Cuy'val Dar: And then they coped ... how?

Okay, so those people were cooped up for ten years in a city with horrible weather and no way out. They trained kids aged five to ten that looked to be ten to twenty who grew up right in front of their eyes. Each had a certain contingent he trained personally, they shot some of them in training, even.

Don't tell me that this did not leave them unchanged. Skirata about lost it and went on his private crusade to save 'his boys' and even Vau, though he does not like to admit it, felt some connection to his squads.

How does one cope with such a situation? What does one do?
Did they all go mad like hatters or did they just kick the bucket and drown their conscience with themselves? (Provided they had one...)

 

I think in that GAR article, it stated that they were offered large sums of money, but they had to break contact with their families and friends.

 

They all had their issues, and they all probably worked through things in their own way. Isabet saw the clone armies as a means to spread the glory of Mando training through the galaxy, Dred Priest organized fight clubs, and Walon tells Kal specifically that he came in late to the program (one of the last selected) and that because he was often locked up with the Nulls didn't see the divisions in the ranks of the Cuy'Val Dar. Gilamar is said to have hated Priest and seemed ready to kill him on sight, probably because of the fight clubs, and Isabet was also not popular with Skirta's crowd because of her Mando glory nonsense being seen as old war mongering and a desire for a return to an Empire that most of the Mandos seem content to leave behind. Either they were just hard-liners or they were ex-Death Watch who didn't get caught up in the purge.

Jango also smuggled stuff in (and out in the case of Spar) for them and seemed to be the one who kept them in line, and from what we're told they were offed a very fine wage being trainers and since there were female Mandos (and the 25 non-Mandos) there's little doubt that some romances happened. Although being trapped in an enclosed eco-system with your ex must be hell on earth if those went sour

It was a long tour of duty, but most of the Cul'Val Dar wanted to escape for one reason or another, and the Wook article has the line from Traviss:

"they either needed the fee very badly, or they were insanely loyal to Jango, or they wanted to disappear for reasons best known to themselves...and so on."

Which means it might not have been safe for some of them in the galaxy at large, which points to remaining factions of DW and TM's as well as possible legal troubles which ten years away could smooth over and feuds could die down and new life's bought at the end of the contract.

 

Had there been any women with them?

 

At least one was a woman.

 

Good question. We've definitely seen how deeply scarred Kal is, and that alone makes a pretty strong point about the effects of it. He was undoubtedly a bit messed up going in, but he seems to have gotten a lot worse. It couldn't have helped Vau, either.

It seems to me that in a lot of regards, the answer is that they didn't cope. They all survived, sort of, but they all probably broke somewhat mentally. We have a nearly-sociopathic and well-beyond-delusional killer who's essentially only concerned about the well-being of the people who worship him, a man who cares more about his trained killer animal than about humans, and so on. They all broke. Or were all already broken when they showed up, making them perfect for the job.

 

Yes. You've pretty much summed it up.

 

Isabet Reau and Rav Bralor were two, but I don't know if there were more lady Mando's named as yet than that. Both Isabet and Rav have been immortalized with action figures as well and Rav has a minor role in the Republic Commando series.

Now I don't know if I can agree that they got more messed up on Kamino. As Keralys mentions, Kal went in screwed up but I wonder if he didn't find some meaning in his life that wasn't there before, something that actually made him a better person, not a worse one.

Kal found a purpose to life with the Cuy'val Dar and his relationship with the Nulls and others probably made him a better person than he ws before.

With Walon its hard to say, he doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve the way that Kal does. Also he was aware of Jango's planned end game, wished he had been at Galidraan. His motivation could have been very different from Kal's. I wonder if Vau actually had revenge in mind the way Jango did. For someone like Vau the wait may have been easier knowing in advance what the endgame was.

The other like Rav, Isabet, Mij, Dred Priest, so on, we simply don't know a lot about although Mij had a fare role in Order 66. I really don't know if any of them came out any worse than they went in, though its certainly a possibility.

 

Praise Traviss for Sacrifice. At last. Someone bothered to show Mando women and aliens other than endless males.

My sneering contempt for those who didn't.

 

There's a comic book page up on Wook that shows aliens in Mando armour. I've no idea the source...and I'm mildly skeptical of the armour being Mando, but it certainly looks like it.

Also, Laseema in the RC novels is a Twi'lek who hooks up with a clone/Mando. Statistics just means that they're more human than alien since they could adopt aliens and aliens can come into the clans, but it's universally seen that while human/alien relations exist, the culture is still mostly human/human due to reproduction to the point that it was a plot point in Stakepole's X-Wing novels.

 

I believe the picture was from KotOR, which makes sense, given the heavy Mando recruitment waves during the Mandalorian War.

EDIT: checked it, and it is indeed from KotOR (from the Flashpoint arc); that seems to be the main era of heavy recruitment across various species.

 

Vau's motivation is pretty well stated as different. Kal seemed to be wandering after his wife left him and Walon vouched for him, and since his family disowned him he jumped in with the Cuy'val Dar.

Mij's wife and kid(s) were killed prior to his going in, and he was wanted by the same underworld types who had slotted his family, although it's not been said if he got his own back.

Dred and Isabet are possibly hardliners or Death Watch as both their bios seem to indicate they want to bring back the glory of the Mandos while Kal just wants his lads to have a life away from the army. We don't know anything about Wad'e Tay'haai, and I think that exhausts most of the trainers we've met.

Kal did find a purpose, but what he saw and did haunts him, because he blames himself for helping turn boys into murder machines. Vau is more complex...but essentially has some similar issues it seems.

 

I don't really care for the motivation they had to do it. You don't think much about how ten years cooped up on a planet will be with those wages. And if you had other trouble in the galaxy, all the better. And IIRC, none of them knew in advance how old the Commandos would be they were about to train.
That is one of the more damaging point, I think, that the commandos were so young.

Did the fact that they were already messed up before they arrived help them or make things worse?
Isabet might have had it easiest, taking the clones as a way to ressurrect Mando glory. As long as they saw the clones as means to an end, I think the problems would be minimal.

I just wonder how long you can do that, especially with commandos looking like children. How do you make sure not to personalise them, see them as people?
Kal failed spectacularly in that respect, and even Vau couldn't help it.