The newly formed Omega Squadron, and freshly without a Master Padawan Etain Tur-Mukan, are tasked to destroy a Separatist superweapon on Qiilura. Can the squadron learn to trust each other, and their new Jedi General? Or will this new Separatist bioweapon be completed to wreak havoc on the galaxy?
War is hell, and the Separatists are prepared to make hell much hotter. Early in the war, they created Jedi Killer Droids, which were foiled by Obi-Wan and Kit Fisto. Contemporaneously with this novel, Lok Durd uses the Lurmen planet of Maridun to test a new weapon. This weapon targeted organic beings, but left the droid army unscathed. After the failure of that project, thanks to Jedi Knights Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano, and Aayla Secura, the Separatists are forced to come up with a new plan. This new plan is similar to Lok Durd’s, but instead of developing a new type of cannon, the Separatists come up with a more precise weapon: a virus. On Qiilura, Separatist aligned scientist Ovolot Qail Uthan is developing a nano-virus that would target clone troopers specifically in order to kill them quickly and efficiently. Not only does this coincide with the rapid expansion of the Separatist’s weaponry, but it also reflects their attacks on the clones as a whole. Not too much earlier, the Separatists committed a massive invasion on Kamino, targeting the DNA base for the clone troopers.
In order to face the newest threat to the clones’ existence, the Republic sends Omega Squadron to Qiilura. The Squadron is a bit unorthodox: they did not fight together for their whole military careers. Instead, this Squadron is a pastiche of former squadrons, each of which lost members due to the growing war effort. Most have memories of their time on Geonosis, dealing with their first major battle and the loss of squad mates at the same time. This new dynamic, both of a squadron patched together and of men struggling with the after-effects of war, brings a new level of understanding to the clone troopers. No longer do we see them as perfect weapons crafted for war; rather, they are people, too, forced to fight for a cause that doesn’t quite know what to do with them.
Whereas most of the war effort calls for a giant hammer, the commandos are more akin to a scalpel. The Clone Commandos are trained apart from the regular clone troopers. Rather than being trained for regular infantry purposes or ground battles, they are trained for more precise missions. They can be used for extractions, assassinations, stealth strikes, or other missions that a regular company would fail at due to size. These variant training measures means the clones act and think differently than regular clone troopers, leading these four to have pretty distinct personalities. Again, as much as you can clone bodies, you can’t clone personalities, and they will develop independently. Spending time in these men’s heads is a great way to build sympathy for the troopers in ways a lot of other works were not concerned with.
The biggest struggle won’t be coming together as a squadron; instead, the biggest struggle will be working with newly on her own Jedi General Etain. Her Master had been recently killed by local warlord Ghez Hokan, who took her former Master’s lightsaber. Her separation from her deceased Master, Kast Fulier, is causing her to doubt her own abilities and her place in the Jedi Order. This is perfect breeding grounds for her new ethical crisis: working with clone troopers, bred and designed for war. Etain becomes unique in Legends as someone who becomes compassionate toward the clones and wants to remove them from the war. Most people who start to value the clones want to treat them as humans, but don’t do anything to change their situation. Heck, General Skywalker worries more about losing R2 than he does about losing any of his clone troopers.
Ghez Hokan is hired by the Separatists to help protect Dr. Uthan as a security force. The Separatists also give them 100 battle droids to augment the security force. The Separatists aren’t above hiring local help, an interesting turn of events. Hokan, though a mercenary, provides another unique perspective. He is not initially involved in the war, but is happy to join a cause he believes in. He is a natural leading battle droids, suggesting that if the galaxy can be mobilized on their side, regular people can become effective leaders for the Separatist movement as well.
The Omegas and Etain join with local Gurlanins named Jinart and Valaqil. Gurlanins are shape-shifters and are native to Qiilura. As human settlers and the CIS moved in, the Gurlanins were becoming more and more marginalized on their own planet. Jinart complains to Etain that she is disappointed by the lack of help that the Republic has offered them. They figure that their plight is exactly what the Republic was designed to prevent, but they’ve failed at their mission. Etain, retaining the ideals of the Jedi and the Republic she believes exists, promises Republic help if the two help them infiltrate the Separatist headquarters. The Republic may not be as spread thin as they will be in the future, but they are probably not in a good place to support the planet yet.
During the op, Darman and Etain start to grow fond of each other. Etain probes the clones’ minds to get to know them as individuals and ends up getting much more than she bargained for. Not only does she touch on their pain and their fears, but she hits on something horrific to her. Their presence in the Force is similar to the presence of children. Remember, they really are children! They have only been alive for ten years, but their accelerated aging program has aged them to look like 20 year olds. At some point, Darman teaches Etain how to use the clones’ weapons while she explains how to fight with a lightsaber. Some romcoms feature a scene where the man tries to help a woman learn a skill, like baseball or golfing, and then it turns into an intimate moment. This moment is similar, but instead of teaching a golf swing, the two teach each other how to use dangerous and deadly weapons.
The clones formulate a plan for a final push into Uthan’s base. They blow a hole in the side with extensive explosives, moving in to capture Uthan, rather than kill him. As the clones work to capture the doctor and stop the spread of his virus, Etain comes in contact again with Hokan. She kills Hokan, decapitating him with her lightsaber. She finds Fulier’s lightsaber on his body and retrieves it as a keepsake of her Master.
Between killing Hokan out of revenge and her growing feelings toward Omega Squadron, but Darman specifically, Etain chooses to remove herself from them. Jedi Master Arligan Zey is assigned to stay on Qiilura while Omega is shipped off somewhere else. Etain decides staying with Zey would be the easiest way to ignore her feelings, and break her attachment to Darman, no matter how much it hurts her.
Mike Cooper, over at Eleven Thirty-Eight, talks about how revolutionary this book really was. Through the eyes of Etain, we are forced to reckon seriously with the fact that these clones were bred for war. Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of the Jedi. Traviss starts to become single minded in her defense of the clones, taking it out on the Jedi. Etain, who essentially becomes a self-insert for Traviss’s view of the Jedi, starts to express extreme disatisfaction with the Order and considers leaving. Her connection to Darman, and her inability to understand why the Jedi would lead a “slave army” pushes her toward leaving the Order. This is an extremely welcome viewpoint, but it frequently comes at the expense of a fair representation of the Jedi. Rather than tackling a nuanced discussion about the Jedi and their acquiescence to the war, it seems all antagonistic, all coming from parties which should have enough respect for the Jedi to give them some sort of benefit of the doubt.
This novel presents a lot of interesting ideas, but it was extremely hard for me to get into it. I am definitely an outlier – these books seem insanely popular, and Traviss wrote two Clone Wars novels outside of this series and took part in writing the Legacy of the Force series, so she must’ve resonated with most fans. I had trouble piercing the dense prose, Mando’a terminology, and military jargon. This may appeal to a lot of fans of other genres, so I can’t entirely discount the novel based on this. I was a huge fan of the questions it started to tackled, but grew more and more disappointed the longer the series drew out by how she handled the questions. I was absolutely thrilled to start the series: so many fans and non-fans loved the series, so I figured I would, too. Instead, it started to become a chore, especially knowing four more were coming.
Legendary Travel Tips:
-The novel is preceded by an Insider short story “League of Spies” and followed by another Insider short story “Republic Commando: Targets”.
-This series was affected heavily by the Legends reboot. Traviss wrote four titles under the Republic Commando banner and one under the banner 501st: Imperial Commando. The second novel under the Imperial banner was shelved after Traviss’ expressed dissatisfaction with how continuity was handled between The Clone Wars and her novels. Several characters fates were left explicitly in the air, while others simply did not find resolution.
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