[Brainjuice] Zee's version of the Coruscant Guard

One of my problem with the Fandom's approach to the Coruscant Guard and its conversations about them, that one half of the fandom thinks they are just some tormented customer service guys, and the other half is thinking that they are the space equivalent of the USAmerican police.

Lately I'm thinking about a lot how to put the Coruscant Guard into the Republic Commando universe, because neither of the forementioned options fits into the vibe. I consider a third option: They are the loyal secret police of Sheev Palpatine. 

I once made a tumblr post about this topic, it wan't really popular. But I liked it so I want to preserve it because this is the basis of every Coruscant Guard headcanon i make lately.

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In the old canon, while the Coruscant Guard was a subdivision under the GAR, and stationed Coruscant, they worked separately from the Special Operations Brigade. Coruscant Guard is a part of the Homeworld Security and actively aided the Coruscant Security Force (CSF) which is THE CORUSCANT POLICE.

When the CSF requested aid, the Coruscant Guard acted for them as a RAPID FORCE: The Guard came and get the shit done (hence why they are called shocktroopers). The Coruscant Guard could also use the resources from the CSF if they needed to complete their mission.

WHY CLONE TROOPERS WORKING WITH THE POLICE IS A PROBLEM?

 

• Because the line between being a military force and police or military police starting to get blurried. It is not explicitly stated that the Coruscant Guard was a military police. But also it is not stated they weren't. It's a murky territory.
• Sheev Palpatine is a Supreme Chancellor who - due to Emergency Powers he keeps the whole Republic under during the war - has unlimited commanding over laws and how to ulitize clone toopers.
• Sheev Palpatine can't use the CSF as his personal army. But he has THE MILITARY. He can do with clone troopers whatever he wants. He just has to give them policeforce tasks!

Some danger happening WITHIN the border and Palpatine is being justified to make more laws and laws to solidify his own authoritan rule DEMOCATRICALLY. He creates fear, he creates enemies so he can offer the solution to those enemies as well. 

- He can rewrite the laws. 

- He can enforce the laws. 

- The Coruscant Guard can arrest anyone the Supreme Chancellor claims they are enemy/CIS Agent/Terrorists, etc. and put into jail. And who and what is a terrorist and CIS agent? Whatever the Chancellor wants it to be. This is how you make your enemies disappear WITHIN the borders. 

Coruscant Guard known duties: 

 

-- Guarding the governmental buildings and other important infrastructural places 

-- They are patrolling the streets

-- They guard and maintain the detention center. They are the prison guards too.

-- They can chase down criminals and arrest people and put them into the said prison ---> just for comparison, unless there is martial law, soldiers are not responsible for enforcing civilian laws
-- Diplomatic service, they are bodyguards to senators/Jedi ---> when they escort senators or Jedi master into diplomatic missions either within planet or off-planet. -> This is now peacekeeping, which is military duty. 

This gives PLENTY of opportunity for corruption, and please, please, please, always, ALWAYS assume that while Palpatine was in power, he placed his own lackey in EVERY. POSSIBLE. PLACE. that can serve him. The senate. The natborn police. The military. Education. The media. ESPECIALLY JOURNALISM. 

Also there is an also little to known fact from the old encyclopedias that while the Coruscant Guard were Fett Clones, and were bred on Kamino, THEY WEREN'T RAISED ON KAMINO. Along with the 501st, they were transferred to Coruscant for training (please don't ask me about the logistical issues about this). -> this I can see as the complete ensurement of full, complete loyalty to Darth Sidius (in the Guard case) and Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (501st case). AND NO INHIBITOR CHIPS!!!!!!!

[Brainjuice] The Coruscant Guard is here to protect you

I want the Coruscant Guard bring terror to the people's heart who once fled from their own wartorn planets and come here to Coruscant in hope of better life. I want the Coruscant Guard tear off bandages of barely healed generational traumas. I want the locals being so ignorant about, because they never visited other planets, they never saw war with their own eyes, who never opened history books. They don't recognize the signs. They only see the results: less crimes on the streets. Visible actions against criminals. Against "terrorism". Against "enemies". They are so much better than the good-for-npigs at he CSF, we don't need them. 

"We are here to protect you. We are here to protect you from our enemies." is the most creepiest things people can parrot over and over and over and over and over again. (i'm alright why do you ask) 

Fascism doesn't ram into your house, it politely knocks on your door and you gladly invite it for a tea. 

This can't be happening in the very heart of the Republic, right? 

(i need a coruscant guard pfp.)

[HARD CONTACT] Chapter 7: Psychological warfare

|| Republic Commando: Hard Contact || 2004 || Book series || Military, Sci-Fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||


Niner: Let's make a landmark for Darman so he can find us.

<Omega Squad builds the most ominous cultist-shit contraption out of droids that makes every person shit themselves >

Ghez Hokan: THEY ARE PLAYING PSYCHOLOGICAL GAMES WITH ME AND I CAN'T HAVE THIS!!! THIS CALLS FOR BLOOD!!!!

omg they pissed off Hokan so much, i love this :D 

He hated not knowing who was out there, preparing to fight him. If he hadn’t known the man was dead, he would have sworn it was Jango Fett himself.

Hokan, Hokan, Hokan, you don't know how close you are to the truth. Almost. 

And with this I arrived to the chapter end. 

[HARD CONTACT] Chapter 8: Kal's theory classes

|| Republic Commando: Hard Contact || 2004 || Book series || Military, Sci-Fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

You know what makes you especially effective? It’s not just that you’re genetically superior and intensively trained. And it’s not just because you obey orders without question. It’s because you’re all prepared to shoot to kill, every time. Only one percent of civilians are prepared to kill, and less than a quarter of ordinary human soldiers, even under fire.

—Sergeant Kal Skirata, from his opening lecture to commandos on military psychology

I wanted to continue Triple Zero but then I saw that chapter 8 started with a Kal quote and I wanted to share. :D 

But also not me fanboying over the thought Kal's classes must be so fucking cool to sit in and just listen this guy to talk. 

[HARD CONTACT] Chapter 8: Spreading the Hokan x Uthan agenda here

|| Republic Commando: Hard Contact || 2004 || Book series || Military, Sci-Fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

“I can remove the biomaterials and my staff,” she said at last. “The equipment can be replaced if needed. I won’t be able to continue working without a safe laboratory environment, of course, but if you believe the project is at risk, then idle time is a better option than wasting three months’ work.”

What a splendidly sensible woman she was, almost Mandalorian in her discipline and dedication.

Hokan, just fucking ask her to marry you.

[HARD CONTACT] Chapter 8: Expectations

|| Republic Commando: Hard Contact || 2004 || Book series || Military, Sci-Fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

 

“You astound me.” He couldn’t tell if that was good or bad. “Two things, though. Please don’t call me Padawan or Commander—I don’t want to be recognized as a Jedi. And I’d rather be called Etain than ma’am.” She paused, no doubt thinking of some other failure on his part. “And please take your helmet off. It’s rather disturbing.”

So far Darman had met three Jedi and they all seemed to find him distracting in some way, with or without his helmet. All his life he had been taught that he and his brothers were created for the Jedi, to help them fight their enemies; he’d expected some recognition of that bond, or at least an expression of satisfaction.

no doubt thinking of some other failure on his part.
he’d expected some recognition of that bond, or at least an expression of satisfaction.

Here again a scene where Darman had great expectations and he ends up with dissatisfaction by the fact that the other party is dissatisfied by him. The world is not what he imagined. People are not what he imagined. I'm still not letting go my Darman is having BPD agenda either.

But also there is this paragrapgh about how Darman is perceiving Etain and I think it's fascinating.

Her face was a study in blank surprise. It was also fascinating in a way he couldn’t define. He had never seen a human female this close, this real.

This is the first time Darman is this close to a woman.

He was astonished by the dappling of small brown dots across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks, and the different strands of colors in her long, unkempt hair—light browns, golds, even reds.

We already know how Darman is really perceptive about things, but now we see how he perceives the details of Etain. Imagine how he lacked of stimuli with the faces he shared with millions of brothers and then he is so close with someone who is so... DIFFERENT in many many aspect.

And she was as thin as the locals. He could see blue veins in the backs of her hands, and she smelled different from anyone he’d ever shared space with. He wasn’t sure if she was pretty or downright ugly.

*snort* I don't think Darman has any concept of beauty either.

It reminds me of a horror manga called Litchi Hikari Club where kids built a robot and fed it its algorythm with different things that considered OBJECTIVELY BEAUTIFUL by society, so when the robot steals a girl for them, they can trust, she is truly beautiful. But it turned out one kid messed with the programming and he gave parameters of his own taste, because beauty cannot be measured objectively not even by algorythm.

Darman feels like this robot. He absolutely has no idea what is the society's standards of beauty so he can't decide if Etain is pretty or not. He has to gain experience of the world to decide it.

He just knew she was utterly alien and utterly fascinating, as alien as a gdan or a Gurlanin. It was almost stopping him from concentrating on the job.

But I think even if Darman doesn't know the answer himself, we know. I think Darman finds Etain pretty, he just doesn't know it.

-------------------------------------
ADDENDUM 

He tried not to watch while Etain wrung water from her robe and shook out her boots. She made him feel uncomfortable but he didn’t know why, apart from the fact that she wasn’t quite the Jedi commander he had been so thoroughly trained to expect.

Again, the expectations.

The only females he could recall were Kaminoan medical technicians whose quietly impersonal tones intimidated him more than a yelling drill sergeant. And his platoon had once experienced an unpleasantly memorable lecture in encryption techniques from a female Sullustan.

I'm starting to see that in Kamino, the female grey eyed caste of technicians spend the most of time with the clones. Clones had contact with women. Niner and Darman both terrified of the Kaminoans, but Darman connects it with gender. Kaminoans maybe polite, calm mannered, but their presence were more terrifying. 

But also this makes you wonder that just because you spend more time with people different than you, it doesn't make you automatically a progressive or openminded person. Darman (and clones in general) didn't have contact with other humans who are their equals, meaning not their training sergeants, their ruler of life and death. 

 

He feared females. Now he feared his Jedi officer and was also agitated by her in a way that he didn’t even have a word for. It didn’t feel acceptable.

----------
ANOTHER ADDENDUM

“You’ve seen me fight.”

“You’re a Jedi. A commander.”

“That’s a title, not an assessment of my ability. I’m not exactly the best of the best.”

“You must be. I know what Jedi can do. Nobody can defeat you as long as you have the Force.”

Darman is so trusting that Etain is a GOD COMMANDER like his studies painted the Jedi to be. 

[HARD CONTACT] Chapter 8: Food

|| Republic Commando: Hard Contact || 2004 || Book series || Military, Sci-Fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

Darman bit into a lump that yielded slightly in his fingers. It was glorious. It was strongly flavored and chewy and among the most satisfying meals he had ever eaten: not quite on the scale of uj cake, but so far from the odorless, tasteless, textureless field rations that it might well have been.

Etain watched him carefully. “You must be starving.”

“It’s wonderful.”

Darman is trying out REAL food first time, I CAN'T-

And then he shares his on "food" with Etain.

She sniffed it and bit into it. The expression of vague disbelief on her face changed slowly into one of revulsion. “It’s appalling. There’s nothing in it.”

“It’s the perfect nutritional profile for our requirements. It has no smell, so the enemy can’t detect it, and no fiber, so we excrete minimal waste products that would enable us to be tracked, and—”

“I get the idea. Is that how they treat you? Like farm animals?”

“We don’t go hungry.”

 

DAMMMMNNnn i Don't want to imagine commando boys trying out properly made main dishes first time with ACTUAL FIBER in it and they are having to run for the toilet fast with their hyperfast metabolism. Poor boys.