*slides in* How do you think the 501st react to the whole spouse idea? Would they be all for it or would they be uncomfortable? *slides back out*
By and large, I think their initial reaction would be much the same of most clone troopers when the Companion Program is first introduced across the Grand Army of the Republic—which is to say, they are completely awkward and nervous about the whole thing. While those at the lower-most ranks might not understand the importance or even purpose of having a Spouse (though they would still be called Companions in the early stages of the program), those in higher levels of power likely have enough of a larger-scale view of how the skills play a very important role in the overall health and morale of the entire army at large.
In this AU, the Kaminoans and Galactic Senate are already aware that trying to isolate an completely separate the clone soldiers from other people is a disaster in the making, but they still don’t give them complete outward freedoms—thus, the Companion Program is introduced, which solves several key issues with one single solution.
For the 501st Legion, I think a lot of their overall attitude over time would trickle down from leadership—I think specific relationships would certainly be influenced by the Jedi that commanded over them, and in the case of the 501st, Anakin Skywalker is honestly one of the better options. Given his personal disagreements with the concept of detaching himself from feelings of love, I think he would be able to see the Companion Program as a very good thing, if not a bit complicated.
He would offer a lot of respect to any spouses assigned to troopers under his command, and do his best to help them keep a mentally sound and emotionally healthy fighting force—which would be a very humorous opposite to Rex, who would likely be on the opposite end of the spectrum at first.
Though not staunchly opposed, Rex is a traditionalist and an especially loyal clone (particularly in the early months of the war). He would likely feel awkward and unsure of himself if a spouse tried to offer him attention, if only because the concept of relationships outside the narrow definition of ‘brother’ and ‘comrade’ were not things he was exposed to or taught; none of them were, honestly, despite the fact that their natural psychology and biology still craves those other types of very important relationships—they are almost like awkward teenagers in that sense.
Over time, Rex would likely grow incredibly comfortable with it, especially when the war drags on morale and heightens everyone’s general sense of stress and worry. Sometimes, it’s just nice to have someone around who isn’t a soldier, someone who is entirely honest when they say it’s okay to be angry, okay to be miserable, okay to be scared. Someone who is just… there for you.
Series Summary: An AU where clone squads are sometimes assigned an Emotional Support Partner who is equal parts counselor, mediator (and spouse) in order to keep morale and loyalty as high as possible—somebody gets a job and at least several fairly loyal not-on-paper-but-you-know husbands, while the squadron of clones are less inclined to do things that, you know, make accidental babies happen.
Chapter Rating: T
Read on AO3
You hadn’t expected the questions to be so… specific.
“So, what are your hobbies?”
“My what?”
“Your hobbies,” the man repeats, tapping his fingers on the holopad on the desk between the two of you. “Things you like to do—to waste time or to be productive, either works.”
The question is so odd in the context of the situation that you find your mind utterly devoid of any answer at all. You flub for words and try not to look nearly as unnerved as you feel. “I, er… I uh… browse the holonet?”
In front of you, the interviewer’s expression is hard to read. He must have spoken to at least several dozen people in just the last day or so—and you probably seem like you’re wasting his time. Just one candidate of many who were more than happy to trade in a part of their personal life for a job that, comparatively, paid very well, even if it was one of the strangest arrangements you had ever heard.
You were being interviewed for the job of, essentially, being a mail-order bride. Or spouse, technically, since that’s what you had heard everyone referring to it as. Trooper spouse. You’d seen some of the ads, heard some of the rumours and even followed through a couple curious leads of information as well to make sure that the whole thing was legitimate.
And as it turns out, it is.
Being able to take a job as the equivalent of an emotional support animal to a squadron of clones in the Republic’s army was a legitimate, funded, and supported career option.
The interviewer couldn’t have been anything more than an average office worker—probably contracted to pick the best candidates for the program. Those who were legitimately trained in medical, psychological and even basic conflict avoidance were highly sought after as Companions.
“Alright then,” he finally says, yanking you from your idle thoughts, “Please explain to me why you want to be part of this program in your own words. What brought you here?”
You take in a slow breath and try to remember what you had rehearsed. “Well you see, I…” was obviously not lucky enough to be born to a rich family, and am more than happy to play the part of being a soldier’s sex toy if it means getting a steady paycheck and some level of autonomy since it sounds like a vaguely better deal than a streetside hooker.
“…I think that it is important to play my part in fighting this horrible war against the Separatists, and I also think I can put my skills to good use in being a Companion to our boys in white than I could put them elsewhere.”
When you took in a breath and looked ahead towards the interviewer, you weren’t certain if the man had looked quite as exhausted before you had answered as he does now. His expression is already hard enough to read already—being of a race of people that keeps the bottom-half of their face covered due to cultural modesty, all you can go on are his two sets of eyes to gauge his reactions.
And you haven’t been able to decipher anything. He simply looks exhausted.
For a few moments, you expect the man to continue on with the next question, perhaps even follow up with a bit more detail for the current one. What he does instead, however, surprises you. He pushes a separate screen towards you, and taps a finger on the writing that flickers on the holographic screen. It’s an article from a well-known journalist.
“Do you see this?” he asks, tone surprisingly soft.
Your eyes read across the headline and a stone begins to settle in your throat. A planet had been bombed in the crossfire of an opening battle upon the declaration of war. The Clone War. It didn’t come entirely as a shock, since you had seen plenty of those headlines in the last couple weeks, but you can’t help but feel a dull shiver move down your spine as the interviewer directs your attention explicitly towards it.
Not something you can ignore or look away from.
“I don’t think you came in here assuming this was going to be sunshine and friendship,” the man says, pulling back the screen. “But I want to make sure you’re joining this program—or trying to, at least—for reasons you will not regret.”
“I don’t understand, I’m telling the truth-“
“No, you’re not.”
You blink, and the man—whom you feel horrible for not asking his name in the first place—stares at you hard with four bright, cold blue eyes. He has no true pupils that you can see, but you are acutely aware that he’s staring right at you.
“I need you to understand that this is a war. People are liable to die in it. I’m not saying you’re guaranteed to be safe forever and always if you don’t join this program,” he says, then allows a sigh past his unseen lips, “but you will be at a higher risk if you do. Now, it says here you don’t have any experience or knowledge that we would consider high-priority?”
“That is…” you swallow that stone down. “That is true. I could never afford school for those kinds of skills.”
“Alright. No combat ability either?”
“Not besides some basic self-defense,” you say, shrugging your shoulders. “I grew up a few layers beneath the surface so it wasn’t bad, but…”
The interviewer nods, apparently understanding some of the subtleties in your trailing words. On Coruscant, anyone beneath the surface—and arguably still those not in the sky-reaching apartment lofts—needed to know how to keep from getting beat up and mugged.
He clears his throat after a moment, muttering something in a language you can’t understand before falling back into the monotonous questioning.
“What would you consider your strengths to be in a relationship?”
You pause, remembering his words about regret and joining this program. Then with a nod, you look at him and answer, “I like to see the whole picture before making decisions, and I understand that stress plays a large role in how people react to situations. It’s important to be patient, but to hold your ground in a relationship.”
He hums after a moment, nods, and then marks something off on the list in front of him.
“Describe the traits of an ideal partner or partners.”
“Wait,” your brows scrunch together in confusion. “I thought the program served whole squadrons, not individual clone troopers.”
“It depends on the situation,” the interviewer doesn’t have eyebrows, but he tilts his head in a way that indicates the same sort of curious emotion. “Squadrons are typically the smallest combative unit, and typically the largest that a single person can act properly as a Companion for. There are situations where Companions will be paired with a captain or commander, and in turn act like….I suppose you might call it a matriarch or patriarch to the command structure below them. You’ll have no authority in terms of battle, but… again, a lot of variables going on.”
Despite still being a bit confused, you slowly nod your head. The man—you think his race are called the Tarael?—leans back in his chair and reads off the question again.
Ideal traits…? The concept whirls around your head for a few moments. You had, hilariously, decided to join the program more for the financial safety than for actually finding a romantic partner in the clones you’d be paired with. Technically the job description never even mentioned romance or even sex, just basic services one might expect of a counselor or therapist at absolute best—observe for early-onset PTSD, emotional issues, hyper-agression, stuff like that.
…but anyone could read the fine print, the words hidden in between the others, made all the more obvious by the priorities in which Companions were being most highly judged—appearance, compatibility, low-aggression, empathy, and some even said that those without the ability to get pregnant are especially wanted for the position.
It doesn’t take a genius to understand what’s going on there; a double-duty job to keep an eye on the clones while also giving them an option to route their overactive hormones that wouldn’t end up with half a million accidental pregnancies.
After what felt like an eternity and a half, you finally feel like you have an answer that doesn’t sound entirely stupid.
“I…want to have someone who likes me for who I am. I know that’s odd to ask in this job, but… I would like someone who looks at me and adores me. Someone devoted and kind, though not without their own flaws and challenges of course.”
“Good,” the Tarael makes another note, then takes a slow breath. He seems hesitant, but it’s only for a moment. “… As a Companion, are you open to having a relationship that is romantic and slash or sexual in nature. No explanation is needed for the answer, simply that you are open to it in one or both forms.”
You blink. A second passes, and you blink again.
“I mean…” a wave of heat passes over our cheeks. “I…assumed both of those things were part of the job already.”
“So that’s a ‘yes’ in both the romantic and sexual aspects?”
“Er…yes.” Your face never felt quite as hot as it does now.
“Also good,” he makes a note, “Though to be honest with you, I hate asking that question. Some people are too nervous to give me an answer, and others too embarrassed.”
“I suppose I can understand why they might feel like that,” you offer softly. The interviewer nods in agreement, then makes another few silent notes on the list in front of him.
“Alright,” he finally says, peering up to you. “I am finished with my questions, so now you’ll move onto the next part of the interview.”
The next part?
As if understanding your momentary confusion, the Tarael explains, “If you join the program, you will be likely to follow wherever your assigned squadron or clone goes—to an extent, at least. The next part is mostly just a physical exam to make sure you’re in relatively good health. If medical attention, therapy, or medication is needed, then it will be provided to you in the program.
After a moment, he softly adds, “…If you are a genuinely good fit for some of the soldiers, then you won’t be turned away.”
You stand up after a moment, not quite sure what to say before a worker steps up to the desk and gently directs you further into the office, likely towards a section that has been repurposed to be a medical examination ward. Before you’re able to step away, however, the interviewer offers you a look that seems as if he might be smiling underneath his mask.
“In case you are curious,” he says, a note of amusement in what had been a nearly-monotonous conversation. “You have the highest compatibility with multiple squadrons within the 501st Legion than I’ve seen of most other people who are in the program right now.”
“Oh,” you say, unsure if that is a good thing or not, considering you scarcely know what one of the clone troopers even look like with their helmet off. “That’s…uh, cool! Good to know, I guess…”
And with that, you step out of the room, leaving the interviewer to collect himself before calling in the next person.
Okay, sorry if this is, like, too soon for your worldbuilding in the Squad Spouse AU but I NEED to know how Palpy’s Plot gets ruined by the Spouses™️
I don't think it's too soon at all! The Squadron Spouse AU is likely one that I'll explore non-chronologically, so I have no issue in talking about how it's going to royally FUCK with the canon of Order 66 ahead of writing anything about it specifically in a fic.
This post is also a LONG boy so it's going under a readmore, but I promise it's worth the perusal!
The problem begins with the fact that the Companion Program was created and approved by the Galactic Senate entirely without intervention from Palatine himself. It's a rogue variable, a completely unplanned part of the war, but the most dangerous thing is that Palpatine completely disregards it as being completely beneath him and his grand scheme.
So, how does it get through the Galactic Senate? In this AU, the senate and larger public eye has a semblance of sympathy for the clones even at the start of the war--maybe it's because of a rogue journalist, or maybe its just because the clones are seen as the military slaves they honestly are in the existing canon to begin with.
"Companionship is the right of any sentient being," one senator perhaps had argued, "And as long as there are people willing to make use of their skills in medicine, psychology, emergency first aid and so on, then there is no reason they can't be an asset to the Republic and a companion to its army."
The Companion Program is shuffled through the senate one way or another, and soon it becomes apparent that a large number of civilians are plenty happy to join--largely those from less wealthy or safe-guarded planets, though there's a multitude from Coruscant that apply to be part of the program as well. The applicants that make it through are those who are fairly well-prepared to deal with the fact that they are the equivalent of deployed military dependents, but it is that exact same situation that makes them a prominent culture of people within the Grand Army of the Republic.
Stress can do a lot of things to people, but in the case of war and armies, it often builds a sense of camaraderie that is impossible to develop elsewhere. Members of the Companion Program (soon casually called 'spouses') often get to know one another very well--and an entire network of relationships between spouses and the clones they're assigned to is woven from loose threads into an entire, intricate tapestry that stretches from one side of the galaxy to the other.
And it was this very network that Palpatine didn't expect--a group of people that cared about one another and the clones they had been with (for some spouses, since the start of the war), and it didn't take long before a rumor would come rumbling through: there's something wrong, stories of nightmares weaving with the offhand report of a clone who had gone berserk and tried to kill a Jedi, one spouse going missing when they tried to investigate the cause of a strange recurring headache a member of their squadron was experiencing.
It's one little piece of the puzzle after another, coming together until the conglomerate of the Companion Program--which was filled with admittedly experienced civilians across all walks of life, not to be underestimated by any means--learned the secret. The horrible, atrocious secret that was Order 66 and the implant of a control chip inside every clone that came out of Kamino; this discovery would be entirely hushed, kept to only the few who could be trusted with it while general knowledge continue to grow in what they could do to try and stop this from happening.
Spouses with medical knowledge and training enough to be allowed to operate the surgical wards started organizing secret operations to remove chips, while others passed on information they had gathered from the chips itself--going back to Kamino, to a dark plot, an order yet to be given by the very Chancellor himself.
Not every clone is able to be saved when it comes time for Palpatine to send out the call for Order 66. But, by that time in the war, when so many had done so much work in order to stop it, it means that scarcely any Jedi are killed, the clones in majority are spared from their waking nightmare, and Darth Sideous himself is exposed and tried for his crimes against the Republic.
What does this mean for the world afterwards? Who knows! I'd like to say that Anakin doesn't ever betray the order and instead goes on to try and reform some of their doctrine with backing from many others of his peers. The clones are slowly merged into the civilian populace, though not without plenty of challenges to be explored. It's not a perfect ending, but it's at least a better one!
Some random thoughts about the Squadron Spouse AU, expanded upon from @trollsarenotwelcome:
- While not required in order to join the program, skills such as first aid, self-defense, leadership and basic military knowledge are highly sought after and very much encouraged to learn—spouses are often in openly-declared war zones, after all, and those without such skills are given ample opportunities to gain them for a much higher monthly stipend. It’s also generally accepted that the clones themselves tend to prefer spouses who are self-sufficient so that they don’t need to worry when they’re on the front lines of a battle.
- Though it was not officially supported at first, its extremely commonplace for the spouses within larger units—or entire flagships—to establish their own communication method with each other. Some networks are incredibly diverse and complex while still being far-reaching, and have even been utilized in several scenarios to re-take planets. Despite this unforeseen tool, some argue that spouses should not be able to develop such large networks due on the grounds of security concerns. And this is how Order 66 fails.
- Depending on the skills and experience of both the spouse and the clones, turnover rates can vary quite a bit. Some squadrons will keep a single assigned spouse for the entirety of its existence, while others will have to be assigned new ones constantly—despite all of the screenings and warnings, some just can’t handle the stresses that come with active warfare in such a close proximity. This is why it’s encouraged for spouses to have a working knowledge of how stress impacts behavior and how to spot early-onset PTSD in their assigned squadrons as much as themselves.
- Though they are not able to act beyond generals in terms of interacting with spouses—such as keeping them off the battlefield or directing them if absolutely required—the Jedi are surprisingly mixed in their opinions of the Companion program. Some, such as Anakin Skywalker and Plo-Koon are highly supportive of the program and its overall intent, while others like Mace Windu are very reluctant to have civilians involved in such a bloody conflict. Nevertheless, it is a program run solely by the Galactic Senate, and the Jedi are only rarely in a position where a spouse is being an active difficulty in times of battle.
- Though it was never an official duty by any means, many spouses have taken it upon themselves to teach the clones various life skills that they think will be most important for them to understand in order to acclimate to eventual peacetime lives. These skills include things such as cooking, cleaning, sewing—whatever skills that the spouse brings with them outside what is considered ‘high priority’. Though it can’t be proved to be part of the original intention of the program, these ‘transition skills’ have allowed very intricate relationships to form across whole companies of spouses and clones in a strange but positive pseudo-culture.
- At first, there was no particular rules set in place in regards to birth control for members of the Companion program who were able to get pregnant. This is largely thought to be due to the Galactic Senate not wanting the program to be seen as with any sexual undertones—the term ‘spouse’ was coined by the people in the program, after all. About halfway through the war, however, birth control became widely available and required for any member of the program who just so happened to be sexually active.
I have to admit the most fun part of the Squadron Spouse AU is not the potential for crazy worldbuilding or spicy shenanigans, it's not just because I'm stubborn about taking crack-fic ideas and making them work.
It's because I have never seen a force quite as stubborn, willful, and completely ready to kill a man as a military dependant, especially a spouse.
I am not joking for a single moment when I say that taking the equivalent of military spouses and putting them in the clone wars setting will single-handedly decimate Order 66 and make Palpatine personally strangle whatever senate member was the first one to offer the companion program as a legitimate policy.
