Reading Recommendation: Star Wars Republic Commando: True Colors

SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!  SPOILER ALERT!

T3M4 advises you to proceed at your own risk. 

As its title might suggest, Karen Traviss' third entry in the Republic Commando series, True Colors, is all about setting the stage for the final alliances of our various clone, Jedi, Mandalorian, and other friends from the series so far.  Those familiar with the Star Wars timeline know that at the beginning of the end of The Revenge of the Sith, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine orders the clones to assassinate, in its entirety, the Jedi Order.  Clearly, this order is going to cause a lot of problems for Kal Skirata's Null ARC Troopers, as well as his commando squads, particularly Omega Squad. 

True Colors gives us strong hints, however, that not all of the clones (or Jedi for that matter) will take this order without a fight.  Ever since meeting the six surviving clones from the Null batch at the age of two, and rescuing them from "reconditioning" (otherwise known as termination) by the Kaminoan head scientist Ko Sai, Kal Skirata has had his own agenda with regards to the clones.  In this novel we, the readers, finally get to see the entirety of that agenda, as well as read eagerly along while it begins to come to fruition.

Let me back up a little bit, because I skipped over this in my last review.  When the scientists on Kamino first started creating the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), they planned not just to clone Jango Fett, but also to tweak his DNA to make the clones a) more willing/able to work with each other (as Jango was something of a loner), and b) more obedient/loyal to their Republic masters.  The first batch of "prototype" clones was a group of twelve designated "Null" troopers.  Only half of those prototype clones survived the birthing/hatching process.  The Nulls, however, turned out to not be what the Kaminoans were looking for, and so subsequent clones were based on the next template they created.  This means that among the clones the Nulls are a bit different, both in physical appearance and in genetic traits.  

Kal arrived on Kamino when the Null clones were two years old (approximately 5 or 6 in appearance and development).  One of his first encounters on the planet, in fact, was with Ko Sai and the Nulls.  She had finally deemed them irrefutably flawed and scheduled them for reconditioning.  Kal, seeing only six very frightened little boys, stopped her from killing the children and took responsibility for them upon himself, along with the training of his batch of regular commando troopers.  He raised these boys as his own sons, and it was his interactions with them that shaped his opinions of the Kaminoans as well as his treatment of all of the commandos he trained.  The Nulls were classified as Advanced Recon Commando (ARC) troopers--though the ARC troopers from the subsequent template (the Alphas) were all trained by Jango Fett himself, and the Mandalorian mercenaries he hired (including Kal) trained the Commando troopers.  The "basic" model clone troopers were trained by a variety of soldiers, also hired by Fett, though they were not Mandalorian.

The Null ARC troopers are:  Prudii (N-5), Kom'rk (N-6), Mereel (N-7), Jaing (N-10), Ordo (N-11), and A'den (N-12).  In Triple Zero Traviss introduced Ordo and Mereel, as well as Kal's back story with the Nulls.  In True Colors we also meet A'den, though Ordo and Mereel both play very heavy roles in the story. 

There is a very very lot going on in this book, but the main plot(s) centers around the search for Ko Sai, who fled from Kamino when it was attacked by Separatists at the start of the Clone Wars.  The official line is that she died in the attack, but in truth she defected to the Separatists, and then took their money and ran.  She's been in hiding for over a year, and a lot of people are looking for her. The other Kaminoan scientists want her back because she is their best scientist (and she stole quite a bit of the cloning research when she fled).  Chancellor Palpatine wants her back ostensibly to deny her services to the Separatists and to ensure the continued development of clones for the GAR, the Separatists want their money back (and her research if they can get it), and Kal wants to find her to make her come up with a solution to the accelerated aging every clone is saddled with.

The Nulls spent the time since Geonosis doing odd jobs for Kal, technically classified as Special Operations, but really more to further his own goals of providing a solid future for his adopted sons once the war is completed.  One of those odd jobs has been tracking down Ko Sai, and in True Colors, Kal finally has a strong enough lead to actually go and look for her himself, along with the assistance of Ordo, Mereel, and, surprisingly, Walon Vau.  I say "surprisingly" because these two men do not like each other one bit.  But over the course of the novel, it becomes clear that they both resent the way the clones have been used by the Republic and want to secure the chance of a future for them.  Despite their very different approaches to training the men and to life in general, these men grow to grudgingly respect each other and recognize that they need each other to be able to do what they want to do. 

But, as I mentioned, Palpatine also wants Ko Sai found, immediately.  So he tasks Bardan Jusik and Delta Squad to find her.  Bardan, of course, is in on Kal's plans and realizes that he can't let Delta find her first.  So he works with Kal to delay Delta Squad's search, and in the end, Kal and his team do reach her first.  She is captured and taken to Mandalore, where Kal sets up facilities for her to start working on a way to end the clones' accelerated aging. 

I feel like the dichotomy of this particular plot point is a very important one that will have extremely far-reaching consequences.  For one thing, up until now Delta has been part of the inner circle with Kal, Vau, Omega, and the Nulls.  There have been differences of opinion, but they have been on the same side through it all, putting those differences aside to get the job done.  But from this point forward, Delta is outside the circle.  I foresee that leading to some nasty conflicts and/or some hard choices down the road.  For another thing, it has Vau actively working against Delta, and though he would never admit it, it has been made clear that they are his "boys" in the same way that Omega is to Kal.  Delta is given specific orders not to mention their assignment to Vau or to Kal.  While they have no problem keeping Kal out of the loop, it is interesting to see that, though they don't like it, they are equally willing to exclude Vau as well, because they are ordered to do so.  Kal's training methods brought up a batch of very competent commandos, but their loyalty is to him first, and then the Republic.  In Delta we see that Vau's training instilled loyalty to the Republic above all else--even if the Republic's actions aren't making any sense.

And make no mistake about it, the Republic's actions aren't making sense.  Not any more, not to anyone who is willing to look beyond the propaganda and the individual assignments to take a gander at the big picture.  The Republic is claiming that the Separatists have quadrillions of droids, but if they do, then they aren't using them--if they were, the Republic would have been overrun long before this point in the story.  The Nulls' forays into the various Separatist droid factories on sabotage missions confirm that the numbers are far less than what is being claimed.  But the leaders of the Republic military don't seem to care about this news that the enemy is much smaller than they thought.  They certainly aren't taking the advice of their generals to adjust their strategy to one that would bring about a swift end to the war based on the new and confirmed intel. 

In fact, the government seems to be doing the exact opposite, stretching their resources throughout the galaxy very dangerously and therefore stretching out the war unnecessarily.  Omega, for instance, is on an assignment during this story that they quickly realize makes no strategic sense whatsoever.  Treasury Agent Besany Wennen, who was more or less drafted into Kal's clan during their mission on Coruscant, has been doing some digging on her end of things and has made a couple of very interesting--and disturbing--discoveries.  First, it seems that the government has busily been setting up new cloning facilities on one of Coruscant's moons, but they're keeping it top secret and hiding the money trail.  Second, there is very little to no expenditure being allocated toward health care and rehabilitation for clones.  Put together an encounter of Omega's on their mission, Kal and his band realize that any clones who are too injured to be healed and put back into action immediately or at all are being euthanized.  And any clones that express a desire to leave the GAR are being executed by Covert Ops, which means it is sanctioned by the Senate.  Our motley little band is coming to the realization that something is very very wrong with the war, and that the Republic they are serving might be just as rotten as the Separatists they are fighting.

Ko Sai also reveals to Kal and Etain that the real reason she left Kamino was to get away from Chancellor Palpatine.  It seems he had been haranguing her to develop a means for him--not mankind,  not the clones, just him--to expand his life span well past that of an ordinary human.  If that isn't a sinister hint that things are in place to get much much worse, then I don't know what is. 

Adding to the growing discontent with the clones' lot in life, Darman's not the only one of his brothers who has found himself a girl.  Ordo has been seeing Besany Wennen and Atin has fallen for a Twi'lek named Laseema.  The clones who haven't found companionship outside of their brothers are looking to those who have and starting to think about what they want outside of service in the GAR.  Fi, in particular, feels the lack of a "normal" life imposed by the conditions of his creation.  The clones may have been trained only to serve in the GAR, but once exposed to the rest of the galaxy, it did not take long for many of them to realize that they are, in fact, still human men, and to crave the kind of existence, or at least choices, that other humans take for granted.  Jedi Knight Bardan Jusik is hit particularly hard by realizing his complicity in what has been done to these men, in how they are being used, and he faces a great struggle with himself over whether he still belongs in the Jedi Order at all. 

As I said, there's quite a bit going on in True Colors, and I haven't even begun to scrape the surface.  Traviss takes us into the real meat of the issues here.  The casual Star Wars fans who have seen the movies will come at this knowing all along that Palpatine is a Bad Guy, and therefore all of his calls in the war are subject to question.  We know, as the readers, that he is Up To No Good.  Traviss does an amazing job of taking that into consideration and managing to show us why Palpatine was able to pull off this grand deception.  We see these people living their lives as citizens or servants (or property) of the Republic.  We see the ideals that they want to believe they are upholding, and we see how separate from the reality of the war the Senate and the people of the Republic truly are.  And once we're sucked in, we get to ride along as a few of these people start finding the pieces and putting them together.  I am amazed by how well it is executed.  This series gets better, richer, with each new book.  Do yourself a favor and read it.

Reading Recommendation: Star Wars Republic Commando: Triple Zero

While I did try to make the below review as spoiler-free as possible, please be aware that some spoilers may still have crept in while I wasn't looking.  

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In Republic Commando Hard Contact, author Karen Traviss introduced her readers to Omega Squad.  Niner, Darman, Fi, and Atin make up a squad of specialized clone commandos put together after each was left standing as the sole survivor of his original squad.  We were also introduced to a Jedi Padawan named Etain Tur-Makan, who worked with Omega Squad to remove a Separatist research facility from a planet called Qiilura. 

The follow up entry in the Republic Commando series, Triple Zero brings back Omega Squad and Etain, now a Jedi Knight, as well as introducing several more colorful characters into the mix.  Kal Skirata, a Mandalorian mercenary who trained Niner, Darman, and Fi quickly becomes one of the central members of this story.  Also along for the ride is Walon Vau, another Mandalorian mercenary, the one who trained Atin, in fact, as well as one of his commando squads, Delta, comprised of the clones Boss, Scorch, Fixer, and Sev.  Finishing up the primary team are Advance Recon Commando Ordo and Jedi Knight Bardan Jusik.  And those are just the most prominent players in this new story--which seems to be one determined to give readers a very strong taste of what life is like for all walks of clone life, as well as for the men who trained them and the Jedi who must now lead them.

Set on the planet Coruscant, Triple Zero plants our commando squads firmly out of their familiar combat element.  A Separatist terrorist cell has been striking at clone barracks in the heart of the Republic itself, and the Coruscant Security Force (CSF) has proven ineffective in shutting the cell down.  So the task falls to Kal Skirata, who assembles his team and begins to introduce them to the world of black ops.  What I love most about the mission part of the story is that Skirata seizes the advantage of needing a legitimate reason for clones to be running around on Coruscant and utilizes this to extend a much deserved R&R for many of the clone troopers.  These men are literally throwing their lives away for the GAR, and for a war that they have no personal stake in, but they don't get paid, they don't get leave, they don't get to go home to their families afterward.  

That truly is the heart of this story.  The mission is the framework, but the story Traviss is telling is about the injustice done to these men who are so willing to give everything for a people who don't even see them as men. And they are perfectly willing.  Sure, they were created for this specific purpose, but they are human men.  They have free will, but they were bred not to exercise it outside of battle.  If Hard Contact was about establishing that each and every clone is a unique human being, then Triple Zero is about some of those clones, at least, as well as some of the men who work with them, coming to realize the great injustice of the Clone Wars.  It is not what the Separatists are doing, but what the Republic itself is doing to its own soldiers.  Is it any wonder then, that in the end of things, Palpatine is so easily able to turn the clones against their Jedi masters to effect such a complete coup?  But that is getting ahead of ourselves. 

I mentioned, in my review of the last book, that while the relationship between Etain and Darman is left at a purely platonic stage, I felt that Traviss was leaving a lot of room for development.  I was not wrong.  A central element of Triple Zero is the realization of these two that they are much more than friends to each other.  The story reunites them after a separation of seven or eight months, and we are quickly shown that neither has stopped thinking of the other since Qiilura.  Even though pursuit of such a relationship goes against all of her Jedi training, and bucks regulations for Darman (Etain is, after all, his commanding officer), they both feel that their love is too precious to ignore, and so a relationship blossoms over the course of the mission. 

Etain is not the only Jedi questioning her training throughout this story.  Bardan Jusik, who we glimpse briefly in Hard Contact, is back with a much meatier role this time around.  His work with the clones, and the commandos in particular, has shown him a way of life very different from his own and he is clearly relishing it.  Another character at one point reflects that if Bardan had not been born Force-sensitive, he would have gladly served as a soldier.  And that is a very interesting concept that often gets overlooked in the general perception of Star Wars.  Jedi are not volunteers.  Force-sensitive children are conscripted for training as toddlers--taken from their families and taught to relinquish all familial bonds.  Emotional attachment of any sort is frowned upon. 

The Jedi Order is absolutely terrified that any Force-sensitive individual left unchecked will give in to the Dark Side.  So they simply don't give them the chance.  And watching Etain and Bardan struggle with realizing how much they are truly missing by being Jedi, and wondering just how correct the Order actually is, it is easy to believe how strong the pull of the Dark Side can be.  I found myself often both fearing and hoping for these Jedi.  I don't want them to stray to the Dark Side, but I do so want them to be able to live a life more than what they have.  It is an interesting conundrum, to be certain.  Traviss does a wonderful job in drawing a parallel between the clones and the Jedi.

I may or may not have mentioned in my last review that the books in the Republic Commando series are actually a tie-in for the Star Wars video game of the same name.  I haven't played the game yet (I'll be starting it this afternoon, actually), but in looking over the manual, I see that it is based around Delta Squad.  You play as their leader, Boss, and Scorch, Fixer, and Sev make up the rest of your squad.  So even though Delta Squad is only briefly mentioned in Hard Contact, they are actually established characters when they show up in Triple Zero. 

Delta Squad provides an interesting contrast to Omega Squad for two primary reasons.  For one thing, they were trained by Walon Vau, while most of Omega was trained by Kal Skirata (Atin is the exception, though he has fallen into the ways of his new squadmates by the time this novel takes place).  Both men are Mandalorian mercenaries, but it quickly becomes clear that each had a distinctly different idea of how to train his commando squads.  The second point of contrast between the two squads is the fact that Delta is of "original" manufacture.  That is to say that these four men have been together since birth.  They grew up together, went through their training together, and survived Geonosis together.  Comparing Omega to Delta I was at once both amazed at how well these men have been able to form a cohesive team, and saddened by the losses they went through with the deaths of their "birth" brothers. 

Not only do we get to see the differences in the training styles of Kal and Vau, we are also treated to seeing the differences between the men themselves, as both play an integral part in the mission on Coruscant.  Tension of all sorts is brewing underneath the surface of this group as they go about their mission--Kal versus Vau, Vau versus Atin, Delta versus Omega.  In some cases it is merely the competitive rivalry of young men trying to outdo one another, while in others it is long seated and potentially deadly grudges.  Yet through it all, the team manages to put their personal feelings aside in order to get the job done.  In a story about the discovery and then fulfillment of personal wants and desires, this is one of the few points where the need of the greater good always takes precedence.  It makes a very interesting statement about not only the clones but about the men who trained them as well.  I wonder if further novels will give us insight into any of the other clone trainers (aside from Jango Fett, of course).

In the mind of Kal Skirata (and clearly in Traviss' mind as well), the greatest injustice being done to the clones (and possibly to the Jedi) is the denial of family.  Especially since these clones have been produced from the stock of a Mandalorian--a culture that places a huge emphasis on the bond between a father and his sons.  Is it any wonder then that Kal quickly comes to see these children put into his care--for make no mistake, they are just children when he starts to train them--as his own sons?  He does his best to instill a strong sense of the values and culture of Mandalore in all of the commandos he trains, and he views every one of them as his own sons.  He even finds himself picking up "strays" that come across his path, such as Atin, or the trooper Corr, who they encounter and enlist during their mission.  Throughout the story, the reader is given hints that not only does Kal resent the injustice done to his "sons," but he intends to do something about it as well.  I have no doubt that these plans will play heavily in the next few novels. 

Overall, this was another excellent effort from Traviss.  She writes this universe so convincingly, the reader is swept right into all of the action.  Even with over a dozen "main" characters in the story, she manages to give each plenty of screen time and all of them are fabulously well developed.  I, for one, can't wait to find out what happens next.  I have dived into the third novel in the series, True Colors, and have complete faith I will enjoy it just as much as, if not more than, Triple Zero.