[HARD CONTACT] Chapter 2: Recondition

[mamuzzy]

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

I really love Darman in this chapter. I love his brain, I love how he thinks about the world, and in this chapter we get a lot of lore about the horrors of being a commando - being a clone - and Darman has no idea about it.

The beginning of the chapter where they receive the briefing from Arligan Zey starts with Darman and how he is relieved that his still alive. Or more like, he is still himself:

•───────•°•❀•°•───────•
It didn’t feel so bad to be revived after stasis. He was still a commando. They hadn’t reconditioned him. That meant—that meant he’d performed to expected standards at Geonosis. He’d done well. He felt positive.
•───────•°•❀•°•───────•

This is where the cruel reality of the clones hits us in the head for the first time. The reality, that these soldiers can be stripped out of their identity at any time if they don't perform well. That whenever they climb into these stasis tanks with the possible future that they may not get out of here as themselves. It's already quite inhumane to put the commandos in a stasis tank until the next usage, but the inhumanity and cruelty is not something they are aware of, nor something they question. It is completely normal for them. Darman sees it as a positive thing that he did well enough not to be killed off.