#vasha bannley: she who has a big storm coming

[relevant-url-incoming]

i love a good roleswap so it's time to organise my thoughts about one for Caibos and co, featuring characters I have Never Spoken About On Tumblr Even Once:

In this world, Vyme escapes slavery and Caibos and Caloma do not. He becomes the Consular, filled with guilt over what happened to his baby brother and best friend, and is constantly looking for any sign of them. He is kinder here, growing up among Jedi, but still ruthless in pursuit of protecting the people he deems his.

Caloma ends up taking on the role Vyme would have been bound for, a slave-turned-Sith so Zash has someone to use. She tries to look after Caibos once she's in a position to actually speak to other Sith, but he has no interest in her, let alone in listening to Caloma's conscience as she struggles against what her master asks of her.

Caibos is furthest from himself - shortly after Vyme's escape his father learns that he is, in fact, very powerful in the Force, and decides that actually he doesn't mind having a half-human kid so long as this one's Sith blood seems to be winning out. Plucked from a mother and pseudo-sister who care for him and plopped into a world that wants him only for the power he has, he remembers only enough of his life before to hate Vyme for leaving and his mother and Caloma for being reminders of who he could have been. Anyone who meets him notes the wild cruelty brimming under the surface, the desperate anger - but maybe not the fact that it's hiding how much he misses being loved.

Vasha ends up a smuggler here - she finds out about Kayva's disillusionment with the Republic before signing up, and there is so little left to her in terms of career options she ends up taking to the skies as a smuggler half out of desperation. Still, she clings to her belief that the Republic is perfect and ideal and all she has to do is uphold those ideals to make the galaxy better. (she does not know that Kayva in this is so done with the people she once served that she became a bounty hunter - this reveal goes even worse than when trooper!Vasha finds out Kayva left to become a smuggler)

as mentioned, Kayva (originally a smuggler) is so hurt by the things asked of her in the army that she turns her back on the Republic altogether and becomes a bounty hunter, thinking that it's the best way to make her own way and be beholden to no government. that doesn't last long given the Empire's predilection for using bounty hunters and the fact that any name she could make for herself would be weak unless she had Mandalorian connections, but Kayva pushes back wherever she can, refusing to be backed into a corner as best she can. she's been used enough, she says, knowing she's still being used

Laree (an agent originally! someday i'll talk about them) is funneled into the army when the SIS project that raised them folds after most of the others die/escape/murder various SIS agents. She figured the best chance they had at survival was to feign continued loyalty, and lets Garza tell him what to do until the moment he can get out of this obedient role altogether, whether that's through promotion or leaving the army

Ansehi (originally a bounty hunter) was one of the escapees that Laree didn't follow, and in this she takes shelter from the people hunting her with the one organisation she can think of that would be on par: Imperial Intelligence. Ansehi is a skilled assassin and spy thanks to her past, but the more she sees of the galaxy the more she wonders if maybe right and wrong extend beyond what makes her feel safe or not. Interestingly, it's not far off from her original storyline - but as a hunter she never had loyalties to worry about, and here she feels beholden to those who are kind to her; if they want her to kill, doesn't she owe that to them?

Arcusas (if you're keeping track, he's a sith warrior in the original universe) fully intended to be his family's golden boy. He wanted to prove himself to his parents, to every Sith, to the emperor himself - and then some Jedi padawan with sith heritage has the gall to kidnap him and drag him away from the Empire, essentially forcing Arcusas into a Jedi's life since everyone around him seems to think he's brainwashed or something. This is, according to Arcusas, stupid, and he can't decide if he hates Vyme or wants to cling to the only other person around who should have been Sith, but he lets them mold him into a Jedi knight. for now. just a little while, because he doesn't need people to be gentle to him. it's only temporary.

[relevant-url-incoming]

Can't write to save my life right now but I am full of character thoughts again, this one for my trooper in Caibos' universe:

Vasha Bannley's time in Havoc Squad starts bad and gets worse. Originally a wide-eyed kid who genuinely thinks joining the army will make the galaxy a better place, she breezes past the events of Ord Mantell with the blithe conviction that, since she's not a bad person, nothing Tavus said or did has any possible implications for her. Then she slams up against the wall that is Garza's more awful orders, and things go downhill from there.

Vasha joined the army because her idol/childhood friend/babysitter was a soldier, and she wanted to follow in her footsteps. (In a twist of me being an asshole writer, Kayva deserted from the army, disillusioned, on the very day Vasha joined up; she's my smuggler in this universe.) Vasha is a talented mechanic/droid technician, and pretty much always has some small probe or recon droid following her around ostensibly for scouting purposes but mostly because they're her precious little buddies. She finds her droids easier to talk to than her squad - with the exception of M1-4X, notably also a droid, she has a variety of reasons relating to her growing disillusionment to put up walls between herself and her fellow soldiers.

The first nail in the coffin is early, when Garza asks her to kill Coruscanti citizens who may be a threat. Vasha obeys, because she has to believe Garza knows best and wouldn't make such a call if she hadn't exhausted all other options, and spends the rest of her life hating that she did. Each subsequent order or choice like that draws her further from that naive kid she used to be. She finds out that Kayva left the army midway through this, and is furious that Kayva would leave rather than fight to make the army better - at this point, though she sees how bad things are, she's still clinging to the idea she can change things. By the end of the class story, though, Vasha fully believes there's no saving the army, but also that this is the only kind of work she's good for anymore. Thanks to her technical expertise she actually ends up tapped for the SIS, where she continues to make morally dubious choices but can no longer blame them on Garza's orders.

It's not until the Alliance era that she reconciles with Kayva, her old squad, and herself. Working alongside Koth helps and hurts at the same time - they relate on many levels, but she envies the level of hope and conviction he clings to, even if it is placed in Valkorion of all people. Slowly, as he figures out more about his one-time ruler and she adjusts to working for a much kinder boss, they help each other find a way to move past those hurts.