I Love Clones And Jedi

Tali had a lot of strengths.  Hacking, engineering, blasting things with shotguns.  She’d always been pleased with her gifts in those areas.  And more than anything, she was damn smart.

But knowing the right thing to say…

That eluded her, at times.

Haestrom.

Her mouth twisted, thinking of her aborted attempts to inform the families of their loved ones’ losses.  She had done it in the end, because it had needed doing.  She had refused to allow herself to shirk that responsibility.  But the words had been clumsy, clunky, nowhere near the elegance someone like Liara might have wielded.  

Tali sighed.  Liara still wasn’t answering her comms.  The loss of Thessia was a wound Tali wasn’t sure could ever heal.  Her stomach clenched, thinking of what had her people had nearly lost – again – on Rannoch.

She worried about Shepard, too.  He’d been sharp in the war room, temper flaring, hands white-knuckled on the railing.  Later, when she’d asked him to talk to Liara, he had barely managed more than a sentence or two with Tali before heading to Liara’s quarters.  He needed time, too, she guessed.  Or maybe just a friendly ear.

Curious and concerned, she pinged his location through her omni-tool.  It was a tiny program they had set up weeks ago, an easy way for them to see where the other was in case they were separated in battle.  Shepard’s location pinged back from the armory.  Perhaps he was hoping to find an edge there.

She took the elevator, rolling her neck as she waited, trying to get the cricks out.  The suit pressed upon her.  Now that she took the occasional risk of suitlessness with Shepard, she found she missed the freedom of air on her skin more and more.  Her suit chafed at the space between her neck and shoulder, her skin remembering Rannoch’s breeze, and she rubbed at it irritably.  

The amory was largely deserted when she arrived.  She glanced around, looking for the familiar shape of the little mech-dog that roamed the area, but she didn’t see it.  She strolled down by the crates stacked against the far wall, where his location had pinged, and she wondered what he was doing there.  Sometimes he used James’ little gym, but the punching bag hung across the way, perfectly still.

She peered around the corner of the large crates.  “Shepard –” she said, then faltered.

Up on AO3, The Proposal

http://archiveofourown.org/works/8287576/chapters/18985804

It’s A Ring for Tali, A Dress for Tali, and A Home for Tali grouped in the same place (finally). It leads up to the short fic Everyone’s Invited, and the yet-unnamed fic where Shepard and Kal’Reegar get into trouble on the way to Shepard’s bachelor party…and Tali has to bail them out.

Castle In The Sky (1986) Grave of the Fireflies (1988) My Neighbor Totoro (1988) Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989) Only Yesterday (1991) Porco Rosso (1992) Pom Poko (1994) Whisper of the Heart (1995) Princess Mononoke (1997) My Neighbors the Yamadas (1999) Spirited Away (2001) The Cat Returns (2002) Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) Tales from Earthsea (2006) Ponyo On A Cliff From The Sea (2008) The Secret World of Arrietty/The Borrower Arrietty (2010) From Up on Poppy Hill (2011)

If any of the links stop working, please let me know so I can fix it.

Tali had a lot of strengths.  Hacking, engineering, blasting things with shotguns.  She’d always been pleased with her gifts in those areas.  And more than anything, she was damn smart.

But knowing the right thing to say…

That eluded her, at times.

Haestrom.

Her mouth twisted, thinking of her aborted attempts to inform the families of their loved ones’ losses.  She had done it in the end, because it had needed doing.  She had refused to allow herself to shirk that responsibility.  But the words had been clumsy, clunky, nowhere near the elegance someone like Liara might have wielded.  

Tali sighed.  Liara still wasn’t answering her comms.  The loss of Thessia was a wound Tali wasn’t sure could ever heal.  Her stomach clenched, thinking of what had her people had nearly lost – again – on Rannoch.

She worried about Shepard, too.  He’d been sharp in the war room, temper flaring, hands white-knuckled on the railing.  Later, when she’d asked him to talk to Liara, he had barely managed more than a sentence or two with Tali before heading to Liara’s quarters.  He needed time, too, she guessed.  Or maybe just a friendly ear.

Curious and concerned, she pinged his location through her omni-tool.  It was a tiny program they had set up weeks ago, an easy way for them to see where the other was in case they were separated in battle.  Shepard’s location pinged back from the armory.  Perhaps he was hoping to find an edge there.

She took the elevator, rolling her neck as she waited, trying to get the cricks out.  The suit pressed upon her.  Now that she took the occasional risk of suitlessness with Shepard, she found she missed the freedom of air on her skin more and more.  Her suit chafed at the space between her neck and shoulder, her skin remembering Rannoch’s breeze, and she rubbed at it irritably.  

The amory was largely deserted when she arrived.  She glanced around, looking for the familiar shape of the little mech-dog that roamed the area, but she didn’t see it.  She strolled down by the crates stacked against the far wall, where his location had pinged, and she wondered what he was doing there.  Sometimes he used James’ little gym, but the punching bag hung across the way, perfectly still.

She peered around the corner of the large crates.  “Shepard –” she said, then faltered.

Growing Old meanwhile is the human body breaking down. So for the Clones to not only grow up twice as fast, but grow OLD twice as fast, the kaminoans would have had to specifically engineer the clones to have bodies that break down at double the speed of a regular human’s.

When the show was first written, the clones being affected by rapid aging was actually one of the more scientifically accurate bits in Star Wars, given what we knew about how cloning worked. 

It all came down to the age of the donor. At the time, the science suggested that even if you pulled a clone out of the tank as a baby, that baby would continue to age at an accelerated rate until they hit the same physiological age as their genetic donor. After that, things got a bit murky as to whether they would keep aging at an accelerated rate, or start aging normally.

I love telomeres, they’re insane. I’m actually a genetics major and I gotta say, genetic processes and mechanics are redonkadonk; like super fun and interesting, but also just balls to the walls.

So my Padawan and I (ArtyandTintinfan on fanfiction.net and she’s lovely and wonderful and we have way too much fun) were talking about the relationship between the 501st and the 212th and realized something:

The 212th is more insane then the 501st and absolutely NO ONE believes it.

No really, they are.

Because General Skywalker was RAISED by General Kenobi. Which means yes, Anakin has his own flare about things and is much louder and vocal about his insanity but where did he learn it?

All those dramatic entrances? Obi-Wan. Last minute escape plans? Kenobi is the king. Winging the situation because whoops, the plan isn’t working? General Kenobi.

All the shinies of the 501st enter the Battalion knowing they are going to have a heck of a time with “The Hero with No Fear”. He’s famous for his insane plans that manage to work out somehow and Skywalker luck is a common phrase used to describe it.

Heck, Rex prepares them for the weird stuff, telling the newbies to just stay near the General and do what he says because “kriffing Skywalker luck”.

Everyone has read the 501st reports that Rex has filled out full of detail about the recklessness of his General and the weird ideas that have actually worked over the years. They know the 501st inside out and no one is surprised by the troops insane quirks they’ve picked up from their General.

Meanwhile the shinies arrive to the 212th (“The Great Negotiator,” he must be pretty chill) and before Cody can get a word out they’re ambushed by Waxer and Boil who kidnap them and take them on a tour of the ship and their first interaction with their General is him doing a handstand with five other troopers trying to outlast him (and failing) and also Kenobi is apparently meditating while brothers are cheering him on and random small objects are floating about.

They have tea brewing in the mess hall almost twenty-four-seven and the tea changes with the campaign.

The training rooms have been adjusted to replicate specific weird scenarios the 212th have found themselves in and they train specifically for similar events because they find themselves in repeated situations for some reason but hey, experience is experience.

The medics have to be strict about injuries on everyone because hiding injuries is a popular thing to do in the 212th because guess who’s their bad example? (OBI-WAN)

At first, the 501st shinies don’t believe it and will jokingly talk about getting transfers to the 212th and Rex just deadpan’s “You know who raised General Skywalker, right?”

(My Padawan’s words:)“…Does that mean the incident with the general being turned into a…?” “Yep.” “And the thing with the cave-in…?” “Oh yeah.” “And the rumors about the ongoing prank war…?” “Not rumors, brother. That’s been confirmed since Commander Cody sent me an emergency comm about how he lost his General (again) and I found him on our ship after Skywalker started shrieking.”

And all the shinies just stare in awe and slight horror and start asking questions because “they never have heard of any of this in the 212th reports and why isn’t this more well known?” and Rex just sighs loudly and makes a vague comment about how Cody does put it in reports. He just doesn’t make a big deal out of it.

They don’t know what that means until they run into some troopers from the 212th and one of them asks how their campaign went. 501st trooper makes a comment about about how their General threw them fifteen feet into the air to avoid enemy fire.

212th guy: “Ah. Classic Skywalker.” 501st: “How about your campaign?” 212th: “Nothing too bad. Got cornered underground by some spiders and several of us were webbed to the ceiling upside down so they had to shoot from there. General Kenobi had to force control them as much as he could and pull them into a deeper part of the pit and then ordered us to cave the rock in to block them all off. So we did but that meant our General was separated from us for about two hours while he dealt with a bunch of kriffing spiders. But Commander Cody was with him and so were a few of the new shinies but they all made it out just fine. That’s the second time in three months and the third time this year something like that’s happened though so it was pretty normal.” *sips tea*

One of the 501st members later looks up the report which simply reads: “Delayed two hours by inhabitants of planet. Several injuries but nothing serious.”

(A previous time from my Padawan:) “Hey, wanna hear the time General Kenobi lured a group of ravenous predators away from us on the crazy planet that had man-swallowing plats? …No, not man-eating plants they were too large to completely eat any of us, so they just swallowed. Silly. Anyways, yeah, he did this Force thing and had us all collapse this cave on him to keep the predators trapped because he couldn’t force control them the whole time. Thought he did try doing that a different time and collapsed from Force exhaustion…”

If anyone in the 501st still has any doubts, all of them vanish in an instant that one time General Kenobi and his men crashland in the middle of a battlefield (on purpose) and jump out of the ship before explosion, successfully ambushing the enemy from behind and saving several hundred men (who were 501st and 212th) who were pinned down in a canyon.

And everytime the 501st tries to convince anyone about the 212th’s insanity, no one believes it.

And I mean NO ONE

Everyone looks at General Obi-Wan Kenobi who always looks fabulous and has the nice accent and manners to match and Commander Cody, the kriffing Marshal Commander of the GAR who is strict and follows orders to the letter and thinks the 212th is the most stable and uniform unit in the GAR.

And the 501st are suffering over here because they are WRONG so very very wrong.

(My Padawan again) Everytime the two groups get together Rex has to damage control and complains to Cody, who gives no sympathy. (”Imagine having to deal with shinies that come into my battalion and are immediately greeted by Waxer and then have to go into battle in which their general hatches this insane plan that could put everyone’s life in jeopardy but doesn’t because he’s a hardheaded stubborn gundark that would rather get himself killed than let any one of his men die protecting him.”)

bnha x avatar crossover