#look. she and zeb had the least episodes centered around them of any of the ghost crew

[kanerallels]

Thinking about a Hera Syndulla tv show again lads

[prepare4trouble]

Since I just watched a Red Dwarf episode with approximately this premise: the Ghost crew were in a potentially toxic area, and Chopper enjoys putting in quarantine procedures when they get back!

Um… What even is this story?

I might have gone a little overboard.

The problem is, I know that episode (and all Red Dwarf episodes) like really, really well.  As in I can almost quote it word for word.  And that is one of my favorites.  Honestly, I don’t think you wanted an entire retelling of Quarantine, but that’s kinda what you got.  I really did try not to take too much from the episode though (note the lack of Mr Flibble and Rimmer’s gingham dress – if the Ghost had a video link in the cargo bay, they might well have made an appearance though!  No luck virus here either, but who needs luck when you have the Force?

Also, to Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, you have my apologies!

Ezra wasn’t claustrophobic, not by a long shot.  The Ghost wasn’t exactly spacious, and his windowless quarters even less-so.  In the past, he had regularly relied on his ability to crawl through small spaces to escape or to hide, it had saved his life on occasion.  This, however, was very different.  They had entered the Ghost through the cargo bay doors, and found that they couldn’t get out into the rest of the ship.

There was something about being in a place that he couldn’t get out of that bothered him.

It wasn’t a completely unfounded discomfort, considering what had happened to his parents.  Or considering the lingering threat of an Imperial jail that had hung over his own head for so much of his life, and still did, if he should be unlucky enough to be captured.

He walked across the center of the cargo bay until he reached the wall, stopped, turned, and walked back again, trying to ignore the feeling of rising panic building inside him. “This is ridiculous!” he complained.  “We’ve been trapped in here forever.  There’s nothing wrong with us.  If we were going to get sick, surely we’d have done it by now!”

Kanan shook his head, a curious expression on his face.  “It’s only been half an hour,” he said.

Ezra forced out an exasperated sound and flopped down on the single bunk that Chopper had thought to provide in the cargo bay.  His knees and elbows hit an unexpectedly hard surface.

Well, that was just great.

“He does have a point though,” Zeb said.  “I mean, not the half hour thing, that’s ridiculous, but how long is Chopper going to keep us prisoner in here?”

“And,” Sabine added, “if one of us does have it, surely locking us all up in here is a great way to make sure we all get sick.

Hera frowned.  “Chopper said the incubation period is up to four days.  If we’re still healthy then, we’re okay to leave.”

“Great!”  Ezra sighed loudly.  Four days?  There was no way he was going to be able to do this.  “I’m fine,” he said.  “I don’t get sick.  Not often, anyway.  And if I was, surely I’d be able to feel it.  Nobody we spoke to on the planet was sick, nobody had even mentioned an illness going around.  Chopper’s probably just messing with us.”

Sabine glanced around, looking worried all of a sudden.  “You don’t think he might be right, do you?” she asked Hera.  “You know what Chopper’s like, if there’s any chance he’s just playing some kind of a joke on us…”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Hera promised.

“Yeah,” Zeb agreed.  “He knows what I’d do to him if he tried it!”

Kanan shrugged.  “Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn’t.  Either way, it’s going to be fine.”

“Hey,”

Ezra looked up from the space between his feet to see Kanan standing in front of him.

“You okay?” he asked.

Ezra nodded.  “Sure,” he said.  “Why wouldn’t I be?  After all, who doesn’t want to be locked in the cargo bay with four other people for a week, with a porta-fresher and only one bed?”

The corners of Kanan’s lips twitched in something that looked like amusement.  “We’ll talk to him about the sleeping situation the next time he checks in.”  He sat himself down on the bed next to Ezra, then frowned.  “Wait a minute,”  His hands explored the surface of the bunk.

“Yeah,” Ezra confirmed.  “He ‘forgot’ to put any padding on it too.”

Kanan sighed.  “We’ll talk to him about that too,” he said.  “It’s going to be fine.”

“Chopper?” Sabine said, arms folded and glaring at nothing, as they didn’t have any kind of a view screen installed in the cargo bay and were relying on audio only to communicate with the outside world.  “Here’s a thought.  Why do we have to stay in the cargo bay when the only other person on the ship is you?  You’re not organic; even if we did have this virus you wouldn’t be able to catch it.”

Chopper explained about the contamination of surfaces aboard the ship.  It didn’t sound very convincing.

“Chopper, if you’re lying to us, you’re going to be in real trouble,” she said, her eyes narrowing in frustration.

An indignant sound came over the comms, and Chopper cut out the signal.

“Great!” Sabine said, her voice tight with anger.

“Calm down,” Hera told her.  “We’ve just got to get through the next few days, then we can get out of here.  Why don’t you draw something, I’m sure I saw a sketchbook and crayons in the box of stuff he gave us.”

Zeb let out a derisive snort from the other side of the room, one that began to make a lot more sense when Sabine opened the box.  A brand new, crisp sketch pad, and a box of crayons, every single one broken down so far that they were useless, and no way to sharpen them.

“Damnit!” she shouted, and threw the box across the room in frustration.  “He did that on purpose!”

Hera, watching from the corner, glanced at the surveillance cameras through which she was sure Chopper would be watching them.  “I think you might be right,” she said.

“What else is there in there?” Kanan asked.

Sabine reached into the box.  “Oh, hours of entertainment,” she said in a voice dripping with sarcasm.  “A children’s board game with the pieces missing, a datapad that’s either broken or run out of power, I can’t tell which, and a holovid.”

“Well, at least that last thing isn’t so bad,” Kanan said.  “Not as much fun for me, but maybe you guys could narrate…”

“We don’t have a player,” Hera interrupted.

Kanan sighed.  “Right.”

“Think he’s gonna feed us?” Zeb asked.

Ezra shook his head.  “I wouldn’t count on it.  It’s Chopper.  Not like eating is a big priority for him, he’s probably forgotten that we even need food.”

“Well, he has one minute to remember, or I’m going out there and…”

“Going out there?” Sabine said.  “How are you planning on doing that?  Hera’s already tried every single code she could think of on the number lock he set on the door.  Do you see any tools around here to break out?  Do you see any lightsabers to cut through the door?  No.  Because the people of the planet insisted we go unarmed.  If we could just ‘go out there’ there wouldn’t even be a problem, would there?!”

“I’ll get out there somehow,” Zeb growled.  “Just you watch!”

“Guys,” Ezra said, placing his hands behind his head in an expression of nonchalance that he did not feel.  “Relax, okay?  It’s been five hours, I’ve gone without food for way longer than that, we’re not going to starve yet.  He’s given us water, we could easily survive four days with just that.  I’ve done it before.”

“Yeah, well we can’t all be as resilient as you, can we?” Sabine said with a scowl.  “Some of us need food!  And art supplies.  And somewhere to sleep at night!”

Zeb folded his arms.  “Don’t worry Sabine,” he said.  “We won’t really starve.  If it comes down to it, we can eat the kid.”

Hera folded her arms.  “Stop it!” she said.  “I’ll speak to Chopper.  In the meantime, sit down and be quiet, we’ve done nearly a day already, we’re getting there.”

Food, when it came, was five ration bars passed through a tiny airlock capsule that Ezra hadn’t even known about.  Hera took the box and distributed the food to everybody to prevent arguments.  “Sprout flavor,” she said, as she handed them out.

“All of them?”  Ezra hesitated before taking the bar.  He looked up, at the surveillance camera.  “Chopper, you know I can’t stand these, they literally make me throw up!”

Chopper’s voice came through the intercom.  No other flavor on board.

“Chopper, I know that’s not true!” Ezra insisted.

Incorrect.  All other flavors have been jettisoned due to possible contamination.

“Jettisoned?  Chopper, that makes no sense at all,” Hera insisted.  “Find something else for Ezra to eat.”

“Why bother?” asked Zeb.  “He said himself, he doesn’t need to eat.  Keep these coming.  They might be disgusting, but if he’s not eating there’s more food for us.”

Ezra rounded on him, only barely resisting the urge to give in to the dark side of the Force.  “Fine, if you like that idea so much, why don’t we take your waffle stash when we get out of here?  Share it out among everyone else.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t have a waffle stash,” Zeb said.  He tore open his ration bar and finished it in two gulps.  “This isn’t half bad actually, by the way.  A bit to eat really hits the spot.”

Ezra balled his hand into a fist and pulled it back ready to plant it in Zeb’s face.  Seeing this, Zeb’s expression spread into an amused grin as he prepared to retaliate.

“Stop it!”

Kanan’s voice from the other side of the room cut through the argument.  “That’s enough.  Ezra, sit on the bunk.  Zeb, over at the other side of the room, now!  It’s going to be fine, we just need to…”

All four other occupants of the room turned on him with one voice.  “Stop saying it’s going to be fine!”

Kanan backed off a step, and was just about to answer when Chopper switched on the intercom again.

Irritability is symptomatic of the virus.  Please stand by for room decontamination.

“Wait, what?” said Kanan.  “Irritability is symptomatic of being trapped in a room with four other people for a day with nothing to do and nothing to eat!”

Correct, however it is also symptomatic of the virus.  Further symptoms include irrationality and mental instability, followed by eventual system shutdown.  Preemptive system shutdown and reboot required for any chance of cure.  Stand by for decontamination.

“Reboot?  Full shutdown?” Ezra gulped as everything began to click into place.  He hadn’t seen anyone that was sick on the planet.  He also hadn’t seen any droids.  “Chopper, what kind of a virus was it you said they had on that planet?”

Irrelevant.  Stand by for decontamination.

Ezra stared wildly around the room.  “It’s a computer virus,” he said.  “And Chopper’s already got it.”

“Never mind that!” Kanan said.  “What does he mean by system shutdown?”

“Nothing good,” said Hera.  She was already by the panel at the door, the cover removed and her hands in among the wiring.  “I don’t think I can do anything without tools,” she said.

Ezra took a deep breath.  Was it his imagination; the panic returning, or was the air getting a little thin?  How exactly was Chopper planning on executing the ‘systems shutdown’? “Guys?  I think…”

“Don’t talk, save your breath.”

Okay, so they figured that one out already.

Hera’s fingers continued to work at the wires, but with no way of cutting them, even if it were possible it would take too long.  “I’ve already tried every numeric code that might mean something to Chopper.  I can’t access the wiring properly without my tools.  I don’t suppose the Force would help with this?”

Ezra stepped forward.  “I guess I could try to guess the number…”

“No, Ezra.”  Ezra turned to see Kanan behind him.  “I don’t think that’s what she means.”

Ezra turned back to Hera, eyes wide, questioning.  She nodded.  “Do it.  Use the bunk, maybe, that looks heavy enough.”

Standing side by side, Kanan and Ezra concentrated on the single bunk that Chopper had provided them, lifting it and driving it with as much force as they could into the door, again and again until the metal started to buckle and a gap appeared.  Air, recycled and stale, but full of precious oxygen, began to enter the room, and Ezra took a deep, thankful breath.

“Keep going,” Zeb called.  They pulled the bunk back again, and once again thrust it forward into the door.  The metal buckled further.

“I think I could get through there,” Sabine said.  “I’ll go find Chopper, make sure he doesn’t try anything else while you guys get everyone else out.”  Without waiting for a response, she headed for the door, dropped to her knees and began to squeeze through the small gap.

“Go easy on him,” Hera called as she disappeared.  “It’s not actually his fault, and he has told us the way to cure it.”  She stared at the damage to the door.  “I can’t believe he made us do this to my ship!”

At the other side of the door, Sabine turned and peered through incredulously.  “I’ll try not to hurt him too much,” she said.  “Well, at least until he’s back to his slightly less murderous self and we see what he has to say for himself.”  With that, she disappeared.

“Whatever she does to him, he deserves it,” Zeb said

Ezra thought about that  Actually, he wasn’t so sure.  If Chopper had been sick without realizing, and his sickness had made him paranoid enough to believe that a group of organics could be carrying a computer virus, then Hera was right, it wasn’t exactly his fault.  

Still, there was no way that Chopper wasn’t going to pay for this.

[ncfan-1]

On Saw Gerrera (And the Mishandling Thereof)

Okay, a few things about ‘Shadows of Geonosis’ really bugged me (no pun intended), and, surprise, surprise, they all centered around the show’s treatment of Saw Gerrera.

For those of you who liked the episode, be warned, this is really salty.

First of all, I really have to object to the framing of Klik Klak as being an unambiguously good person once we find out about the egg. Yeah, I appreciate that they tried to warn the Ghost crew + Saw about the Death Star, and I get the sense that their involvement in building the Death Star was less “willing accomplice” and more “probable slave labor” (and even if they had been willingly involved, the whole “genocide of the Geonosian race” thing would still make me feel sorry for them, because nobody deserves that), but are we just supposed to forget that Klik Klak killed a bunch of people less than a week ago? Are we supposed to forget that they slaughtered every member of Saw’s team? Because the Ghost crew sure does. Once we find out about the egg, the story completely drops the ‘mass murderer’ aspect of Klik Klak’s character. Everybody seems to forget about it… except for Saw.

Seriously, nobody in the Ghost crew seems to understand why Saw doesn’t like this guy. They have to come up with “Oh, Geonosians built the Separatist droids/non-sapient weapons that invaded Onderon and killed his sister, and that’s why Saw hates Klik Klak.” Like, guys. Come on. You don’t have to look twenty plus years into the past to find a reason why Saw might be a bit peeved with this guy. You probably don’t even have to look a week into the past.

And yes, I know, electric shock and threatening the egg are not good things, but it just kills me that the story frames things so the literal mass murderer (who, I will remind you, was not killing these people in self-defense, and additionally tried to kill the Ghost crew too) is afforded more sympathy and understanding than the sole survivor of their murder spree. Klik Klak is a murderer, Saw is their would-be victim, but Klik Klak was Protecting Their Egg, Which Justifies Everything. Up to and including mass murder, apparently.

(Also, taking Klik Klak back to Chopper Base to try to get more information out of him and maybe get in touch with someone who understands Geonosian would have been a much better idea than what you actually did, guys. Like, “you could have known about the Death Star years in advance” better. You wouldn’t have had to hold them on Chopper Base forever; you could have easily just taken them back to Geonosis once you were satisfied that you’d gotten everything you could out of them. But no: the Ghost crew must demonstrate that they are Better Than Saw for Plot Reasons, even if that involves them making a massive tactical error.)

--

Two: The story very, very much wants us to know that Saw Is Not a Good Person And Is Teetering On The Edge of Evil, and can and will bash that into our little heads. A particularly glaring moment of that for me was when Saw and Hera first met face to face. Saw gives her a greeting that is respectful, even admiring (methinks he sees a bit of Steela in her), and Hera… responds with snark and a sneer. Which is not particularly subtle on the author’s parts, partly because that just doesn’t work coming from Hera. You know, Hera? Hera, the consummate professional when among her rebel colleagues? I could see her greeting Lando or Azmorigan that way, but somebody who is on the same side as her, working for the same goals? No. If she had misgivings, she might be a bit distant, but she wouldn’t openly sneer at them. This is the writers talking to us, and choosing the wrong character to do the talking.

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Three:

If they really wanted to have a discussion about the morally ambiguous way Saw wages war, there was already a potential topic for that hinted to in Rebels, and incidentally, capitalizing on that would have given Zeb a bit more to do this episode. You remember back in ‘The Honorable Ones,’ when Kallus told Zeb about how Saw (or, at least, mercenaries working for Saw, but even if it was just them, their actions still reflect on their employer) on at least one occasion ordered wounded Imperials gunned down after battle? They could have brought this back up.

Zeb’s (and the rest of the Ghost crew’s) position would be: “You shouldn’t shoot wounded soldiers because that’s cruel and inhumane.” Which, valid point, it is. It’s a war crime by our standards, and even if it isn’t in the Star Wars universe, it’s still wrong.

Saw’s position, meanwhile, is: “Okay. Let’s say I don’t shoot wounded Imperials. Their buddies will come get them, patch them up, and then they’ll be back. They’ll be back with bigger ships, more powerful guns, and guess what? They have absolutely no compunction about shooting us when we’re injured.”

Like, this is a real moral dilemma. You’re in an ugly situation—fighting a totalitarian regime which will stoop to any lows necessary to secure victory, who don’t bother with “pesky” things like ethics or morals or the laws of war—and both solutions are bad in different ways. Either you maintain the moral high ground, keep your hands and your conscience clean, and you almost certainly die there, or you get down in the mud with your enemies, do whatever you have to to win, but when you next look in the mirror, are you going to see yourself staring back at you, or will you see nothing but the shadow of the foe you fought? Third options often arrive in narratives like this, but third options are usually reserved for people with more resources than Saw seems to have here. Third options are for people who aren’t struggling just to survive, let alone win. Quite frankly, third options are for main characters.

We could have had this in the episode. It would have built on things alluded to earlier. Instead of Ezra’s “Then you’re no better than the Empire” (which is hilarious—and hilariously hypocritical—coming from somebody who has regularly been shown to struggle with the Dark Side; and actually, this is a line that would have worked better coming from Hera, so…), we could have had Ezra sympathizing, empathizing, with Saw, because he’s so often felt the same way as Saw regarding the Sith. That could have been the way Ezra got through to Saw, and could have also served as a sort-of revelation for Ezra, too, as he came to realize the importance of the thing that he eventually tells Saw: that it’s important to fight your enemy without also becoming them. That they must fight the tyranny of the Empire without becoming tyrants themselves, because what are you fighting for, who have you saved, if you topple your enemy, only to become what your enemy was?

But that wasn’t in the episode, and this wasted opportunity along with the things I illustrated above managed to ruin for me what was otherwise a solid outing.