and broadcasted the Chancellor’s arrogant confession across every open channel in the GAR.

He should have done a lot of things. It’s the story of his life really.

So Fives runs, and keeps running. He needs to find somewhere to hunker down and plan, and try to ride out whatever drug the damned Longneck had dosed him with. He won’t be able to plan his next move if he can’t stay focused, no one would believe him either if he came up to them drugged out of his kriffing minds and acting erratically. He needs somewhere to rest and recover, and to try to reach out to some trusted brothers who might believe him.

It’s when Fives ducks into an abandoned and rundown warehouse many levels down from the planet’s surface that he realizes that he wouldn’t be able to contact anyone from the 501st. That’s what would be expected of him, and would put his brothers in danger if they were being monitored. To reach out to any of them would mean casting the entire Legion in a suspicious light and would possibly mean bringing the wrong kind of attention onto them. Rex was probably already in interrogation, being his immediate superior, as would Jesse and Kix, being the two living brothers Fives was closest two. He didn’t want to bring more attention to them, but who else did he have?

Commander Blitz? No, he wouldn’t want to hear from him after Fives had plowed through Rancor Battalion, even if he hadn’t killed any of them. He had lost so many in the Battle for Kamino that he took any attack on his men as a person slight, and would hold a vicious grudge, even against one of the ARC Troopers he had trained personally. Besides, he must have already left the planet after dropping Fives off on General Ti’s orders, and would be too far away to help even if he wanted to.

Commander Doom was still mourning the loss of one of his Generals and didn’t deserve to be dragged into this mess so soon after General Tiplar’s funeral. He needed to be there for his surviving men and remaining General, and the truth of General Tiplar’s death would put him and the rest of his broken Battalion in danger.

Commander Cody was his best bet. He and the 212th were scheduled for shore leave, and his connection with Fives wasn’t as well known. To the outside eye, Commander Cody was the perfect Marshal Commander, and didn’t have a close bond to anyone in the 3rd System Army to avoid favouritism, though everyone who knew him was well aware of his soft spot for Ghost and Torrent Companies. He worked with enough Commando squads that no one would question it if he disappeared for a few hours without warning, because of his role with SpecOps. Cody could get him in contact with anyone he wanted, he had eyes and ears everywhere, and if anyone could get Fives’ information to the Jedi, it was Commander Cody.

The downside? Fives didn’t know where Cody would be during shore leave. There was a reason why his personal Company was called Ghost, and it wasn’t because they were superstitious - the man could disappear scarily well for a guy in bright orange, and the only people Fives had ever seen actually know how to track him down were General Kenobi and Captain Rex, who seemed to have a sixth - or seventh, in the General’s case - sense dedicated solely to locating Commander Cody at any given time.

A clatter draws Fives out of his plots, and the ARC Trooper goes carefully still, reaching slowly for the closest thing that he could use as a weapon if needed. He curls his fingers around a rusty pipe, and strains his ears, listening for the sound again. There it is, closer this time, and Fives slowly lifts himself to his feet, pushing his body deeper into the shadows offered by the crates he was surrounded by. He stays predator-still, forcing himself past the fuzziness of the drugs in his veins, and keeps himself from shaking through years of intense training and an iron will.

A Trooper in red steps into the large warehouse store room, and Fives almost wants to curse. He knows that paint job - everyone does.

It’s Commander Fox himself.

Fives tightens his hold on the pipe, wishing that he hadn’t ditched his stolen blaster. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to lessen his threat level, but if the Chancellor had activated the Guards’ chips, then they’d shoot whether he was armed or not. At least Fox seemed to be alone. Even drugged as he is, Fives thinks he could hold his own against the Commander, as long as he could catch the older clone by surprise.

Commander Fox prowls through the room, helmet swinging as he searches and Fives forces himself to calm down. He forces himself to slow his breathing, and even his heart rate as he wills himself to blend into the shadows, horribly glad that he had ditched the white plastoid armour about three levels up.

“Building’s clear.” He hears Commander Fox reporting, “Moving on to the next grid.” Fives releases a slow breath, eyes on Fox’s back where he stands mere meters away from where the ARC hides-

-and then, because Fives has the worst possible luck in the history of terrible luck, he sways, vision graying out for the shortest of moments. The pipe in his hands impacts the nearest crate with a dull ringing sound, and the noise kriffing echoes in the empty warehouse.

Commander Fox stiffens, and Fives watches in slow motion as he begins to turn. He panics. Next thing Fives knows, he’s crossing the short distance between them in a rush, lifting the pipe as he goes. Fox is nearly facing him, and Fives swings, catching the Guard Commander in the side of the helmet with enough force to crack the old metal.

Commander Fox crumbles, bucket dented, and he doesn’t get back up. Fives wheezes, adrenaline shaking his limbs more forcefully than even the drugs managed to, and he stares at the limp Commander in shock.

“Well, shit.” He says softly, but with a lot of feeling behind it. “Damn.” The pipe clatters when he drops it, and Fives kneels beside him to carefully pull the helmet off. Commander Fox’s temple is already swelling, bruises already beginning to darken the skin, and part of his forehead had actually split open under the force of the blow and was bleeding sluggishly. Fives winces, pressing his sleeve to the wound to stem the flow, “I’m so dead when you wake up, aren’t I?” He asks the unconscious Trooper.

He should go - he should move on, but Fives doesn’t want to leave the Commander here where anyone can come across him. Doing so could very well be signing a brother’s KIA report if the wrong sort finds him.

“I’m so kriffed.” Fives mourns, staring at the limp CC. There goes any chance to hunt down Commander Cody -

Wait.

His eyes pause on the comm around Fox’s wrist, sucking in a shocked breath. His heart flutters in excitement, and Fives reaches forward to pry off the Commander’s vambrace. “Fives you mad genius.” He says into the silence. A few crossed wires should do the trick to cut off any chance of the comm being tracked - Crys had taught him all about it during a mission with the Ghosts behind enemy lines. Commander Fox would have Cody’s frequency; Fives had seen it himself that all the Commanders had person lines to each other to stay in contact when they could.

This was perfect - a chance coincident that he had never expected to fall into his lap. All it had taken was bludgeoning a Marshal Commander over the head, and - well, fuck it - Fives was already wanted for treason, may as well add assault of a Superior officer to the list. What was a little bit of near-murder between friends saving the Galaxy?

In his hands, the comm beeps as it connects, and Fives almost cries with relief when Commander Cody answers.

“This better be important, Fox.”

[aricazorel]

N7 month prompts—Day 8 Guns

(This features Kori Reese and takes place sometime during Broken Road)

Reese had heard the same question since boot camp. It had disappeared until her tenure on the SR1. Before that she had spent her time in R & D which provided little opportunity for using them. At that point in her life, there had been no reason for them. After nearly being thrown off the original Normandy by Shepard for not living up to her potential, she reconsidered her choices. Now the question came up again with every new assignment she took.

Why do you carry so many guns?

The question often arose from the fact that first and foremost she was a tech. Secondly because she was a biotic. No one expected her to have Special Ops training especially when they looked at her file before the Normandy. After that assignment though, people just wondered why a biotic would want to carry a full load out. Weren’t her biotics enough?

The short answer was no.

The long answer was that Kora Reese had always had a love-hate relationship with her biotics ever since they manifested in her teens. Mostly hated until Kaidan Alenko had taken the time to help her better understand her biotics and use them more efficiently. The end result was her finally accepting them as part of herself and understanding that they did not have to control her.

Beyond that, tech had always been an interest of hers thanks to her parents and learning how to adapt that to the battle field was an enjoyable challenge. It involved using her brain which she considered a deadlier weapon than her biotics or weapons ever could be. Therefore it was her first line of defense and offense and why many of the current mods to omnitools had been developed prior to and during the reaper war. Being prepared and thinking outside the box had kept her alive. And shooting Omni arrows was fun.

But why did she carry so many guns if she preferred tech? Because sometimes tech just didn’t cut it much to her dismay. And if her experience had taught her anything it was to expect the unexpected. Geth beyond the veil. Thorian creepers. Cloned krogan. Rachni. Those had been her first lessons on the SR1.

Collectors. Geth still running amuck after the defeat of Saren. Sightings of strange alien ships on the outskirts of known space. Cerberus activities. Even the resurrection of Shepard were reasons she had agreed to the N school at Anderson’s request.

Now fighting reapers, something that was supposed to be legend just gave her one more reason to carry everything. Of course they were all heavily modified to her specifications and with the occasional exception of Kaidan Alenko, no one touched her weapons.

An M-3 predator heavy pistol. A M-4 shuriken submachine gun. A M-90 Indra sniper rifle. A M-23 katana shotgun.

She had carried the submachine gun and pistol through her whole military career. The shot gun had been added after her first run in with husks on the SR1. Biotics were good at close range but so was a trusty shotgun.

The snipe rifle was a completely different story. She had been a certified sniper straight out of boot camp. More than that she had been selected for special ops training. It had been fine. She even enjoyed the challenge until her CO ordered her to execute civilians to coverup his involvement in a Cerberus operation. After that she had left SpecOps and concentrated solely on R and D. Anderson had coerced her back into the field after helping to work in the Normandy and then having her remain aboard. Proving to Shepard she belonged on the Normandy, she took out her sniper rifle once again and defended her crew mates when needed. Garrus had even offered to help dust off her skills with friendly competition once he learned she was a good shot.

So why did a biotic tech-loving marine carry a full load out? In the end, it boiled down to the fact she wanted to be prepared for anything. She wanted to be able to protect those she cared about and those that needed protecting anyway she could. In her 30 years of life she had lost too many people to things she could not control. The reaper war was no exception with the loss of her grandmother and the rest of her family after the reapers had obliterated Atlanta because of the N school located there.

Kora Reese would not let anymore suffer or die if she could help it. If that meant using all possible resources at her disposal she would. She couldn’t lose anyone else. She could lose Kaidan. Not after all they had been through to be together again. And no matter how many times he or anyone else teased her out how many guns she carried, she would still carry them. It was her way of having a backup plan or in her case one of several back up plans.

She wouldn’t be caught off guard again. She couldn’t lose anymore. That wasn’t an option. Not anymore.

[shockdowndefiance]

You've been visited by the random OC question fairy! :D ~☆

Pick five of your character's most influential milestones (moving away from home, a first kiss, a death, etc.). Why and how did these milestones affect your character?

Thank you for the question! Once again I am answering for Allison Shepard as she’s the only MC I really have fleshed out. I sat down to write out her most influential milestones and narrowed it down to the five I felt would be most interesting. In chronological order:

1. Finding out she was a latent biotic and suddenly developing biotic abilities at the age of sixteen 2. Meeting her first boyfriend, Finn

After she was expelled for punching and injuring another student, and moving to a different human colony, she enrolls in a new school and meets Finn on her first day there:

A teen boy slouched casually against the wall opposite the office, moving to stand up when Allison shut the door behind her. His dark hair flopped down into his bright blue eyes as he moved, his hand almost continually going up to move it out of the way.

"Finnegan Osmani. Call me Finn," he said once he was close enough, holding a hand out. Allison took it and gave a brief shake before she pulled back. "You're that new kid, right?"

"I am," Allison said, turning and looking around. "I hear you’re my chaperone."

Finn laughed. "That's one way of putting it. Hey, rumours going around; you are a biotic, right?"

"Sure am," Allison said, turning back to look at Finn with a cool glare. "You gonna make something of it?"

"Nope." Finn grinned. "My lil sis is a biotic, she'll love to meet you."

Allison smiled herself.

Maybe introductions weren't going to be so bad.

Outside of family everyone treated Aliison and her twin brother Elliot like a ticking time bomb. Finn was the first one to fully embrace who she was, biotics and all. This was in part because of his younger sister also being a biotic, so he had some knowledge of what being a biotic meant.

Walking in to that new school, she had put her hair up and left her amp fully visible - she didn’t care what anyone thought of her, whispered about her. Hating her for being a biotic was the same as hating her for having green eyes, and if it meant she rounded out high school as the ostracised creepy biotic whom no one talked to...well, she didn’t care.

And then Finnegan showed her that, no, not everyone was going to act like that. Some people would be accepting of who she was, biotics and all.

Again, this has gotten really long so the rest is under a cut!

3. Enlisting in the Alliance 4. Getting dumped by Finn 5. Defending Elysium from pirates and slavers 6. Being awarded the Star of Terra for her actions on Elysium

Allison didn’t do anything special on Elysium.She didn’t do anything more than any other marine would have done (and in fact some of them willingly laid down their lives so that others could be saved). Being hailed as the Hero of Elysium is an aggravating and unnecessary epithet, and doubly so when her status as a biotic soldier is emphasised.

(This does create positive associations with biotics so it’s at least something but, again, she’s an average biotic. Nothing special. Stop advertising it on recruitment posters so much.)

She receives the Star of Terra (among others: namely her officer commission, invitation to ICT school, and a special commendation) for her actions, but despite all the pomp and circumstance, unless she needs to wear it it stays hidden away in its box in storage.

It doesn’t help that she’s the daughter of Hannah Shepard, well-regarded veteran of the First Contact War. People expected a lot from Allison, and barely four years since enrolling in the Alliance, they had humanity’s newest hero on their hands. She brushes off most applauds about her status; they take it as her being modest, she intends it as a stop bothering me about it but she can’t not keep it.

(This does later cause a bit of friction between Allison and Ashley later, but that is 8-9 years later in the timeline.)

7. Being invited to participate in the Interplanetary Combatives Training course 8. The untimely death of her paternal grandfather In the late 22nd century, the average life expectancy for humans is around 120, with some individuals reaching 150 years old.

As such, Allison’s paternal grandfather dying in his early nineties was a shock to all. It occurs in the middle of Allison’s ICT learning, and as a result it delays her graduation by a year. Completing ICT can be done in a year, but Allison spread it out a little because she wanted to pace herself - being one of the first biotics invited into the program, she didn’t want to crash and burn (despite there being no shame in being able to complete the first rank, she personally would have hated having done so).

Her grandfather’s death causes her to step back and reevaluate things a little. She idolised her grandfather so much (I have an idea for an art piece when Allison was about eight years old, on the back porch of her grandfather’s house; Allison is pulling a face because she and her grandfather are eating liquorice; she despises it but her grandfather adores it, and because he adores it she reckons that she must also adore it) and losing him punches a hole in her career plans.

She stays in the Alliance (not much else for a biotic to do, and her family going back many generations has been military, so she doesn’t quite know what else to do) but she misses him for a long time. 9. Completing her Interplanetary Combatives Training course and being awarded N7 rank 10. Accidentally interfacing with the prothean beacon on Eden Prime and getting the first glimpse of the impending Reaper invasion 11. Becoming a Spectre, part of the Citadel's specops group 12. Rescuing both Kaidan and Ashley from the near-doom mission on Virmire 13. Allowing herself to fall in love with Kaidan This harkens back to Finn and him seeing her as a whole. For Allison, being in the Alliance and having a relationship doesn’t mesh - initially she’s working on her career, aiming to get her officer’s commission, then Elysium happens and people are more interested in her as Commander Shepard, Hero of Elysium than they are of Allison.

Kaidan’s different. Heck, all of the Normandy crew are different (barring those who knew her prior like Anderson and Adams) - while they respect her as their XO/CO, they don’t idolise her like other people she’s met. She can pull off heroic feats and achieve the near-impossible, but a large part of that is down to her crew and how they are all able to work together.

But Kaidan sees beyond rank, sees beyond medals, sees beyond her service history, and does indeed see Allison, the person. Admittedly at the point in time this occurs, Allison hasn’t seen how bad things can get, and she doesn’t know how much of a rock Kaidan will be to her, but to realise that he loves her, the entirety of her, and not the hero plastered across the recruitment vids, or the thin line between reverence and rejection biotics often get.

But they’re military, she’s his CO and he’s her HOMD. She’s gotten a lot of leniency running as a Spectre ship but she still answers to the Alliance. Fraternization is not allowed, and so they push their feelings to the back once the Citadel is saved and Saren and Sovereign are killed. Kaidan requests to be given a new posting, a space halfway across the galaxy, given a few months and then start an official, public relationship, and allow Allison a shot at a normal romantic relationship. 14. Dying and being ressurected 15. Finding out that the Collectors are protheans, enslaved and mutated by the Reapers 16. Leading a team through the Omega 4 relay, a place where no one had returned from, to destroy the collector base and returning victorious 17. Blowing up a mass relay in batarian space, killing over 300k batarians and being put under house arrest 18. Almost losing Kaidan after an ambush on Mars 19. Uniting the galaxy against the Reapers and delivering the killing blow, ending their message for ever 20. Waking up to a post-Reaper galaxy with both physical and mental injuries, and learning how to manage with those

Allison wakes up in a hospital bed for the second time in her life after a major battle and she almost cries. Let me rest, she thinks, fearing that Cerberus has gotten to her again and they’ve rebuilt her again to go rogue and save the galaxy again. Hasn’t she earned her rest?

Well, yes. She has.

She’s in a hospital in London, her mother at her bedside as medics struggle to sedate her, worried that Allison will injure herself more without it. Miranda, the one who rebuilt her after the Collector attack, is leading the team. Allison is officially awoken from the induced coma/sedation about a month later and told what happened.

She lost her lower left leg, replaced with a prosthesis in the short term and a tissue cloned leg in the long term. One arm was dislocated, the other broken; a scar now bisects her face from forehead to nose, before curving around her cheekbone to her ear.

The Normandy has disappeared, no one knows where her or her crew are, including Kaidan - whom she had married just hours before the final assault against the Reapers.

Allison gets a multitude of diagnoses - acute stress disorder, anxiety, depression, panic attacks. Physically she recovers without issue, though she considers the clone tissue leg a waste (I can manage just fine on a prosthesis thank you) when there are others around who could benefit from the resources used on her.

But she’s got one more epithet to add to her collection - saviour of the galaxy, and a one-of-a-kind medal to accompany that. Her immediate family survived - her parents, her twin brother, her younger sister. And somehow Kaidan and nearly everyone on the Normandy survives too, reunited about three months after Allison officially wakes up.

But she struggles with her mental health, lashing out at Kaidan for his idea to take her to inner British Columbia, to his family’s orchard. Logically she knows it’s the best idea - remote and peaceful - but her brain rebels, another choice made for her, another change to her life that she has no control over.

But she apologises, rests, and recovers. Takes up Anderson’s apartment on the Citadel when it’s habitable once again and considers, maybe, retiring from the Alliance and pursuing a normal life.

Maybe.

(It doesn’t stay that way for long.) 21. Choosing to get pregnant and raising children with Kaidan

[countessofbiscuit]

I need more Cody/Bo-Katan content! :3

man, don’t we all ♥ i posted a BoCody fic on ao3 about a week ago, then deleted it (and others) in a strange manic episode. as i don’t have anything new to share, i’ll at least let it see daylight again. thank you for making me smile : )

Forward

(ao3)

“This will be a waste of time,” she’d told Tano, as Melsha set the nav for the deep Core. Ursa had picked up comm chatter about Maul’s probable return to Sundari, and it’s a long way to any Third Army theatre on a Kom’rk hyperdrive.

Fives days and too much fuel later, Bo-Katan is proven right, Manda rest her sister.

It’s humiliating, to come all this way just to breathe the same recycled air, to let them see her anxious despair in the flesh, and to still be told, please hold.

And he had seen her: Kenobi’s golden meat-droid, her unintended liaison of a marshal commander, whose intelligence minders had let her keep. Probably for a fucking laugh; he makes SpecOps sound like its own clan of Keldabe-kissed vode.

He watched her stalk off her ship, ready to prostrate herself before the Republic. To beg face-to-face. The hangar throbbed with activity, a sea of white and gold and blue, and his face was everywhere. But she recognized him—that scarred temple peering down from a platform, leg propped up on a rail, garter stripe over his right thigh, extremely at ease with himself.

She’s doubly mad when she exits the comms room, too angry to remember which turbolift bay to use.

The Commander is standing there, caf in hand, next to the security booth where they’d been required to hand in their grenades. Obviously lurking with intent, but she is less than flattered.

“Well, if it isn’t the Mandalorian Resistance,” he says.

He appraises her casually as she gets her shit back and asks the security clone for directions. The reply is so convoluted—and she’s so stupidly undone by the shock of being within three feet of this unmasked Fett—she has to click on her recorder.

“I’ll meet you at the ship,” she tells Gedyc and Melsha, waving them off. She surprises herself by wanting a word with this aggravatingly handsome and somewhat important man; might as well learn how enormously she’s misjudged the impression she’d made on him, too, while she’s down for the count.

The Commander sips his caf. “I see you finally got through.”

“No thanks to you.”

“Hey, I put a good word in for you. More than one. I was getting quite a reputation.”

“As what, a fool?”

“Worse—a sympathizer. They’ve been calling me names. It’s been hell.” He turns to his comrade in the booth. “What is it they call me, Reno?”

The clone doesn’t even look up from his monitor, twisting a dial on his helmet like he’s comfortable processing two streams of audio and fuck knows how much visual data at once. “Cod’ika, sir. Kote, if they’re being nice.”

“See?” the Commander smirks. He turns and indicates for her to follow. “But you found a better ambassador.”

“Yeah, much better,” she says to his broad back, studying the armor she rarely sees him in. “Kenobi had all the time in the galaxy for me in there.”

He leads the way down a corridor or three, and Bo-Katan mentally maps the return route with every turn. Command quarters, she thinks, to judge from the prevailing quiet and generous spacing of the doors. One slides open when he flashes his forearm at a panel, inviting her into a small, windowless office. There’s a comfy-looking chair and a simple desk with a built-in holoprojector. A room where two’s a crowd and three’s an unexpected grope.

She leans against the desk, placing her helmet down next to her, and looks around. Familiarity is rendered vivid. “So this is where you take my calls. Cozy.”

He flips a task lamp on and drops into his chair. “Until you finally stopped calling. Just when we were becoming friends.”

She’s not ready to match his flirtatious good mood. He must have just won a battle, all easy hubris in the flush of victory. It’s been a very long time since she’s known it herself.

“Waste of breath,” she sighs, recalling the frustration of finally being called back, only to be pressed by Kenobi to corroborate some nunabrained theory that Maul’s puppet regime was aligned with Dooku. She could not—would not, so absurd was the idea, and she rued it still. She hadn’t given them the tidy answer they wanted, so they’d given Mandalore the square root of fuck-all.

“And then I had Tano in my backwash,” she continues. “She’s nervy about you lot. Told me to stop trying until we had an offer the Council couldn’t refuse.”

“Where d'you find her?”

“Oba Diah.”

He makes a face. “Was she taking down a spice den? Or hitting one up?”

“She’d fallen in with some two-bit smugglers. It’s what all the cool coreworld dropouts do.”

“And you … recruited her how?”

“Flashed a holo of Maul. He’s my meal ticket to you people—or was. She needed a mission.” Bo-Katan still can’t believe her good luck: how easily Tano had agreed to join this cause stitched up in a threadbare kama, itching for a fight, so quick to give over old but vital intelligence. Not that had come to anything, except to satisfy a small part of Bo-Katan's conscience: she'd done a charitable act by taking in a stray, and Tano was set for years with some secondhand beskar.

“You should’ve told me when you had her,” he says. He drains his weapons-grade caf and sets his cup next to her thigh. “General Skywalker was a wreck when she left. You might’ve had a battalion within a day.”

“I wanted to. She nearly popped the airlock when I said I had you on speed-dial. I think she was embarrassed.”

He nods, chewing his lip, like he’s adding a footnote to memory. “Her departure was … not good.”

“And then when it came out that she and that jaig-bird friend of yours were an item, I begged her to call him.”

“Ahh.” His dark brow creases with more age than he even he’s earned, front-line capable aged five. “She would never compromise him.”

“So I was told.” Bo-Katan looks down at the dregs in his cup and wonders how much stomach he has today for the bitter truths she likes to serve.

“She knows we can’t authorize anything,” he sighs, landing remarkably close to her thoughts.

“No one can, apparently. Except some mystics in their topside tower. How do you live with it?”

His broad, plated shoulders shrug. “Chafing against it won’t end this war sooner. This helps.” He reaches behind his chair for a bottle among datapads, and now she can make out the label of his favorite tipple: Savareen brandy. Pulling out the stopper, he holds out it for her.

“Why not, I’m at the Council’s mercy. Again,” she groans, accepting it with a full, choking swig. The liquor scalds. Manda, it’s been a while since she’s let herself get a little tight. Not since that blond head had rolled and the responsibility of resistance had fallen to her shoulders: a youngest sister, born with stiff knees that refused to bend. Except maybe when the campfire tihaar came out.

Bo-Katan is talking before she knows what she’s doing, emboldened by the drink long before it can excuse what she says. “I wanted the Seps to invade. Can you believe that? My own system. Then the clans would sit up, I told myself, then the Republic would listen. I almost lied when Kenobi commed. I almost said, of course Maul and Dooku are aligned. You better send a battalion, a brigade if you can spare it.”

“Are the people still so resigned?”

“They don’t see him! They see Almec and they don’t see battle droids or clones—” she gestures sarcastically at him, stars knows she’d love to see a million of him on Mandalore—“so they are content. They can dust off babuir’s beskar and talk about visiting ba’vodu in Olankur after all these years, and the fact that a Sith and his criminal ilk are dug in like a galltick into their homeworld—not mine, by the way—means nothing.”

“Should it? Do the shuttles not run on time?” He spreads his arms expansively, offering her the empty everything of this truth.

“Nothing’s late if you’re spiced. Everything arrives precisely when it’s supposed to.” If she’d been outside, she might have spat, purging her disgust and the fatty tails from the brandy from her mouth. “He is no Mando’ad.”

He snorts and reaches for the bottle, and she stares as he drinks his long, practiced fill. It’s almost the same angle, looking down at him from the desk where she normally appears. Except now he’s close enough to touch, in all his colorful corporeality.

“What?” he says after a while, interrupting her study of his noble, sculpted brow.

“Sorry, it’s just …” She bends forward, elbows on knees, to peer at him and this monumental face he’d inherited. This face that had permanently scarred her resolve to never look back. “Fett.”

He flinches from any touch she might venture. “An accident with my jaig-bird friend tried to render it distinctive.”

“It worked.”

“What will you do now,” he asks abruptly, with the flattest affect, trying to squeeze out from under her scrutiny.

Bo-Katan huffs. “Pray there’s a quorum and that transceiver traffic is light. We can’t linger.”

“Tano may be persuasive than you think. I think you’ll get your battalion, after all.”

She swipes the bottle from where he’s balanced it on his thigh. “I need a brigade, at least.”

“Sith are slippery. He’ll just cut through my men like butter whatever the numbers. I saw him do it on the outpost. And he’ll do it again.”

It’s the work of a moment to decide to spill the whole of her strategy to him, to entomb her pitch and the Mandalorian fucking Resistance in this gloom. He’s never had any time for her cause, yet he’s often made time for her. She repays this candor. And if he’s been feeding up to Republic Intelligence, and not just humoring her, at least something interesting might happen with the shit that comes down.

“I’ll be blunt with you. The Jedi are a front—Tano is a front. Sure, I’d like one of them to slice the head off the snake, but I need forces to take on his fanatical army. To crush Almec and his corrupting influence. And to get Shysa and the other clans to fucking pay attention. I need an invasion.”

He nods distantly, like he’s being validated in some gut belief. “An army to bend over for you.”

“Just the once.”

“They always say that.” He claps his gloved hands in his lap, settling back in his chair like an elder keen to learn you some blood-bought philosophy. “Then they ask you to not to straighten up, lest you lift the boot.”

“Not me. I hate the smell of a standing army.”

“So you’d just march us somewhere else. Like Concordia. Or Zanbar. Or—what’s that planet that stole your sister and killed your father?” He exaggerates tip-of-tongue befuddlement. “Irmoo?”

Bo-Katan refuses to take that bait. She stabs a finger in the thin groove of his armored chest, where his karta should be. “Look me in the eye and tell me it’d be worse. You could make a difference. Answer to no one.”

“Just you.”

“I don’t own you.”

He never likes it when she points that out; it’s evident in the way he crosses his arms and clenches his jaw, clearly forcing himself not to break eye contact. But she is most comfortable when others are not, when she’s unbalanced someone with a punch or a retort. Her sister’s answer to conflict had been to seek solutions to make it stop; Bo-Katan’s answer is to hit back harder. And she’ll keep bashing this truth over his stubborn skull until his spirit cracks or he disappoints her by placidly accepting it.

“Funny thing about command,” he says, when the silence outgrows the room. “It’s not about who you answer to, but you who have to answer for. My duty to the Republic may be flimsy and manufactured and—”

“Not worth a mott’s shebs.”

“Yes, that, thank you—but my duty to my men is paramount. Baked in deep. Deeper than any of your complaints about indoctrination and too intense for any gene fuckery.”

He’s right, because he’s more mandokarla than he’ll ever admit. Bo-Katan claws her temple and shakes her head. “Manda wept. I don’t want to welcome the Republic on Mandalore, but I’d sure as shab welcome you. And your men.”

“All however many million there are left?”

“We’ve got lots of wide, open spaces.” That’d be one way to resolve the equatorial DMZ: plant an army of Kryze-friendly Fetts inside the probably-habitable zone and make Keldabe wet itself in a confusion of joy and terror—and inform that august, Republic-sponsored body of hot air known as the Commission for Ecological Restoration to get some thrust up their project or Kalevala will be next.

“What twenty acres and a bantha?” he scoffs. “Actually, you should put that before the Senate. They’ll need to put us out to pasture somewhere.”

“Good luck getting the grass to seed. But you’d be wasted in wasteland.”

He cocks his head, mouth fighting the pull of a grin. This close, she can see the lines where previous smiles have lingered. “Where would you have me?” he asks. “Weeding the palace water garden?”

“Chief Protector.”

He snorts and snatches the bottle back. “Pretty sure that’s an entire subgenre of Mando porn.”

“It’s an actual title,” she snaps, a bit offended, foolishly, on the Protectors’ behalf. Those True Mandos by any other name won’t lift a finger to help anyone who isn’t the Mand’alor, and they’ll willingly stagnate on Concord Dawn for another six centuries before they’ll help decide the question. “Fett came from a Protector line. You could carry on the family tradition.”

Bo-Katan leaves off the part about how warm and wet she’s getting at the thought. A decade ago, she pleaded into those same dark eyes, begging to be hired—for what, she didn’t know, but she’d been young and desperate to prove her mettle. Now she’s the one recruiting from the army Fett had spawned; but still she feels powerless, like trying to buy in on a high stakes game with flimsi.

He uncrosses his arms and tucks them behind his head. “I’ve got a lot of brothers.”

“None of them are you.” The brandy speaks for her into the inviting space between his rich lips and his artificially stiff crotch. Fecund as a tibanna clip, is how he'd described himself once; but her lust, hardwired and long-fermented, wants whatever he’s got to unload into her. She'd been angry. The emotion has slipped sharply into desire, born on the same current of frustration.

“This is definitely the most elaborate means of propositioning me,” he says.

“Okay, I’ll put it more crudely.” Throwing her legs up around his waist, Bo-Katan flops into the Commander’s hard lap. And she kisses him, firmly.

He grunts in surprise. His hands seize her biceps, gripping hard. But he doesn’t push her off, and he doesn’t pull back.

She cradles his strong jaw and drinks in the smell of him: caf and ozone and stale sweat. He is all dirtside organic, up here in deep space. Like a mud-spitting fight, like a dug-in siege—nothing she needs right now, but everything her quickened heart wants.

His hands hold fast; his lips yield. Bo-Katan presses the slim advantage and offers her tongue, which he accepts in wet agreement.

It’s stupid. Bo-Katan of Past and Future scowls in disgust at Bo-Katan of Present, trying to get off by grinding on the first Fett who’s listened to her. But why else has she survived, if not to find him again in the deepest dark? She is dha’cenaar and she has been patient.

She sucks on his tongue, teasing him with profane possibilities—teasing herself, too. Chief Protector Cody, thighs bared, the Mand’alor wrapping her lips around his cock as he stands rigid, upholding the dignity of his post at the right hand of the throne. “Come with me,” she moans into his open mouth. Conquer your conquerors, she thinks, and let’s put the fear of Fett into Sundari again.

“And what,” he huffs, biting her lower lip, “my lady will bare besh and wash her servant’s sins with the cream of her loins?”

Bo-Katan actually laughs, with a squirt into her flightsuit. He has all the delicacy of a goran left too long in their forge, and it’s her favorite thing about him. “Coreward holoporn sometimes gets it right.”

Her infatuation with Jango, a man she'd met but twice, had been girlish; now she's in the fullest flush of mature desire over this finest clone of his, this Cody, who somehow improves even on the original. She mouths him with greed, their measured kisses lost to strong-jawed lust. She aches to press the hot give and take of his flesh into her memory for later—after he’s denied her again, and she’s left chasing this feeling of flame up her spine.

He matches her hunger and widens his seat, sinking into his spine. It lifts his codplate just enough to kiss her crotch. Bo-Katan is close, very close to forgiving every fool’s hope that cost so much fuel to bring her here.

Defenses well and properly downed, he lets go of her arms. Big, balmy hands spread over the swell of her hips; his wrists bump against the butts of her Westars. She imagines tossing him one, his sharp brow sighting down the barrel to find Saxon’s pale temple and painting a bright bloodflower onto Sundari glass. A proper initiation: welcome to the clan, Kote—now you’ve earned the name.

Bo-Katan’s head lolls back, giving him access to her neck, where he gnaws and sucks the skin above her suit, stealing her breath at her throat. It's the most intimate anyone's been with her in months upon months. Birdbumbs bristle down her body, even to her curling toes. She threads her fingers into his close curls. His thumbs begin to explore the creases that dip from her hips towards—

Klaxons wallop the room with ear-splitting fury.

“Shab,” they both choke out, in their truest moment of commonality yet. She wants to rib him about it, but his comm chirps to life.

“SOS from Triple-Zero, sir. Grievous. Action quarters to be assumed. Admiral Yularen standing by to issue the jump on General Kenobi’s command.”

“Copy that,” he says with the unhurried care of naval deadweight.

“Not while I’m here, he’s fucking not.” Bo-Katan scrambles from his lap and grabs her helmet. Her licked blood turns bilious again to remember that it will take seven standard days to limp back to Mandalore from here. She’ll be damned if she gives Maul any more of a head start. If Tano is necking her captain in a supply closet somewhere, she’ll have thirty seconds to show before she's left behind.

Aggravated by the shrill wail of alarm against plasteel, she leaves the Commander before he's even risen from his chair, probably comfortable that he has thousands of hyper-capable subordinates to run the general alarm SOPs finer than strill down. She’s turned down the last of four corridors when he finally catches up with her.

“A Mandalorian is always welcome in a warzone, you know,” he teases loudly.

She rolls her eyes, coming to a stumped halt before the turbolift bays. “So come visit mine, when you’ve sorted out yours.”

He summons the correct one for her. “With or without a venator?”

“Just the brigade,” she says, stepping into the proffered lift. He comes halfway inside himself to punch a series of buttons. Snatching a grope on his cod, her fingertips catching the warm lip of his plate behind his balls, Bo-Katan holds him stiffly before her. “If those bay doors close before I’m clear, I’m lighting that hangar up.”

He wrenches her wrist free with a backwards step and a backthrottle turn into seriousness. “Hot air won’t get you an army, but it might bring one down on you.”

"Who knows, I might enjoy that," she tries to sneer. But it just stings and wells up behind her eyes, as another door closes on her hope for Mandalore.

[overcaffeinated-creative]

0. the fool for solus vetra and aoika igarashi?

0. The Fool - when you first created your character, what did you originally envision for them?

-

Solus Vetra had such a different path when I first created her. For starters, she stayed with the Jedi until the bitter end of The Clone Wars. Her relationship Jai’ba’buir (her blood grandfather) was much less fraught. There was still pain it never bled over to the sheer degree it is now. But, I’m actually happier with the tension now. They’re both stubborn people with this fitting them more. Solus’ original pairing was with Ahsoka Tano and Boba Fett. Bo-Katan was maybe a passing crush she had while Pre Vizsla meant nothing to her. In fact, those two frequently clashed until his death at Maul’s hands. She was somewhat tamer in a sense too. Creating her has kind of been like her dropping the Polite Act with me to really meet her. I love this version of her much better.

Aoika Igarashi has stayed many of the ways I planned for her to be. The stark look at what the shinobi system does in desperate times to prodigies. Her family is technically all civilians so there’s their poor reactions in the early years. Aoika was born at a time when being skilled enough made childhood a luxury. So much of her abilities would be of use at higher levels she was rushed through everything. Hiruzen cared deeply for Aoika but when it’s the life of one verses many...the many will win. I don’t think I anticipated how much of a lens she would become for many characters. There are a lot of people to compare and contrast her to; Itachi Uchiha, Kakashi Hatake, her distance Senju relatives, the generation before her, and even those three years younger than her. A big thing I’ve recently realized with her is just how much she does not want the SpecOps Intelligence Job. She would much rather do her job without the tattoo on her arm and the porcelain mask. But, duty called so she had to answer. Her life for the village, every single time. Trauma and Scars just mean she survived and others aren’t so fortunate.

Tarot-inspired Prompts

[etainlives]

Canon Divergent Blog History

Couple of other canon divergences for this blog while I’m at it. I’m probably missing some, but this is what I can think of off the top of my head.

(These are all things that directly inform my version of Etain’s main timeline, but that of course I’d be willing to talk about with a player who doesn’t feel that works for their version of the character!

The exception is that I’m typically always going to be Kal Skirata and Kylo Ren critical.)

The Clone Wars Era/Republic Commando novels Era:

Etain is part of a prolonged SpecOps project on Coruscant rather than going to Kashyyyk, so she’s in no way involved when Sev disappears. 

She is involved a part of the Battle of Coruscant and marries Darman during the siege via comlink.

Etain doesn’t die (obviously), and is struck down by a clone trooper with a Padawan’s lightsaber rather than the weirdness going on during the bridge scene.

More generally, this blog completely ignores Fi/Parja and Jusik/Arla as both have some serious caregiver/consent issues squick for me, especially with Jusik literally wiping Arla’s memories.

Rebels/ OT/ Rebellion/ Imperial Era:

Where ever you want to place it (during the Rebels episodes or just after the show) Sabine Wren becomes Mand’alor. I always felt a little cheated that isn’t how that arc cumulated and I really head canon both of Etain’s biological kids (Kad & Koa) becoming political allies of Sabine’s, if in very different ways.

Etain and Darman adopt Tallisibeth “Scout” Enwandung-Esterhazy in place of or alongside Mij Gilamar.

Clan Skirata doesn’t stay in hiding on Mandalore for the entire Imperial regime or all get up and run and hide on Kal’s planet of choice. The clan actually fractures somewhat for a lot of complicated reasons that ultimately boil down to Kal’s inability to learn from his behavior.

Darman and Etain actually distance themselves from Kal, eventually, and end up in old of Mereel’s old safehouses on Nar Shaddaa (as the massive size of the planet helps hide Etain and the kids’ Force-signatures.)

Etain raises her kids to be definitely Mandalorian and (with the possible exception of Scout, who asks to stay Jedi canonically) doesn’t teach them to consider themselves Jedi. However she does teach them to use the Force and to be more positive towards it than Bardan Jusik canonically raises Venku.

(She specifically looks into the legend surrounding Tarre Vizsla while grappling with her own dual identity, and it’s an ongoing internal conflict. She doesn’t hold any particular reverence for the Order at all, but she has a complicated relationship with other teachings/experiences.)

Instead of leaving Mird to Jaing, Vau leaves Mird to Etain upon his death. (As they actually had a really perfect set up for that in Triple Zero and True Colors.)

Callista Masana is rescued accidentally by Etain and possesses the body of a Fallanasi Rebel named Tisiphone.

New Republic:

TBH, I don’t have a lot to go on here. There’s not much from the new canon side other than Bloodline which I enjoyed, and I don’t remember ANY of the old NJO books. But there will probably be some kind of canon divergence, so consider this a place holder.

Sequel Verse:

TFA happened. TLJ & TROS did not.

Finn is a Force-sensitive who eventually trains as a Jedi.

(Etain would love to adopt and/or train any of the new trio tbh, though she doesn’t have anything to really teach Poe and I’m not gonna say that’s explicit blog canon.)

I’ll be straight with you; this is an incredibly anti-R*eylo, anti-”Ben*demption” blog. Both are a major squick, so safe to say this blog will never interact with that content.

Etain and Darman are still alive and do what they can to fight the First Order despite their age; any surviving Nulls are also especially anti-First Order. (I’d be unsurprised if this eventually leads to their deaths, but I don’t have a canon ending in mind for them.)

Etain’s grandaughter Etta joins the Resistance.

[izzyovercoffee]

Hello! You reblogged something earlier about knowing about a lot of Clones and the Commando's. Do you have any advice on writing clones and possibly creating a black ops clone squad?

yes !! yes I did.

Sooo basically, in addition to what was said in mk-otro’s advice post, it helps to also get a solid idea of how the Grand Army’s organization works — so you can get idea of what kind of barriers your clone squad will inevitably face, what kind of barriers your Jedi will face, and who they have to answer to if everything goes boots up — and this also helps with developing your clones’ personalities, too (or, at least, it’s helped me in the past). 

I can give you a rundown of the personnel organization of the Grand Army (like branches, number of personnel, chain of command, how the Jedi Command differed from Clone Command, etc), if you’d like. It will be … uhhh kind of long though, because there’s a lot of details that are … really hard to understand, and if you’re just reading the wiki articles on wookieepedia it can get really confusing really fast. 

It also depends on what you’re looking to make, too. Like, are you looking to make a specifically Republic Commando Squad, or are you looking to make a different type (like, something along the lines of what Bad Batch was)? There’s a number of different specialized clone troopers, and figuring out the origins of each member of your squad is important. Also keep in mind, the squad itself will have a leader, in the event the Jedi is out of reach or asks for / needs an alternative opinion. 

Like… example: Republic Commandos were raised together in squads of 4 from infancy, and these commandos had the most exposure to mandalorian training sergeants — but not all of them were trained by mandalorians. ARC Troopers, on the other hand, had the most exposure to Jango Fett — and then some specialized covert troopers were trained under those ARCs.

Did your clones start in a specialized class and was trained for that, from the beginning (like most republic commandos, or most ARC Troopers), or did they gain attention later in training / during the war, and were then singled out for specialized training and advancement? 

Example: Did they lose their entire platoon (or squad) and survive, and their grit was seen as valuable? 

Something to think about.

The next thing is that, usually, covert operations (black ops, spec ops, covert ops, etc) would be handled by troopers either under the Republic Intelligence Division, or the Special Operations Brigade. The differences between the two: 

The Director of Republic Intelligence communicated directly with the chancellor, in this case Chancellor Palpatine.

The Director of Special Operations Brigade communicated directly with the Jedi High Command, also known as the Jedi Council, who then answered to Chancellor Palpatine.

The saying as it went in Legends continuity was “You have three choices: Send 100 clone troopers, 4 commandos, or 1 ARC trooper.” 

The alternatives to ARC and republic commandos, though, were shadow troopers. Shadow Troopers fell under Republic Intelligence, in the Military Intelligence Division, which is a different organization from Special Operations Brigade. 

They often worked in tandem with each other, and SpecOps operates off of the intelligence gathered by RI, but again… the difference lies in the Chain of Command. Palpatine could run covert operations without the input of the Jedi High Command directly through Republic Intelligence, in case that’s something you do (or don’t) want to explore. 

Regardless, all covert ops should fall under either jurisdiction. I say “should” bc from time to time Anakin Skywalker’s Legion seem to fit a niche that otherwise wouldn’t/shouldn’t exist — but it makes sense, given Skywalker’s proximity to Palpatine. It wouldn’t really make much sense otherwise, though.

Also develop your Jedi! Most Generals did not fight on the ground, although many chose to. How often and how close you want your Jedi to be with your covert squad can (but not always) affect what type of squad you have. Your Jedi’s experience (or lack of) also changes how the squad reacts or follows orders --- at least, in the beginning.

Ie. Republic Commando squads don’t see their Jedi all that often, but sometimes their Jedi does join them. A squad of ARC Troopers would be expected to operate alone or in conjunction with a Jedi — because if there’s a need for that many ARCs in one place at one time, it’s Very Important and there should always be a Jedi nearby, even if not directly with them.

And then Shadow Troopers generally would find it very unusual for a Jedi to accompany them — unless they’re a Jedi recruited into Republic Intelligence for absolute loyalty, and a willingness to carry out missions without any questions asked.

This isn’t even getting into, say, special operations pilots or the other highly specialized troopers out there, but yeah.

Sooo to recap!

Figure out how your clones came into being / origin story (were they trained / grew up together or separately? combination of both?)

Would they be dragged into the political quagmire of Palpatine’s personal interests, or not?

What kind of politics do you, personally, want to write — or avoid writing?

Who is your Jedi, how old are they, and how closely do they work with the clone squad?

I hope this helps? Gosh I was trying to keep this short and this still got really long … sorry !! It’s a lot to think about but the details really help to flesh out characters.

[kiwikipedia]

THE 2003 SERIES IS ON DISNEY+ NOW

ARE MY LADS CANON YET, DISNEY?

ARE THEY???