#sitrep.

In reference to this headcanon post. This is a really long one. The short of it is:

Kal, it happens over Kal’s decision to destroy the cure. It estranges all of the Nulls, including ultimately Ordo, because it puts on very clear display just how harmful Kal’s self-centeredness and disregard for the choices of others is. It forces Ordo to take another look at his entire relationship with Kal, and he finds it wanting. He doesn’t come back.

Besany, it’s a long process, one that happens as she and Ordo struggle with the very way they’ve approached the relationship. It gets burdened with misplaced idealism, the idea that the only normal life Ordo will have is connected to this relationship, the controlling environment in which they formed this relationship which has negatively affected an otherwise surprisingly healthy one, and generally various needs to step away from the relationship and be alone for a while. Eventually, after they’ve squared everything with themselves, they do get the opportunity to try again—and they do with success.

“One of the communications officers stationed at headquarters, Ciryl Vai. A sweet-faced Mirialan with a soothing drawl tailored for the comms. The kind of voice one wanted to fall asleep too, and I did many times. He often joked he was meant to be a broadcast jockey. Insisted he would’ve made in a different era, even been a star. I indulged him. Said he was right. Said he could still make it once we settled the galaxy to rights. We were at war. What else was I supposed to say? You find the good things where you can, and you make them if you have to.

“He kissed me in an empty backroom at headquarters because there’s nothing more romantic than dusty crates and stolen inventory. It all happened quickly after that— or, it felt quick next to how slow things with Besany went. But it was fast, and it was brief.

“Often, I hesitate to say he was my boyfriend. Looking back, it was almost more several weeks of a fling than a proper commitment. We almost did. We started looking at the long-term. He was transferring to a unit in the field who needed help setting up a clandestine communications broadcast in the Mid Rim. My team and I were going on longer and longer jaunts away from home base. We didn’t know how, if at all, we were going to navigate this.

“We never faced that question head on.

“He was born and raised on Mirial. Unhappy with the deeply stratified social classes there, built on the bones of its most treasured and honored traditions, he left home and never thought once of going back. He abandoned it all, the culture, the traditions. I couldn’t— I still don’t understand how he could manage it. Just as well: he couldn’t understand how much the Mandalorian traditions meant to me or why I navigated everything I understood about myself by my people’s customs. He couldn’t understand why I chose to “trap” myself in them.

“We argued about all that instead. Not a shouting match, no. Just a long conversation refused to end, rankled in each of us, and then grew more frustrating each time one of us revived it again.

“I left base with my team the next morning, and I thought about it on the jump through hyperspace. I couldn’t give an indeterminate length of my life to a man who didn’t understand why I could not do as he does and reshape my identity independent of the traditions I hold dear. I wrote him a message, and I told him I couldn’t commit to him. I thought it wiser to end things there. I didn’t hear back.

“By the time I returned to headquarters, he already left for the Mid Rim. I knew where he was, who he was with, but I never tried to contact him. It didn’t really matter to me anymore. I’d already moved on, cold as that sounds.

The short answer is that the Arca Barracks is a wing of the larger Special Operations Brigade Headquarters (SO HQ) and is presumably part of multiple barracks blocks dedicated to the troopers serving in the brigade. It appears to be inaccessible to public, and I agree with you as imagining it separate from the public streets of Coruscant. SO HQ is located three kilometers (1.86 miles) away from GAR HQ, but I imagine that the SO HQ complex is a smaller complex located within a massive and sprawling military complex that comprises the GAR HQ. SO HQ maintains many of its own facilities, including a landing strip and hangars.

The longer answer involves working through the usage of the phrase “Arca Barracks” to refer to SO HQ, the grounds and facilities at the SO HQ, and attempts at figuring out the spatial relationship between all of these.

Location of Arca Barracks and SO HQ

Arca Company Barracks, often just referred to as Arca Barracks, is a barracks block for the Special Operations Brigade. It’s presumably one of multiple barracks blocks, one for each company in the brigade; this one is for, as the name suggests, Arca Company. Arca Barracks are described as being a wing of the Special Operations Brigade Headquarters, and presumably other barracks blocks are considered different wings of the SO HQ complex. Presumably, they together make up the sometimes referenced accommodation block of the SO HQ complex.

SO HQ is located three kilometers (1.86 miles) away from the GAR HQ, which I’m assuming is the same as Coruscant Command HQ, and the SO HQ is distinct from Fleet Ops HQ. I’m not sure what the spatial relationship between Fleet Ops HQ and GAR HQ is. It’s likely that the SO HQ is a smaller complex part of the GAR HQ military complex, which I assume is massive and sprawling like everything else on Coruscant. The Arca Barracks, however, is completely separate from the barracks set aside for troopers not part of the brigade. The Arca Barracks are described as being right off or reasonably near a square that is open to the public. However, nobody is guarding the Arca Barracks until after the Battle of Coruscant; Ordo’s ID is checked after the Battle of Coruscant, and he notes this as odd. The Arca Barracks and the SO HQ complex appear to be inaccessible to the public at all times. I imagine that, like the main portion of GAR HQ complex, they are separate from the streets and other public areas of Coruscant.

Interpretation of phrasing

Many characters seem to use the phrase “Arca Barracks” to refer to what is known as the brigade’s HQ Main Admin Building. Zey’s office is sometimes described as part of SO HQ proper, in the Main Admin Building, and sometimes it’s described as part of Arca Barracks (henceforth simply “the barracks” unless otherwise stated). Corridors that seem to be part of the Main Admin Building are described to be located in the barracks. Generally, I interpret that this usage of the phrasing in these contexts doesn’t refer to the barracks block itself but rather it’s a kind of synecdoche to refer to the SO complex as a whole.

Grounds and facilities

The barracks is described as having its own parade ground, training wing, gymnasium presumably in the training wing, landing strip, hangars, and armory; however, through the interpretation I outline in the previous section, I tend to believe these aren’t specific to the barracks but that these are actually part of the entire SO HQ complex grounds. Similarly, Ordo describes that there is often a row of “dispatch speeder bikes” by the main entrance of the barracks, but I often wonder if they aren’t actually by the HQ main entrance. The barracks themselves are mentioned to have a recreation room or area, and I tend to assume barracks blocks for other companies have their own. The Main Admin Building also contains numerous briefing rooms.

The barracks are accessible from a ground floor main entrance, which presumably is located on the parade ground; this main entrance opens into a long corridor. The barracks are also accessible via a turbolift, and Zey’s office is described as being a turbolift ride down from Ordo’s quarters. There’s presumably side entrances to the barracks accessible from the parade ground, hence the phrasing “main entrance”. Sev considers it a shortcut to cut across the parade ground to get to Delta’s quarters from Zey’s office.

The parade ground is one of the most significant features of the SO HQ complex. It’s made of ferrocrete, and it’s described as “a platform edged with a low retaining wall and a border of manicured bushes". It can be seen from many rooms in the wings of the complex, including Delta’s quarters and the barracks recreation room. Many buildings and wings of the complex are accessible from the parade ground, including the main and side entrances to the armory and the main entrance to the hangars. Quick pickups via speeder are often made on the parade ground. I generally imagine that the parade ground is the centerpiece of the SO HQ complex and that all other buildings, wings, and areas are arranged around it, much like how many college campuses are arranged around a quad or other structures or complexes are arranged around a courtyard.

Population and activity

As stated before, the Arca Barracks are for Arca Company. Those who have their quarters in Arca Barracks include Omega squad, Delta squad, Ordo and presumably the other Nulls, Maze, and Kal; Etain is later stated to be staying at these barracks rather than the Jedi Temple.

Generally, the barracks, the parade ground, the Main Admin Building, and basically any part of the SO HQ complex is empty. The parade ground is often completely empty “except for the occasional impromptu game of bolo-ball”. Darman describes the barracks: “Arca Barracks was eerily empty much of the time, with most of the commando squads deployed and only a handful there between missions to debrief, recuperate a little, and pick up any necessary retraining and new kit.” After the Battle of Coruscant, Ordo notes the corridors of the barracks being empty means “little had changed for the Republic commandos”.

Other notes

Regarding the siege at the SO Barracks shortly after the Battle of Geonosis, it is unclear if Arca Barracks is specifically the one the Nulls held. They’re said to have “shut down the whole barracks” and Camas refuses to “obliterate an whole barracks block” because of them, and every mention of whatever barracks block they’re holding and how many is unspecified. But it is very likely that it is Arca Barracks.

Ordo has a desk and presumably an office for that desk to stand in. However, it’s described as being at Fleet Ops HQ, not at SO HQ. Again, because I’m unsure where or what Fleet Ops is relative to both SO HQ and GAR HQ, I have no idea how far Ordo has to travel to get to his desk from the barracks. It seems to me that Ordo splits his time between Fleet Ops and SO HQ.

And, it’s about grounding, and growth, and acceptance. It’s about having something that isn’t death and ruin and war. It’s about having something to put his energy into, something other than feeding into his constant anxiety. About coming to accept mistakes and comes to terms with imperfection—imperfect but still good. About developing the ability to nurture and to create that he feels he’s so sorely missing.

From a Doylist perspective too, I also wanted to try to express softer parts of Ordo without undermining all his sharp edges. He sometimes lacks a poetic sensibility, but he seems sensitive to the experience of things and the sensual qualities of things around him. And, admittedly, it also started a bit as a joke, because it’s just a surprising interest for Ordo to have. And it’s just something that’s never associated with his rigid, high-strung, demanding archetype.

It developed in response to what is arguably the greatest trauma of his life.

Because he once failed criteria he didn’t have full knowledge of, he continues to constantly perform in pursuit of an unseen model of perfection that he’s convinced he’s being measured to, living in constant terror that he will very literally die if he fails short to even the smallest degree.

But, he is keenly aware that he isn’t meeting this standard because he hyper-focuses on and catalogues every single slip-up. On top of this, in that trauma, the Kaminoans literally told him the mistake comes out of his very genetic mix, and with that comes the implication that he is inherently incapable of meeting that standard deserving of life. As a result, he’s living in the constant anxiety of waiting for others around him to notice and to punish him for it—like knowing the guillotine will drop but having no idea when.

I’m sure if Ordo could stop getting stuck on trying to be perfect, he would. He’d love to just not worry about it. It’s causing him so much stress and fear. But, he can’t just do that.

I’m going to write the short version of this, because I can write an extremely long post on his opinions on Jusik and Etain (Tur-Mukan).

Ordo, as I see it, tends to try to like Jusik because he feels like he should. Kal is fond of Jusik, and so Ordo feels like he owes it to Kal to try to be fond of Jusik as well. Generally, I feel like there isn’t overly much affection between the two. They are on good terms, but are not particularly close. Ordo, in Triple Zero at least, feels as though he is older than Jusik, even if the pair are the same physical age at that current moment; and this suggests to me that. at this moment, Ordo feels that Jusik is much more naive than he is. Jusik’s over-enthusiasm to be a member of the group annoys Ordo at times, even while Ordo worries that the group is taking advantage of Jusik’s need to be part of a family. Largely, Ordo doesn’t seem to have an overly strong opinion of Jusik, more interested in the unique situation that Jusik is in and more curious about Jusik’s particular life experience.

With Etain, Ordo’s relationship with her shifts over the course of the novels. It starts off rocky, because she uses a check command at which he reflexively stops doing everything—which he feels endangered his life. He is very angry about this in the moment, though later he accepts her apology and does not harbor a grudge against her for it; he still does not trust her because of this, and he struggles to be fond of her over this incident.

In time, he tries to make the attempt to like her for Darman’s sake. After a very open and sincere conversation with her on their way to Dorumaa, Ordo comes to recognize that she’s disenfranchised, in a different way, and finds empathy for her; he also finds common ground in their commitment to their families and dislike to be forced on backlines while their loved ones are in danger. As Etain says shortly after, Ordo finds a lot of patience for her in very little time on the basis of this conversation. Ordo becomes very kind to her and very fond of her—though the novels generally drops any development in their relationship. Still, it’s implied they become very close, and Ordo is the first to break down in tears for a few moments when her body is brought to Kyrimorut after her death; Fi isn’t “as surprised as he thought he would be” when he sees Ordo is the first to break.

FLAWS. moody | short-tempered | emotionally unstable | whiny | controlling | conceited | possessive | paranoid | lies | impatient | cowardly | bitter | selfish | power-hungry | greedy | lazy | judgemental | forgetful | impulsive | vengeful | stubborn | sadistic | petty | unlucky

// From Ordo’s narration in True Colors. Ordo overhears this secret when he walks into Etain and Kal arguing at the end of Triple Zero. Specifically, he hears: “Your own sons disowned you for putting your clone soldiers before them.” Shortly after, he confirms: “Is it true what Etain said? Did your sons disown you because you stayed on Kamino with us?” “It’s true, Ord’ika.”