[TRIPLE ZERO] Chapter 1: Kaminoans and eugenics

[mamuzzy]

|| Republic Commando: Triple Zero || 2006 || Book series || Military, Sci-fi || 18+ for violence and harrowing themes ||

Kamino was damp. And damp didn't help his shattered ankle one little bit. No, it was more than damp: it was nothing but storm-whipped sea from pole to pole, and he wished that he'd worked that out before he responded to Jango Fetes offer of a lucrative long-term deployment in a location that his old comrade hadn't exactly specified.
----

 

Skirata knew from day one that he wouldn't like Kaminoans.

 

Their cold yellow eyes troubled him, and he didn't care for their arrogance, either. They stared at his limping gait and asked if he minded being defective.

 

This detail caught my eyes. Later we get to know that this injury was from a mistake he did in the past which he didn't get to fix "because he has to remember it". Anyway, Kal is a physically disabled man. We know he has hearing impairment too from Targets.
 

 

Now, for a Kaminoans approach to life and living is very much the mindset of eugenics, and such things as disability is an evolutionary failure that has to be erased. When you try to understand the Kaminoans and their cloning process, you have to understand that their own reproduction is also cloning-based. They keep the desired traits and terminate the undesired one. Kaminoans have a caste system and these different castes can be differentiated by their appearance. Any diversion from the established caste is met with termination. In their eyes, Kal is a defective human being. It's a cultural difference which Kal mistakes for arrogance. It even occured to me that maybe this was the Kaminoans own weird attempt at establishing connection and offer that they can fix his ankle without a hitch because for them, a natural born person choosing to be deliberately disabled especially with an injury that can be cured, is not something they can comprehend with their own mindset.

 

But cultural difference or not, calling a disabled person defective gives you clues about the overall society of the Kaminoans and what is their stance about "imperfections".

Wasn't sure if I should bring IRL things into this, but it's relevant to my own historical interests so why not. Some IRL examples of countries that participated in eugenics-based procedures
- The Oneida experimental Community, US, 1869-1879. It was an experiment where people with the most desired traits reproduced under controlled circumstances.
- Starting from 1926, the Soviet Union probihited marriage between mentally ill people and with heritable diseases. During the Stalin-regime, homosexuality was labeled as a mental illness. 
- The Third Reich's entire ideology was about them being the perfect human, the Übermensch. They forced-sterilized or euthanized disabled Germans or the ones they deemed "feebleminded"
-- Source: The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. 
 So yes, if you have REALLY BAD FEELING when reading about RepComm!Kaminoans, this is why.

Comments

[kradeelav]

whistles.... wow, i didn't even catch how much of the kaminoans would bother skirata on that level (and i've got a few disabilities too lol). gosh, that's dang good storytelling on traviss' part to emphasize those parts of skirata versus the kaminoans. makes the reader understand that he already has a justifiable bone to pick with them...

[mamuzzy]

Aliens being aliens in an obnoxious way and how they don't understand this is a horrible thing to ask from someone, because killing someone over disabilities/undesired traits is their way of life in their own culture. He is not there for 5 minutes but he already hates the place. I can totally understand his beef with them too.

[ithillia]

I really love your interpretation of the Kaminoan having to try and make a connection with Kal! Also BIG YES, kaminoans have a very complex societ and a very diffeent from our very own. Human societes are based on EMPATHY for each other *insert my fav maybe fake feel goood story about Margaret Mead and the beginnings of civilization and that broken but healed femur here* and Kaminoans, uh, not so much :D They are emotionlessly practical (probably long gene-selected the least emotionally attaching specimens amongst them for further cloning) so no wonder that they cannot see the world and species around them with compassion, only through the lense of ability/efficiency.
Hmm, this train of thought also makes me remember that Kina Ha said something among the lines that she is disappointed with what kind of beings her species have developed? If I remember correctly...