Imaginary Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day my dear readers! I hope that whatever your relationship status you truly do have a wonderful day. Remember, there are many different kinds of love out there, so if you don't have a special romantic valentine to share your day with, there's no need to be all grumpy and anti-love. Declare yourself your valentine and treat yourself to a fantastic evening of your favorite things. Or make a good friend your valentine and go out and have a good time together.

I have to say I am lucky enough to have found the love of my life and we have a nice low-key celebration planned for the evening. We're going to dinner with our daughter at one of our favorite restaurants and just plan to enjoy one another's company. I am very much looking forward to it.

I read an interesting Valentine's Day-inspired article on GeekMom yesterday. Geek Mom Delphine asserts her belief in every reader's right to fall in love with the characters in the books we read. I really couldn't agree with her more. I think a character so well written you can fall in love with him (or her) is the sign that a writer is doing something very, very right.  After reading this post, I was inspired to come up with my own list of fictional valentines to share with you guys.

Harry Dresden
(The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher)

Harry is all kinds of awesome. He has his flaws, certainly, but he is a loyal friend and fiercely protective. He does what he believes is right and he always stands up to bullies, no matter the odds against him. He has a pretty solid sense of humor as well--freely joking about the time that one bad guy kidnapped him and tried to sell him on Ebay. Also, he's a wizard. And when he needed a way to stop necromancers, his weapon of choice was a reincarnated T-Rex. I mean, come on, how cool is that? Sadly though, it could never work out between us. My love of computers and gaming would not mix well with his effect on electronics I fear.

Araris Valarian
(Codex Alera by Jim Butcher)

Well, clearly JB is quite a talented writer. Araris is a very interesting character indeed to me, and he is a romantic, which wins him points. Araris was the most well-known swordsman in Alera, and singulare (body guard and friend) to the princeps Septimus before his death. When Septimus was killed in battle, leaving behind an unacknowledged wife and newborn son, Araris allowed himself to be disfigured with the coward's brand and presumed dead so that he could go into hiding with his friend's widow and son and keep them safe from the princeps' enemies. It's not his fault he fell in love with her, but he was a total gentleman about it, which makes their eventual romance all the more sweet.

Ostvel
(The Dragon Prince and The Dragon Star by Melanie Rawn)

Ostvel stuck me as an interesting character throughout the entire span of both of Rawn's trilogies. Not a Sunrunner, but living among them, and married to not one, but two, over the course of the narrative (his first wife died due to illness), he carried with him a perspective on the group that not many others in the series possessed. He was forever surrounded by people of power (Sunrunners and nobility), but he always remained a very straightforward and simple man, even when Rohan gave him is own princedom to run. The guy was just plain cool. If he was real, he would be the first friend I would turn to in any sort of crisis, no matter how big or small, and I would never hesitate to confide in him. Plus, he just seems like a pretty fun guy to hang out with.  

Bardan Jusik
(Star Wars Republic Commando by Karen Traviss)

Oh man, Bardan. I think I've told you before he's probably now my favorite Jedi of all time. Mostly because he had the guts to look at the Jedi Order and see it for what it was--neither good nor bad, just stagnant, and willing to let itself be used and compromise its morals because it thought doing so would serve the greater good. The man has a conscience, which, dagnabbit is just sexy. Also, he didn't stop being a user of the Force just because he walked away from the order, and he was constantly looking within himself to keep himself from being tempted by the dark side, while still allowing himself to have the kind of life that most Jedi deny themselves. It's hard not to love a man who is willing to give up the only way of life he's ever known for his family. Not for some half-baked romance, mind you, but for his actual family.

Lord John Grey
(The Outlander and Lord John Grey by Diana Gabaldan)

Okay, this maybe is a bit of a stretch, since he definitely plays for the other team. But John Grey is an absolutely fascinating character. He falls in love with a man who clearly prefers women, in a time when homosexuality is definitely something that needs to be kept hidden. Instead of pining about his unrequited love, he gets on with his life, while remaining a silent pillar of support for the man who has captured his heart. He is a true gentleman, in every sense of the word, and it's hard not to love him a little bit.

So there's my top five literary valentines for you. Delphine actually threw in one in her blog that was from a movie, Obi Wan Kenobi as portrayed by Ewan MacGregor in The Revenge of the Sith and I have to say I am totally in agreement with her on that. That particular role made me fall in love with MacGregor as an actor and with Obi Wan as a character. It is not easy to make a stuffed shirt like Obi Wan sexy, but MacGregor somehow managed to pull it off, and whatever lingering reticence I might have been having about being a Star Wars fangirl was completely quashed when I realized that while watching The Revenge of the Sith for the first time.

Other honorable mentions include:
Oz the werewolf from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (he is just cool in every sense of the word).
Charlie Weasley from Harry Potter (a British ginger who loves dragons? I mean, come on).
Alistair from Dragon Age: Origins (a cute, super sweet, slightly naive, prince in disguise with a wonderful sense of humor and all kinds of loyalty and courage to boot? Um, heck yeah.)

So, who are your imaginary valentines?

Reading Recommendation: Star Wars Republic Commando: Order 66

Be warned, the following review contains minor spoilers for the entire Star Wars Republic Commando series as well as some major spoilers for the film Star Wars Revenge of the Sith.  

Now you know. 

Ooh look, a pretty picture of space, because, you know, spoiler space...

I'm not going to lie to you, folks.  Karen Traviss' Order 66 was a brutal read.  Don't get me wrong, it is a fantastic book, but it kept me on tenterhooks pretty much the entire time I was reading.  Throughout much of the book, it seemed like things were going far too well for Kal Skirata and his ragtag band of misfits.  Even events that could have easily sent everything into a tailspin managed to resolve themselves quickly and quietly, and for the most part, with no one worse for the wear.  So I spent a very lot of this read waiting for the other shoe(s) to drop.  I kept thinking to myself, Something has to go wrong now, because if it doesn't, then when things do go south they are going to be very bad indeed.  I was not wrong.


The previous books in the series have primarily served to build up Kal Skirata's clan, while showing us a pretty decent behind the scenes view of the events of the Clone Wars.  The movies are more or less told from the point of view of the Jedi, and this series is told from the point of view of the clones and the "regular" people.  Throughout the series Kal and his Null ARC troopers (and to a lesser extent the rest of his adopted clan) slowly come to the realization that too much about the war doesn't make sense.  Let's go down the list:

1. While the Separatists have been a credible threat for quite some time, there wasn't really enough indication ten years before the war broke out that such an event would indeed happen, yet someone commissioned the clones ten years before the battle at Geonosis.  
2. The mystery of who actually commissioned the clone army or why is never resolved by the Jedi Council or the Senate.  Sure, with hindsight, we can assume Palpatine was behind it, but no one actually figures that out until after he shows his true Sithy colors and declares Empire.
3. Even if everyone decided they were fine not knowing why the army was commissioned in the first place, surely the Treasury would be asking how the heck the army was paid for, but it isn't.
4. The timing of the war breaking out just as the first batch of clones is ready is awfully convenient.
5. The Separatists don't have anywhere near the number of droids that the Republic is claiming they have.  They are a threat, but not quite the imminent threat that the propaganda is making them out to be.
6. The war is being fought in a way that both spreads the Republic forces out as thinly as possible and keeps it going for much longer than is necessary.  A change in tactics could have ended it in much sooner than three years.
7. Every Jedi general or commander has a clone aide, usually an ARC trooper or a commando, at all times.  Presumably this is for the protection of the leaders of the war effort, but Jedi are more than capable of defending themselves and this seems like a big waste of a lot of highly trained clones.  
8. The fact that the Jedi--a peace-keeping, generally non-violent group--are put in charge of the clone army at all should be a BIG red flag.
9. New (and secret) clone-growing facilities have been set up on Coruscant and one of its moons, using the quick-grow technology of some of Kamino's rivals in the cloning industry.  But absolutely no one is announcing that reinforcement troops are soon to come--a fact that would not only greatly boost the waning morale of the existing clones, but would also do a great deal to reassure the people of the Republic.  
10. Also, since Jango Fett died at Geonosis, the new clones are being grown from second generation source material, instead of Jango himself.  The Kaminoans refused to use second generation source material because they found it produced inferior "product" with a much shorter lifespan than the original clones.  While the original clones are considered "expendable," the new ones will be "disposable."
11. A new fleet of warships is being built but also kept secret from the Senate, the Jedi Order, and the GAR.  It is scheduled for completion in a very specific timeframe, even though it was commissioned in plenty of time to be completed well before that date.

These are just some of the inconsistencies and worrying facts that Kal and his crew have dredged up over the course of the series.  Perhaps one or two of these items on its own isn't enough to suggest that something is very very wrong, but altogether, they point to this war having been engineered for a very specific purpose and conducted to last for a very specific period of time.  They also suggest that something very big is coming up and give Kal a pretty good idea of when it will happen.  With all of this information, plus the growing realization that, short lifespan or not, the Republic has made no provisions for the clones after the war is over, Kal decides that it is time for his family to cut and run.  He has been setting up a refuge on Mandalore and has been putting together a very thorough research database on cloning so that the right scientist can use the information to stop the clones' accelerated aging.  All he has to do is put everything in motion.

The book starts out pretty much right after the end of True Colors, but then makes several jumps forward in time to align with the events of Revenge of the Sith.  I don't think I had ever realized that the movie takes place over the course of only a few days.  Just as Kal is getting ready to send out the call for everyone to rendezvous on Coruscant and then hightail it to Mandalore, the Separatist siege of Coruscant begins.  In some ways, this serves as a lucky break for the Skirata clan, because it results in Omega Squad being called back to the planet from deployment elsewhere--something Kal was trying to work out how to do.  And the added chaos gives his people a much better chance to move around unseen by the Chancellor's security forces, who are now looking for Kal.

Kal wants to get the following people to Mandalore in the first wave of "strategic withdrawal":

1. Omega Squad, deployed off-world, but called back to Coruscant during the siege.
2. Etain, deployed on Kashyyk.
3. The Null ARC troopers, deployed in various places but mostly able to relocate at will.
4. Laseema, Besany, and Kad, hidden in a safe house on Coruscant.
5. Vau and Bardan, both able to move from world to world at will.
6. Jilka, a colleague of Besany's, falsely arrested for treason for being in the wrong place at the wrong time--needs to be broken out of detention.
7. Kal's biological daughter Ruu, who has been imprisoned by the Republic for supporting the Separatists.
8. Dr. Uthan, the geneticist from way back in Hard Contact, who has been imprisoned by the Republic ever since, and who Kal thinks will be able to solve the problem of the clones' accelerated aging.

Yes, you read that correctly.  Kal and his gang have to pull off three separate prison breaks before they can leave Coruscant.  No one could ever say that Kal Skirata is not an ambitious character.  Traviss definitely knows how to keep things exciting.  In the middle of all of that, Jedi Master Mace Windu goes to confront Palpatine, causing the Chancellor to give the GAR the command to execute order 66.  In the movie it all seems so mysterious and I will admit I always wondered how that whole thing worked.  Were the clones brainwashed during training, at the Chancellor's request, so he could just say the phrase and flip the switch?  It always seemed so bizarre to me, that the clones that worked so well with the Jedi could just turn on them like that, at the drop of a hat, with no further elaboration other than to "execute order 66."  

But the truth is even more horrifying because it is so much more mundane than that.  While training on Kamino, the clones received a document called "Contingency Orders for the Grand Army of the Republic:  Order Initiation, Orders 1-150."  They had 150 orders to memorize in the event of several possible worst case scenarios.  Here is the text of Order 66, as Traviss gives it to us:

"Order 66:  In the event of Jedi officers acting against the interests of the Republic, and after receiving specific orders verified as coming directly from the Supreme Commander (Chancellor), GAR commanders will remove those officers by lethal force, and command of the GAR will revert to the Supreme Commander (Chancellor) until a new command structure is established."

Basically translated:  "The Jedi have initiated a coup, execute on sight."  Which makes sense, really, since non-Force users like clones have no way of containing rebel Jedi.  Upon hearing this order, most of the clones complied simply out of anger at a presumed betrayal by their leaders.  The clones were made to serve the Republic and to follow orders--and that they do.  What is most deeply disturbing is that, as Kal realizes toward the end of the story, Palpatine was able to engineer this army, engineer this war, and them put himself in a position to be able to use the war and the army to completely annihilate the true enemy of any Sith Lord--the Jedi Order.  That takes some serious patience and planning.

While the Nulls and Omega Squad don't comply with this order, it isn't out of any fundamental loyalty to the Jedi.  It is largely because they have other things occupying their minds--like trying to get everybody together and off of Coruscant in one piece.  They've already begun the process of desertion at this point, so the order is more of an inconvenience to them than anything else.  They wouldn't harm Bardan or Etain, of course, but then, most of them stopped classifying those two as "Jedi" long before Order 66 is given. 

In fact, at first glance, I was unpleasantly surprised by the reaction of most of the clones and other non-Jedi to the order. The more I think about it though, the more it makes perfect sense.  Fans of Star Wars have been trained to see Jedi as the pillars of light.  They are the unequivocal good guys in this universe.  But throughout the Republic Commando series, Traviss does an excellent job of showing the faults of the order.  There must be a reason, after all, that it was so easy for Palpatine to manipulate events exactly to his desires.  Like the Republic, the Jedi Order had long since begun to rot from the inside out.  So it is no wonder that the "regular people" resent the Jedi, believing them to be pompous fools trying to enforce their own two-faced form of morality upon the galaxy.  After all, they preach reverence for all life, but they lead the GAR, an army composed of slaves.  They take Force-sensitive children away from their families at a very young age and give them no choice about what to do with their lives.  While the clones may be fond of some individual Jedi, they see them as puppets of the Senate--throwing away the lives of the expendable soldiers in a war that has dragged on much longer than it should have.  We are treated to some very uncharitable characterizations of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda from the perspective of the clones.  There is some surprise when it is learned the Jedi tried to overthrow the Chancellor, but there is also belief--and very little hesitation to put the Jedi down.  It is an extremely sobering way of looking at things for someone like myself who has always been so gung-ho pro-Jedi.  But even our main characters, who know what's going on and have maybe more cause than some of the others to resent the Jedi, acknowledge that not all Jedi are bad.  The ideals they strive to meet are certainly commendable, but they seem to have ventured down the wrong path while trying to achieve their goals. 

I do want to give props to the fact that Traviss had one of her characters (Ordo, I believe) ask Jedi Master Zey a question that has been bugging me for years.  How the heck did no one in the Jedi Council realize that Chancellor Palpatine--who they all worked very closely with--was a freaking SITH?  The Jedi are always going on about being able to sense the Force in people and the strength of other Force-users.  Why did no one notice what Palpatine was?  Master Zey provides no answer to this question, of course.  I would be unsurprised to learn that perhaps Lucas just never bothered to come up with an explanation for that when he was plotting the prequels.  But it was very nice to have someone in the universe acknowledge the oddness of that slipping by unnoticed, all the same. 

While Kal does manage to get most of his family to Mandalore, they do not all make it.  Some fall, and some choose to stay behind.  There is a death that is absolutely heartbreaking.  I am not ashamed to admit I almost started bawling my eyes out when it happened.  Those that make it to the safe haven are broken, and it is quite clear to the readers, as the story closes out, that these men and women have a long way to go before they feel whole again.  There is no happy ending here.  Just a very rocky beginning.

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.