may-time mingling (starstruck!)

[mucked]

Who: Starstruck crew + visitors
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Aboard the Starstruck!
When: The merry merry month of May

[ there's been a tiny regime change and doubtless some debriefing after that masquerade! have at it, starstruckers. mingle away! ]

Comments

[resnipstance]

The Grand Army of the Republic-- the GAR-- is comprised entirely of genetically modified, lab-born clone soldiers, so that civilians wouldn't have to be drafted to fight.

Only, it turns out, the Chancellor had secret control chips implanted in their brains from birth all along. A failsafe, so that he could never be betrayed by his own military. With the flick of one switch... he can compel them to obey his orders. It's monstrous.

[nostraightlines]

That's fucked up.

[ Straight to it. ]

Bad enough you're creating people just for them to die, but they don't have any free will either?

[resnipstance]

... It was a kind of no-win scenario, to be honest.

The Separatists were preparing for war against us for nearly a decade, behind our backs. They manufactured a droid army-- billions of droid soldiers, computing trajectories and strategies several hundred times faster than the human brain, obeying orders without question, unable to feel fear or pain, or show mercy or empathy. You have to understand-- before this, the Republic had been at peace for over a thousand years. Our army wasn't in any way sufficient to stand up to that.

And... if we'd surrendered, we would have been surrendering to a corrupt, totalitarian Sith Empire. Which is no option at all.

[Not that it mattered, in the end-- Ahsoka realises that now. No matter who won the war, the outcome was the same.]

[nostraightlines]

How did you have time to grow an army? Wouldn't it have been faster and more efficient to make your own droids?

[resnipstance]

If the clones had been made when the war was sprung on us-- then yes.

But that wasn't what happened. Apparently... one of the old Jedi Masters had a vision, many years ago, of a war to come that would engulf the galaxy. He tried to convince the Council that we would need an army to fight it, but the Council wouldn't hear of it and removed him of his position. So he went behind the Order's back instead.

By the time the war rolled around, the clones had already been in production for over a decade. And clones age at twice the speed of normal humans. [She's sure Ramse can do the math there.] Just when we most needed an army to fight... one was provided for us.

[nostraightlines]

...how long ago was this for you?

[ He's curious if Ahsoka knew any of them, had ever met a clone, could say whether they had the same emotional capacity as a person. It just doesn't seem fair or reliable to throw a clone army into a war, but he understands why it was done if not how. ]

[resnipstance]

When the clones were first made, or when the war started?

[nostraightlines]

The war. Were you alive for it?

[resnipstance]

Oh! Of course. ... I fought in it. [That sentence is horrifying enough on it's own when you consider her age-- she only looks around sixteen or seventeen, and certainly no older.] It started three years ago.

[By which math, she would've been thirteen or fourteen when it started.]

[nostraightlines]

[ ...yeah that's. That's really not okay. He's not one to talk about rough childhoods, though. Sometimes you have to grow up fast. ]

Did you know any of the clones? Personally, I mean.

[resnipstance]

[Ahsoka's expression grows distant then.]

... Yes. I do. [It's quiet, but there's a subtle emphasis on her last word there. Do. Not did. The distinction is important to her. They're not all dead yet.]

My master was the general in charge of the 501st Battalion, which made me de-facto Commander by default. Though to be honest... the first year of the war was mostly me leaning on them for military and tactical advice.