#atin's father definitely thought so

[leias-left-hair-bun-again]

Oh my goodness Emma I finally just finished Triple Zero and ahhhhhhh it was so good!!!! (I did not get to finish it over the weekend because I ended up working on Saturday, which was fine, except I'm a dumbass and overdid it and made myself super sick and pretty much just slept for the next 48 hours. Totally my own fault and I'm fine now, I'm just an idiot 😆 lol)

Quick thoughts: Fi needs a girlfriend and I would like to formally volunteer myself for the role. I want to adopt Bard'ika; he's just so good. Besany is a doll and I'm very glad they didn't have to shoot her. Atin still needs a hug. Ordo finding out about Kal's sons disowning him was yet another sucker punch moment 😭 and I want to hug him too.

I think I'm starting to understand Vau... he's still a bastard. I'm still not sure I like him. But that's okay. I think it works for the story to have characters like that. They weren't exactly recruiting for warm and fuzzy instantly lovable father figures when they hired the trainers.

Kal's reaction to Etain's news.... I'm guessing that's got a lot to do with why people don't like him? Not exactly his finest moment, but I hardly blame him. He's clearly terrified for Darman's sake and the kid (and Etain to a lesser extent, but she's in the least danger and sort of brought it on herself). I'm definitely interested in where that goes in the next book.

And the hunt for Ko Sai.... I think I like where this is going

oH NO oh no!!!! i'm so sorry!!!! i'm glad you got some sleep and you're okay now but that's not good to hear at all D: i hope you don't have to work tomorrow again /:

on the other hand your thoughts are SO good to hear oh my goodness me just. yeah. yeah, yeah. all of this is perfect you're absolutely right, vau's not necessarily there to be likeable and he certainly wasn't recruited to be a dad! i think it makes sense, too, and i just love how you put that into context. and kal as well - just yes. you guessed right, this is The Thing that people point to to try and say he's a cruel/abusive/etc. person and i've never been able to see that. definitely not his finest moment! but yes exactly - he's scared and he's got to do something cause no one else is going to or can even be trusted to help. i think you summed that whole situation up perfectly, how are all your thoughts so good and opinions correct :P , i know you can't hear but i'm clapping frantically at every paragraph XD including the first one, i too would like to volunteer to be fi's girlfriend lskjfdsf he so badly needs one!!! and yes atin still so badly needs a hug <3 luckily laseema is there to give him hugs now though :DDD

#i am once again absolutely thrilled by your reactions :DDD anon you *get* it #and oh my heck the hunt for ko sai #i can say nothing #absolutely nothing #but. am excited for you :DDD #....also seriously hope you get the weekend off in its entirety this time that's so not okay that you ended up so ill!!! #repcomm reader anon 📚 #ask #repcomm #republic commando #triple zero #walon vau #kal skirata

[varart]

What! Atin did a lot of dumb shit when he was a teenager😲 Can you tell some stories👀

Well. There was that one time when Atin and their cousins went for a trip in Atin’s father’s car and they had a competition of who can fart the loudest. They ended up laughing so hard that they accidentally crashed the car into the river. Luckily, no one got injured except the car (that was totalled) but after that Atin had to carry the milk crates to town every morning in a wheelbarrow for a year.

Here is another one: https://varart.tumblr.com/post/639021951905562624/what-is-one-secret-that-each-ro-would-be

Atin will probably tell some stories to MC during the book but these are just some beautiful examples 😂

#enchanted in blood #atin as teenager #young #atin cobral #is this dumb enough #atin's father definitely thought so

[cienie-isengardu]

Why do you think Jango Fett hired Dred Priest and Isabet Reau, even tho they were suspected death watch sympathizers? I cant imagine the Commandos they trained would be happy to be serving under jedi...

Before I will talk about Priest and Reau, I think is worth to point that no Mandalorian training commandos was overly fond of Jedi or Republic.  Not all commandos / ARC liked to work with Jedi, some were disappointed by their force-sensitive commanders, but I doubt Dred and Isabet personal hate/dislike, even if passed down to their trainees, would make soldiers disobey the orders coming from Jedi. Frankly, commandos get along & work the best with their own brothers, but that is just the way they were raised. Personal feelings will not get in the way, they are too professional for that.

As for the major ask, here we go:

The Imperial Commando: 501’st raised this topic in one of talk between Ordo and Mij Gilamar:

“What was Jango doing recruiting them? He had more reason to hate the Death Watch than anybody.”

“Priest and Reau weren’t exactly card-carrying members. Jango thought they were all talk. He only cared about results.”

But I think the matter was more complicated than that.

Jango Fett hired one hundred people - the best soldiers, tacticians, sappers, communicators, survival experts - to train future Republic Commandos, but managed to get only 75 Mandalorians. Due to Jango Fett: Open Season comics, we know that many friends / associates / allies of Jango were interrogated - and most likely killed afterwards, like Silas - by Dooku during his “research” about Fett’s past, so the limited number of people to choose from influenced the decision to some degree. 

We know little about Isabet, but Dred was considered as a good (albeit idiot) soldier, so he met the requirements.

Then again, even with limited choices, Fett still didn’t want to hire Kal Skirata and he did so only because Walon Vau insisted. But Vau hated Death Watch above everything else, and I don’t think he would agree to work for Fett and/or get along with Priest and Reau, if they were true Death Watch sympathizers back then. 

“How do you lie to a Jedi Master?” Laseema asked. “Without him sensing it, that is?”

“I didn’t,” said Vau. “I said I’d tell him if I found Kal doing anything to help the enemy. The minute that this little shabuire opens a comlink to any former Death Watch personnel, I shall gladly turn him in.”

Skirata paused for a moment, then managed to laugh. “Do I know any?”

“No, but they’re the only group I’d really call my enemy. So I didn’t lie, and I was genuinely emotional enough for him to believe what his Force senses told him he wanted to believe.” [Order 66]

In this short passage, Vau says that Kal Skirata does not know any former members of Death Watch, so during the conflict between DW and True Mandalorians, Reau and Priest weren’t part of enemy group. So, if Jango knew them (otherwise, how he could judge if their skills are good enough to train future commandos?), they most likely were his former allies / subordinates or some freelancers whom he met over the years, right? 

Between Order 66 and 501’st, the biggest hater of Dred and Isabet is Mij Gilamar and I think his hate is only partially fueled by their Death Watch-like ideology. He is the one to say “`They had the makings of the Death Watch in them, those two. Him and that perverted secret fight club, her and that let’s-conquer-the-galaxy-again osik”. Alongside him, Ordo and Skirata were the most vocal about those two Mandalorians. Interesting, Walon Vau - for whom Death Watch is trigger to extreme hatred - did not despite them openly, at least until he saw DW badge on their armors. Then, he was all okay with killing them.

Here is the thing: was Dred and Isabet truly Death Watch sympathizers back on Kamino, or did their ideological thinking was just additional reason why Mij hated them both? Because we know he “loathed them with passion” and being “marooned indefinitely on Kamino with folks you hated on sight and nowhere to escape them” for sure did not help the situation. 

Frankly, Mij and Dred is not the first duo that fought and hated each other guts. Walon Vau, when introduced, also was seen as the psycho, cruel, bad Mandalorian; an image fueled by Skirata’s, Ordo’s and Atin’s POV yet with passing time, perception of his character has changed. So, can we be sure that Dred and Isabet were so awful? Especially since Vau and Fett could tolerate their sentiments, even if that sounded a lot like Death Watch’s ideology?

This leads me to two conclusion.

The Priest and Reau’s ideology was not really unique only to Death Watch. They wanted A) Mandalore to be great empire again, B) Mandalorian people to serve their own interest rather than fighting for foreign governments and strangers. Most likely many other Mandalorians were bitter about their past and current situation. If we take Legends and New Canon into account, this kind of sentiment actually makes sense. Death Watch may take that into extreme, but even people like Skirata - or his just-adjusting to Mandalorian life daughter - from time to time were thinking that Mandalorians shouldn’t fight for aruetii (foreigners) and doing their dirty jobs.

“I’m not arguing,” Gilamar said. “Just making it clear that if I run into Dred and he starts on that bring-back-the-good-old-days garbage, I’ll gut him. And his crazy girlfriend.”

“No reason to run into him,” Ordo said. “Unless you’re in Keldabe.”

“Don’t you think it’s time we started fighting for our own interests?” Ruu took the mug out of her father’s hand and peered into it as if checking up on him. “I’m not saying this guy’s right, but being at every aruetii’s beck and call and doing the dying for them doesn’t sound smart to me. Look at this world. It’s dirt-poor. That’s not much to show for the lives we’ve spent on shoring up other governments.”

“Good point,” Vau said. “You’re definitely a Skirata.”

That was an odd thing for Vau to say, seeing as no Mando cared much about biological parentage. It was a culture of adoption and blurred lines between offspring and in-laws.

He just means she says the same things as Kal'buir. That’s all.

If Skirata can talk/think how Mandalorians shouldn’t kill each other for foreigners’ money, like in True Colors:

Mandalorians ended up killing one another for all kinds of reasons, personal and incidental. It still didn’t make it right. The covert ops troopers sent after Sull, now these strangers-the thought of nek dogs came back to him, dog set on dog for sport, or just a killing machine to do the master’s bidding. Skirata felt it was time Mando'ade stopped being everyone’s nek.

then maybe the idea of “coming back to roots” and creating one mighty army is not so controversial? I mean, Jaster Mereel saw Mandalorians as just well-paid mercenaries, yet by leading (at least three) military units of well trained warriors he had better bargaining position to pick up missions, clients and how much money should be paid than a lone mandalorian freelancer could have. I think that last decade or so before the Clone Wars was time in which “national movements” happened in various mandalorian groups.

We may only wonder how much Priest and Reau’s ideology changed over the years, when they all were stuck on Kamino training little kids to fight for Republic/Jedi Order that no Mandalorian was overly fond of.  

There is also the little passage in Bounty Hunter Code, in which Jango commented that the Death Watch manifesto does not sound like Tor Vizsla (that Fett considered just a thug), the original leader of the group. But is something that Priest or Reau could said.

Jango could not be aware of how deep they felt about the whole “great mandalorian empire”, but either, like 501’st said, he thought they were all talk or knew, but did not care.

What brings me to the second point. Jango changed a lot between Jaster Mereel’s death and agreeing to be DNA donor for Great Army of Republic. Especially after Galidraan. He agreed to work for Dooku, because the man promised to destroy Jedi Order. And as much as Jango hated Death Watch, ultimately he hated Jedi even more. So, he could be as well aware that Priest and Reau were at heart Death Watch sympathizers, but did not care. He needed the best soldiers to train an army to eliminate Jedi - the ultimately enemy of all Mandalorians - once and for good.

“Now do you see? Do you?“ Vau hissed the sibilant like escaping steam. Mird cowered on the floor, whining softly. “I’m sick to death of your sentimental twaddle about Jango betraying us by letting Kamino use his genes. He did it to stop the Jedi. He did it to create an army strong enough to bring them down. You drone on about the injustice of unelected elites, my little working-class hero-well, now they’re gone. Yes, it cost our boys’ lives, but the Jedi are gone, gone, gone. And they won’t be killing Mandalorians again, not for a long time. Maybe never.”

And here comes my, most likely, unpopular opinion: I don’t think Fett cared much for the ideology. He hated Vizsla and DW, because they killed his family and mentor. He lead True Mandalorians because he cared for Jaster Mereel and tried his best to carry on his legacy. But in the end, somehow, in some ironic way, Jango adapted Tor Vizsla’s ruthless determination to achieve his goal. If to destroy Jedi Order he needed to sacrifice milions of his own clones and deal with two Death Watch sympathizers, so be it.

#star wars #jango fett #dred priest #isabet reau #death watch #walon vau #mij gilamar #kal skirata #republic commando #my replies #sorry for the rant i don't have many occassion to talk about DW #thank you for ask! #in short i doubt jango cared about their ideology #he wanted job be done #and by job i mean destruction of jedi order