#skirata

[isurrendertoclones]

Vau: Do you think he knew, Kal? […] Sev. I never told him I was proud of him, and I was. Did he know I loved him every bit as much as you love your boys?

Skirata:

[nocturius-pabu-core]

I need it your honor 🥺🥺🥺

[sarinju]

Dred Priest

Based on the appearance hints in the Republic Commando Book „501st“

[postcards-from-mandalore]

Ni copaani suhir...

Earlier today I saw on another platform a question of what SW books, currently unwritten, would you like to see in the world. While I could offer up a number of answers, to the surprise of no one my first thought was of the finale to the Republic (then later Imperial) Commando series.

HNE breaking news - Mando'ad likes Kal'buir & the fellas! Stunning, I know. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in saying that those books are why I'm here now. Does KT have some issues? Can Kal be problematic at times? Are the Jedi the villains of the piece? Sure, ok maybe, the cases could be made. But I care less about that & more about getting a -what was then to me- fresh perspective & loads of added context to a world, a people & a mindset that previously would have boiled down to "yeah, Boba Fett is cool".

Mando'ade get a bad wrap a lot of the time. They are seen by many as bloodthirsty knuckle draggers. 'Savages', 'thugs', 'thieves' that's' how they're talked about by aruetiise. Mandalorians, broadly speaking, tend to get some pretty surface level interactions with others in the galaxy. While they can be lovely, charming, welcoming people, they are also -justifiably- wary of others. Working with or trusting aruetiise hasn't historically worked out great for Mando'ade a lot of times. Conversely, most outsiders have a hard time looking past the beskar'gam to see the people underneath. Mandos get boiled down to beskar bal besbe'trayce by those unfamiliar with them on a personal level.

The RC novels get down on that personal level. You get in on squad comms with the Commandos, into Tipoca City with the Clones, into the karyai with the aliit. It brought insights & particulars to Mando culture that just didn't exists before. Being able to see who Mandalorians are, how they think, and what made them into the society they are has been endlessly fascinating to me.

So yeah, that's what I'd want, the finale of the RC novels. Ya see, before the last book there was a bit of a dust up with KT & Disney and/or FIloni & she quit before finishing the series. I'm not going to judge the rightness or necessity of her choice & instead just stick with IT SUUUUCKS that we can't find out what happened, cuz girl left us some cliff hangers! She also left us with some 800+ words and a deeper, more faceted look at Mandalorians, and the Clones, and for that I'll be forever grateful.

Honorable mention: my second choice would be someone with the depth of cultural knowledge to actually write Jaster Mereel's Supercommando Codex. We have the Jedi, Sith, & Bounty Hunter Code books, somebody, somewhere, far more qualified than I needs to write the Codex. C'mon oyu'baat, let's make it happen!

Ni copaani suhir - I want to read

Kal'buir - "Papa Kal", the affectionate nickname of the Republic Commando books character Kal Skirata; Mandalorian training sergeant, soft hearted badass, good father. He has daddy issues enough to share with everybody.

Aruetiise - Outsider, foreigner, non-Mandalorian. When used in speaking of Mandalorians it can also mean 'traitor'.

Beskar'gam - Mandalorian armor. Literally 'iron skin'.

Beskar bal besbe'trayce - iron (armor) & weapons

Karyai - main living area in a Mando home, a large space to eat & spend time together. Also, the last defensible place in a home should things turn bad.

Aliit - clan, family. Sometimes literal, blood relatives, sometimes not. To Mandalorians family is more than blood. They're compulsive adopters, regardless of blood, age, or even of species, your aliit is still family.

Oyu'baat - universe. Also the name of the longest continuously working cantina on Mandalore.

[figgiforever]

Some more Etain and Darman for incoming Valentine's Day 🥰

Is coloring old sketches being lazy or just recycling old art into something new 🤔

[lucifidious]

HELP I COULDNT REMEMBER KAL SKIRATA’S NAME WHEN I WAS TALKING ABOUT REPUBLIC COMMANDOS TO A FRIEND SO I JUST CALLED HIM “ANGRY BUCKET PEEPAW” AND THEY ACTUALLY KNEW WHO I WAS TALKING ABOUT

[niner1309]

“Okay, you can shut it now. And you, Fi. Stand down. We’ve all had a bad day, so let’s throttle back on the testosterone and play nicely.” [Niner said.]

-Star Wars, Republic Commando: Triple Zero, page 95

--------

The Delta Squad vs Omega Squad angst is one of my favourite parts in the book. After re-reading this scene, I had to draw Atin and Sev going toe-to-toe. Thankfully Niner was able to step in before things got out of hand.

[cienie-isengardu]

My RepCom Musing: "I steal. You don’t.”

Let’s talk a bit about the robbing bank scene in True Colors and more specifically this snippet:

"We can empty the-"

"I steal. You don't."

It was a fine point but it mattered to Vau. Skirata might have raised a pack of hooligans, but Vau's squads were disciplined. Even Sev... Sev was psychotic and lacked even the most basic social graces, but he wasn't a criminal.

I absolutely love this little insight into Vau’s mind for various reasons.

One - his view of Skirata as the criminal is consistent throughout the series. Even though both men became a very close comrades, this opinion did not change a bit, as was seen in Order 66

Skirata knew he was everything Vau said - thug, thief, killer, uncultured oaf, and way too emotional.

and

"I've known Skirata for some years," Vau said. "He's a criminal by Coruscant standards. So am I. But an outright traitor - no. He's a professional."

Both men are aware they are in fact criminals and they never try to deny this fact nor see themselves as some heroic people (though Vau sarcastically callsSkirata “playing the working-class martyr” and “my little working-class hero” but I guess this is a rant for another occasion).

At the same time, Vau is seeing Kal as a man who raised a pack of hooligans - what, to be honest seems to be aimed mainly at Nulls, as we know that once under Kal’s protection they did a lot dangerous things on Kamino for fun and out of spite toward Kaminoans (their abusers) and who kept stealing data, equipment and money, slicing into banks and other important institutions and so on during war. The fact that Vau considered Skirata to fail drill into his boys a proper military discipline and maybe even thought Kal lacked it himself, speaks a lot about Vau’s strict nature and his approach to following rules / orders (and this is another interesting point about him, but that is again a rant for another day).

So Vau’s approach (need) for discipline is another reason why the above quote is so telling a lot about him as a character. Vau literally put value over pragmatism, because he didn’t want Delta Squad - his disciplined soldiers - to become a common criminals, like him or Skirata, even though he did not see robbing his family’s vault as a crime but justice, for himself and clone troopers.

The third interesting detail is how Vau considers Sev to be psychotic and lacking any social grace (and geez, whose fault is that Vau?) but still see him as the proper, disciplined soldier. We know that in the books psycho and similar terms have a negative connotation and the game mentions that during training Vau even asked to re-check Sev’s DNA for possible mental aberration

but these Sev’s “faults” still do not overshadow Vau's positive opinion about the commandos and the contrast between Vau’s good Deltas and Skirata’s bunch of hooligans.  At least in that point of the story.