#republic commando meta

A number of years ago I read an article where a woman’s husband asked why she was divorcing him, and her response was "because you don’t do the dishes.” She could probably say a lot about why she was leaving him, but that simple line encapsulated the fissure at the heart of their relationship in very few words.

There’s a line in Imperial Commando that does a similar amount of legwork for the relationship between Captain Maze and General Zey. It’s when Skirata is upset with Maze for having brought Zey to Mandalore, and Maze says he’s helping Zey “because he used to make the caf in the office.” 

What Skirata says next, “give you [Maze] a pot of caf...and it’s okay to send men to their deaths,” is also a great window into his own mindset because it shows how differently he’s interpreting the relationship between Zey and Maze contrary to the reality experienced by the two men themselves.

When Zey makes Maze coffee, Skirata sees that interaction as putting a coin in a machine with the expectation that something you want will pop out of that machine. It’s about gaining influence over another person, and using that influence to further your own interests. Because Maze is already bound by virtue of his rank and position to cooperate with Zey, Zey doesn’t actually need to do anything to guarantee that cooperation. Zey has authority, and Maze is loyal to the authority of his position. 

So when Zey makes coffee for his staff, Skirata is thinking that Zey is after another kind of authority and something else. It’s what was in the back of his mind when Skirata wants to hear that Maze “didn’t [save Zey] out of loyalty.” Skirata thinks that Zey is after the same kind of loyalty--that has nothing to do with the chain of command and is solely about the character of the other person--that Skirata himself has secured from Omega, Jusik, and others in his circle of influence. Because Skirata has their loyalty (first given as their training sergeant then earned on a personal level), he uses it to influence their actions, and he hates the idea of a Jedi exercising the kind of power and influence that he himself exercises, especially over clones (even ones Skirata himself doesn’t actually care about.) (I think this might also interfere with Skirata’s self image, which is somehow threatened by Zey actually respecting Maze, caring about him as a person, and having influence over him. Not sure.) 

This quote also provides insight into how Skirata views the Maze and Zey relationship and is more context for why he says what he says in response to Maze mentioning the caf:

Skirata opens with a cold “oh so you’re incapable of doing your damn job?”, not thinking for a moment that Zey may have failed to execute Order 66 because he was just like Niner, Atin, and Darman and disobeyed out of a strong personal bond or belief. It literally doesn’t even occur to him. He just assumes Maze is a dog that won’t hunt. He then figures that Zey only survived because he managed to manipulate Maze in the moment with nice words, and that Maze fell for it. Again, it does not occur to Skirata that Maze and Zey have any kind of relationship outside purely professional or selfishly utilitarian, and that’s the background Skirata is coming into this conversation with.

Mazes sees Zey’s habit of making coffee for the office completely differently, and he says as much, telling Skirata that it was a mundane detail yet told him all he needed to know about Zey’s character. Zey respects his subordinates not because he ‘has’ to, but because they’re people. He doesn’t see a reflected power differential in the act of making coffee, and he doesn’t expect his people to be servants for him. I think that’s notable in the context of Maze being Zey’s aid, so Maze is already very involved with Zey’s schedule and daily affairs to the point where it could be easy for Zey to wade across professional boundaries and tell Maze to do things beyond his job description that cross more into ‘personal servant’ territory, but we are never told that is something Zey does. He never abuses his position like that. (For all I know Zey could totally be within his rights to tell Maze to get him caf and it wouldn’t be a big deal-- I’m not saying that’s tantamount to crossing a line. I’m saying that it’s kind of nice that Zey doesn’t ask that, and it’s great that Zey doesn’t ask him to do anything that would cross the line either.)

Zey doesn’t make coffee because it’s a low-key ploy for influence; he’s legitimately just being nice with no expectation that there will be some benefit to himself later down the road. I don’t think Zey even thinks about the fact that he makes coffee for his staff at all.

Moving away from the caf conversation, in True Colors, we see that Zey offers to help Maze if he ever wants to pursue an “alternative career.” There are no qualifications to that statement. Zey doesn’t say ‘after the war is over’ or ‘after we capture Grievous,’ it’s an unqualified offer to help Maze--one of only 100 Alpha ARCs--desert the army whenever he wants to. This is not something Zey would do if his relationship with Maze was squarely built on the question “how can I use him to benefit myself?” Buried in that offer I think is the recognition of agency and individuality of a person who was born to have neither. Maze has always been a person to Zey, and Maze knows it. 

The offer is also a sign of how ‘flexible’ Zey can be, but for a different reason than usual. Throughout the book he cuts Skirata a lot of slack to do what he wants how he wants. (He says it directly when he wants Skirata to be honest with him, also admitting that he doesn’t have a clue what Skirata’s ARCs are up to half the time, illustrating just how much slack Skirata really does have.) Zey is open to giving people leeway to do things that’ll make it easier for them to get their jobs done within reason, but with his offer to Maze he’s also being flexible (a huge understatement lol) for compassionate moral reasons. Ultimately he’d be breaking the rules because of something he believes is wrong, which is later what Maze does when he refuses to execute Order 66 because he believes Zey should have been given a fair trial. It violates his sense of justice.

Maze not following Order 66 is kind of a big deal. Coruscant--the seat of the Republic--has just been attacked, then there is (to outside appearances) a coup followed by emergency orders (from literally the highest authority Maze has) to eliminate all members of the organization that launched the coup. Maze doesn’t just let Zey go, he actively helps him escape and then travels with him to ensure his safety, even bringing him to Mandalore. Whatever Skirata thinks about this doesn’t even factor in, Maze is taking the responsibility for his own life and Zey’s life into his hands. And Maze did have a choice here-- he could have let Zey go, then played dumb and continued as part of the Imperial military. He could also have let Zey go then run off himself, but he doesn’t do any of that, and Zey realizes the gravity of what Maze is doing and how he’s willingly putting himself at risk. That’s what’s coming across in Zey’s line here below. 

Zey also makes a point to identify Maze as an equal, and while I don’t think Zey ever thought Maze wasn’t, what he’s referring to here I think is more about neither of them having authority or control over the other. Maze is not less important than Zey, and Zey is not in a position to treat Maze like he is (nor would he.) The moment Maze shot a meter to the side of where Zey was standing during Order 66, they both knew that they were on a kill list and had lost their positions and ranks. The circumstances are awful, but it makes them equals in a way that they weren’t before. (After Order 66, I think Maze is also the one whose skills they’re going to need to rely on quite a lot in order to survive. Not that Zey isn’t capable, but what Maze can do will play a big part in their survival and there’s no ignoring his abilities and importance here. Basically they’ll both be useful but in different ways and will have to rely on each other.) 

“I’ve got to consider his welfare” reads to me as an obligation from Zey in light of what Maze has done. It’s not that Zey didn’t care about Maze before--he clearly did otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered to offer to help him desert, and we’ve never seen Zey be callous about his men’s lives--but now it’s a moral imperative. 

I also want to talk about this part here: 

While I think Zey not sensing Maze’s emotions is largely a reflection of Maze’s training for combat and very demanding/intense situations, a smaller part could be because Maze has in some ways already decided what he’s going to do before he consciously knows what he’s going to do. Maze isn’t angry, worried, or conflicted because there’s nothing to decide, so Zey senses nothing. 

Maze didn’t know it at the time, but all his reading on law and political philosophy (and how the military fits into that) was bringing him to a specific moment. When Maze receives Order 66, he knows his orders are to kill, but he spends time talking to Ordo and then tries to arrest Zey instead of just shooting him immediately. (Ordo even wonders to himself why Maze hasn’t just killed the guy yet.) In developing his own ideas about what is just, Maze had already ensured that he was never going to follow Order 66. I think this is somewhat foreshadowed when Ordo asks Maze if he has a sense of injustice earlier in the book, and Maze quietly answers that he does and walks off. The point of that scene is two-fold, first to tell Ordo something about how other clones are very much people just like he is, and second to lay a bit of groundwork for Maze’s actions during Order 66.

So this Republic Navy ensign recognizes GAR ranks well enough to know that A’den is a sergeant, something the author tells us a page or so earlier that not all non-clone officers can do. He also knows that the rest of the Nulls are officers, though Ordo being senior to him doesn’t affect his behavior at all-- the only time he cares about rank in this scene is when he thinks he can use A’den’s to give clones a hard time. You could tell this man that ‘we salute the rank, not the person,’ and his response would be ‘oh so you think clones are people? 🤡’

He also threatens to have Ordo court-martialed. On what grounds? I have absolutely no idea. Maybe he’s threatening to send a report to Ordo’s commander which he hopes will result in a court martial. (Implying that Zey won’t "accidentally” let that report slip into the paper shredder with one hand while ordering coffee and pastries for Maze and staff with the other.) 

This ensign is only here to power trip over people he has no respect for. The entire wardroom can smell it like a fuel leak, and they’re just waiting for it to blow up in his face. 

He’s also wearing the symbol of a political group connected to the impression we get of his character-- somebody who jumps at the chance to wield power over others.

COMPOR’s goals fit with what we see of the ensign’s behavior and concerns, but the major thing here is that he’s permitted to display their symbol on his military uniform. Unlike countries in real life that don’t permit members of their armed services to wear political pins/statements like this on their uniforms/while on duty, the Republic in its final months does. Instead of presenting its forces as politically neutral, it’s allowing its representatives to openly advocate for the more authoritarian type of government that we get with the Empire. 

I thought about the conversation he had with Niner on Gaftikar, the one after Niner’s argument with A’den, and realized that there’s kind of a broad ‘arc’ for Darman that spans the entire book, one that every member of his squad plays a part in.

Darman’s relationship with Etain puts him one foot into another world where he can have a life he chooses for himself, then he has to physically step foot into a civilian world like that in Eyat with Atin. He can see himself as somebody who might live there, “overidentifying” with the place (as A’den terms it.) When Atin spies Sull through a cafe window, he initially mistakes it for his own reflection, and in a sense Sull is a reflection of not just Atin, but especially of Darman. It’s especially thematically appropriate for those two to have seen Sull; they’re the ones in relationships that can serve as a bridge into a world where that reflection of Sull--as somebody who has left the military behind and is now forging a new life for himself--could turn into their reality. But Sull is also alone, and the only brothers of his who come to visit are from Covert Ops and are there to kill him.

That part of the arc shows Darman something that he wants, something he might be able to have. The next asks Darman to think about whether, having seen that what he wants is possible, he would actually go for it. It also prompts him to start thinking about what that decision would actually mean if he were to take it, what the consequences of that would be.

When Niner asks Darman if he would leave the squad, Darman avoids giving him a straight answer. He seems genuinely confused and conflicted and almost isn’t even sure where to go with the question in his mind. He’s seen bits and pieces of a life that he could have, has seen a reflection in Sull who actually went out to go claim that life for himself, but as Darman tells us, he doesn’t even know who he is or might be without/outside the military, and leaving the squad would mean leaving Fi, Atin, and Niner behind.

It’s significant that Niner, out of all of Omega squad, is the one asking Darman this question--would you leave the squad behind? Let’s go back to the beginning of Hard Contact.

“Got it,” Atin said. “But there has to be a point where we consider him dead.”

“Without a body, that’ll be when Geonosis freezes over,” Niner said, still angry and not knowing why. “Until then, we’re going to sweat our guts out to find him, provided it doesn’t blow the mission. Now let’s see if we can sling this gear between some poles or something. We’ll never keep this pace up for tens of kilometers unless we find a better way of transporting it.”

Niner set his helmet comlink to receive long-range anyway. There was no harm in listening. If Darman was out there, Niner wasn’t planning on abandoning him.

Niner refuses to leave Darman behind or to believe that he’s out of range of Omega’s aid unless they get definitive proof that he is dead. This section is in Niner’s POV, and from a few paragraphs prior, we know that he’s feeling concern and sorrow for Darman, and has to contend with this being his responsibility. (”I shouldn’t have let that happen,” i.e. Darman should never have been able to shove Niner out of the craft--Niner should’ve been the last one off after ensuring all his men got off first.) 

Niner has been given the option to leave Darman behind and categorically refused it, feeling that refusal at a visceral level. (The few times we see Niner angry, it’s because of something that has significant weight for his character.) Now Darman is being presented with the hypothetical scenario of leaving Niner behind, and he may not know what that feels like to face that scenario for real when the chips are down, but the thought of it twists his gut up and make him uncomfortable. Even so, he can’t give Niner a yes-or-no answer because he genuinely doesn’t know how to pull apart all his thoughts and feelings and work out who he actually is and what he actually believes/would do here. Darman himself may not know the details of what Niner said back on Qiilura or what was going through his head, but we do, and that makes the fact that Niner poses this question to Darman all the more meaningful.

It’s also important to remember again that Sull was living on Eyat alone. Even if Darman has Etain with him, that’s still a significant image that colors how he thinks about Niner’s question and gets down to the core of what it would really mean if he were to desert and run off with Etain.

In the next part of Darman’s arc, he comes face to face with the very real possibility (which may even feel like an eventuality or a foregone conclusion) of losing Fi. We can see how strongly he’s affected by this when he goes to visit Fi in the medbay, and then in a later chapter he nearly breaks down sobbing. He also faces the uncertainty of what Fi is going through and worries a lot about him being stuck in a kind of limbo in his head, one parallel to the medical administrative limbo he’s stuck in by virtue of being a Defense Department clone trooper asset past its use-by date. Fi is stuck between consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death, personhood and not-personhood, and Omega refuses to let him definitively slip into those latter categories if there is anything they can do about it.

I think facing the scariness, uncertainty, and grief that came with Fi’s injuries crystallizes something for Darman in terms of really understanding what Fi, Atin, and Niner mean to him, and what their absence would mean to him. This is when he knows his answer to Niner’s question at a deep level, but he isn’t able to articulate it to himself yet and won’t until the second to last chapter.

This was his family—his sergeant, his brothers—and however much he wanted to be with Etain, he needed them, too. So Niner had his answer.

because there’s walon vau and isn’t that convenient because he’s also abusive, but he’s the physically abusive versus kal’s emotional abuse. it’s so much easier to point at the man who beats his charges to the extent that they’re scarred [atin and his scars being a prime example] and say that’s abuse than it is to point to the man who’s manipulative and withholds love and affection until he’s obeyed. 

so by both the narrative and although not stated by characters, heavily implied, is the feeling of ‘it could be worse. at least kal’s not beating us’