milliways_bar | (no subject)

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kylo ren

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Fives has taken apart his armor.

Oh, not his armor, but a selection he requested from bar that consistts of the same trooper helmet he wears, including the additional outside scope that hinges down over the eye slit, and the vambrace that contains the wrist comms he's used to. He's also picked up a holoprojector.

He's laid it all out on the table in his booth and he's taking the electronics out of the various parts, alternating between handheld tools as he works. What he's after is sonething that can combine the martial technology he is familiar with, with the ability to consume what he's beginning to think of as 'media,' in ways that better suit the person he watches that media with.

He's basically making a VR helmet.

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For some reason I thought about how Fives said that clones couldn’t retire. And they probably couldn’t leave the army and do something else if they wanted to. He had more freedom than a construct with a working governor module, sure, but it was hard not to get the impression that clone soldiers like him were made to be disposable, like constructs.

(We’d already talked about this, though, and it didn’t get anywhere and it made Fives really upset.)

“Most humans don’t see it that way. Even my humans from Preservation didn’t before they met me. They were surprised that I looked like a human under my armor.”

That's because they are. And somehow, being raised in a system he thinks is good and worth fighting for gives Fives a purpose, because he thinks he chooses it.

"That's the problem with face concealing armour," he agrees. "We run into that problem occasionally when we work with locals. They forget there's a person under the helmet."

He lifts a hand to scratch at his beard. "I guess that's also partly why we customise the armor. Remind people we're individuals."

“SecUnits aren’t allowed to customize our armor,” I said, although Fives probably suspected as much. “Sometimes I miss it, though. Not just because it gave me extra protection. I liked having the face plate, so humans couldn’t see my expression.”

Is that it, or does it just get uncomfortable when people trest it like a person?

"That is one to the advantages," Fives says instead. "Always nice to know the officers can't tell exactly what we think of them."

Although to be fair, Fives doesn't have a problem telling officers what they think.

“Yeah, it was a little like that. I rolled my eyes whenever my clients did stupid things. Which was...a lot.”

Also I spent a lot of time standing around watching media and not paying attention. With the faceplate, humans couldn’t tell.

"Why don't you have armour anymore?" Fives asks. "If you miss it, I mean. Can't hurt to have some, right?"

“Well, first because it got irreparably damaged when I saved my Preservation humans from GrayCris.”

I almost got irreparably damaged. And the company would have written me off, but Dr. Mensah and the others insisted on rescuing me.

“After that I...kind of panicked and ran away for a while. And to do that I had to pass as human. So no more armor.”

"Like when you showed up here?"

Pretending to be human, right.

"And you're still pretending? Outside?"

I nodded. “Not everywhere. I don’t have to pretend with ART’s crew or my humans on Preservation. But to anyone else back there I have to either pretend to be human, or somebody’s modified SecUnit.”

Fives gives a small scowl, but he understands the necessity even if he doesn't like it. Deception does not come easy to him, and trying to keep it up for any length of time sounds stressful.

"You should get a faceplate for in here," he says, and he's only partly joking. He has special clothes for the bar, after all. "You can't be weirder than anyone else."

“I wouldn’t be so sure.”

The bar for weird is significantly higher in Milliways than it is anywhere else. But I’m still pretty weird.

“Maybe I can dress in armor for this Halloween thing coming up. People are supposed to wear costumes. I can wear something with a face mask.”

"Costumes, huh?"

This is the first time Fives has heard about it, but it's an interesting idea, and tracks with general Bar weirdness.

"You could wear clone armor, if that wouldn't be too awkward," dressing up as your friend? Is that weird? "Or there are other people in my galaxy that have face covering masks - police, soldiers, the warriors of Mandalore. That's where our armor comes from."

“Being a soldier or police officer is too much like being a regular SecUnit. And I think your armor looks pretty good, but if I wore clone trooper armor, people might think I was you.”

Fives and I weren’t the same height and didn’t really have the same proportions. But to humans, other humans wearing matching armor tend to look similar.

“The armor of the warriors of Mandalore might have all the stuff I like about clone trooper armor, but it would be different enough that people wouldn’t get us confused. So it might be worth a look.”

"Lot of clone traditions come from Mandalore," Fives says, as if clones could be said to have traditions. "Customising the armour, some of our symbolism. The original template was a Mandalorian bounty hunter."

I guess that’s why Fives thought of it.

“Are they famous? The bounty hunter who’s your template, I mean.”

"Not really." Fives shakes his head. "His name was Jango Fett and as far as I can tell his biggest acheivement was taking the contract to donate and train us. He died at the battle of Geonosis at the start of the war."

He was fighting against he clones on that one, but that isn't common knowledge among his offspring.

“Is it weird to know who your DNA came from? I know mine is pieced together from a bunch of people who licensed theirs. But I don’t know who they are.”

"I don't think so?" Fives says, scratching his neck as he thinks.

"It's just a name, I don' think of it much. But it's the same DNA as in my brothers, so that's more important than where it comes from."

Constructs don’t have that, either. “Construct DNA is randomized, to a certain extent. SecUnits have standard physical dimensions but other than that we don’t look or sound the same.”

Which worked out for me. I would have had a much harder time passing for human if all SecUnits were identical like Fives and his brothers. Or I would have needed a lot more modification. Or both.

"You don't have the same connection that we do, do you?" It's a neutral question. It's weird to imagine, but no organics with traditional family structures have the connection that clones had with each other. Not even droids shared it. Even mass produced battle droids as far as he could tell.

"Built to work on your own? It probably doesn't matter where the DNA comes from, then."

Edited 2020-10-29 14:33 (UTC)

“We do work in groups, depending on the assignment. The standard for most companies is one SecUnit for every ten clients. But we’re not a family or crew unit the way you and your brothers are.”

SecUnits (who aren’t me) do form bonds between each other, as much as their governor modules will let them. But it’s not like what Fives and his brothers have. And as for me and 3...that was a weird new situation, and there was no protocol for it.

"I don't think anyone in any galaxy is like us," Fives says, and he can't help the fondness. "You see Bounty Hunters and Jedi forming friendships with each other, and obviously there're actual families, but..." he shrugs, it's not even comparable.

"That's why we make such a good army."

It doesn’t hurt that they’re trained to be soldiers from birth (or whatever the equivalent is for clones). But so are SecUnits (kind of) and we don’t have that bond of being a family and a culture and a crew all at the same time.

“Yeah, that would do it. You’re built for it. But we’re not.”

Fives nods, and then following a train of thought, he lets out a small half-laugh. "Heh, talking of what we're built for - you're not the only person who's been asking about the clone template recently."

“Who was it, and what exactly were they asking about?”

It might not have been Jin Guangyao. But it was probably Jin Guangyao.