Do you think Omega ever reminds Rex of himself? Two little blond tagalongs to a squad of older troopers? The age gap wasn’t so drastic between him and his brothers, but it sometimes felt that way, in the shadow of some of the best the command class had to offer. He’d learned quick though, as had she. He hopes she gets the life that all their brothers were never allowed to have. The life he never got.
I think he’d sometimes see his brothers in hers as well, though he’d try not to. Hunter and Cody, the steadfast leaders. Cody had found Rex, insisted he’d stay, protected him. He’d do anything for him and made sure Rex knew it too. Perhaps he sees a bit of Wolffe in Wrecker. Tough as nails, both of them look frightening, but are a lot softer than they seem once you get to know them. Not to mention the eye. Maybe he sees some Bly in Echo. Often the peacemaker, he also knew when to step back and let his brothers duke it out. His sense of duty was unmatched. In Tech, he’d see Ponds. People always assumed Ponds was the rational one for some odd reason. Sure, he had a good head on his shoulders, but more often than not he’d be leading the pack in whatever dumbassery they were attempting. He’d usually be the one bailing them out of it too. In Crosshair I think he’d see Fox. Blunt, sometimes harsh, and slow to trust, but clever and deeply loyal too—though that loyalty would be what Palpatine and the Empire would use to twist them into something almost unrecognizable.
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Does Sevika Have What it Takes to Run Zaun?
The power vacuum in Zaun is sure to be a major source of conflict next season. There will be plenty of figures, both known and unknown, that will try to gain control of what's left of Silco's Shimmer empire and thus the center of Zaun's black market. Of all the candidates that could possibly replace Silco, one of the strongest contenders is Silco's right hand, Sevika. Sevika has many of the qualities that make her an excellent candidate to take Silco's place. Sevika is one of few key players that is trusted by the members of Silco's organization, brutally competent at her job, and genuinely believes in Zaun's independence. The real question is, can Sevika handle Silco's mantle?
Sevika has a lot going for her, but just as much against her, and one of her main problems is that she uses Jinx as a crutch for her shortcomings. When the Firelights destroyed the shipment of Shimmer that was supposed to go out on Progress Day, she laid the blame for the operation's failure squarely on Jinx. It's true that Jinx did injure at least one member of her team in friendly fire and failed to protect the cargo, but everyone else failed too, including Sevika. Not only were all of the crew easily ambushed, none of them had any countermeasures for a known enemy. One guy grabbed a harpoon gun and missed miserably with each shot. Jinx herself wouldn't have gotten involved if Sevika and the crew were better able to work proactively, maybe by investing in a net gun.
Worse still, Sevika claimed she could have handled the situation without Jinx, which is practically a lie. Without Jinx, the Shimmer would have been destroyed much faster, there would have been no one to delay the Firelights or take down 5 of the 8 that were present. But Sevika would rather use the situation to cast more focus on Jinx to undermine her position rather than manage the critical failure in defense that the rest of the team demonstrated under pressure. Silco even pointed this out, the audience was just more inclined to see his opinion as biased.
You can't let Jinx be the excuse for why everything goes wrong, all it does is make everyone zero-in on just Jinx's mistakes rather than take a few steps back to examine why things went wrong. If that actually happened, then someone might actually ask, "How did the did the Firelights know there'd be an important shipment going out on Progress Day?". Or "How did they know which ship they'd be using if they obscure any identifying information on the ship manifests?". And more importantly, "Is there a mole?". Instead, you get a team that drinks and parties after a real shitshow because their direct boss confirms that all their problems are just one person.
This all bleeds into another main issue of hers. Every time Sevika's in a confrontation, she thinks like an individual rather than a leader. The first time she fights Vi, she let's two of her underlings runaway rather than help her. When Vi comes back for round 2 with the same special hextech that caused so much mayhem at the Shimmer Refinery, Sevika tells the entire crew there to leave so they can go 1-v-1. Everytime something comes up, Sevika chooses not to delegate work or strategize with others around an obstacle, she'd rather take on the responsibility for problems like this by herself.
You could argue that Sevika was the only one capable of fending off Vi, especially with Sevika's new prosthetic's enhancements. But Sevika left no room for support in the background to at least distract Vi or give Sevika cover. If we go way back to the Cannery, Silco has to hold back Sevika from fighting Vi because he thought it was a better idea to use Deckard than do the same thing over again. And he was right! It was better to throw a Shimmer'ed up Deckard at Vi, and reserve Sevika when everyone else lost to Vi. If he hadn't Sevika wouldn't have saved him from the explosion.
If all this wasn't enough, the way Sevika is portrayed in terms of power, doesn't bode well for her potential as a leader. Plenty have pointed out that smoking is a symbol of power in Zaun, those with even a modicum of power smoke. What isn't always pointed out is how anyone who's interrupted smoking, inevitably loses power.
The first time it happened was with Vander, Marcus snatched his pipe and extinguished Vander's flame in his drink. The next episode Marcus' deal with Silco sealed the end of Vander's regime. A man on a smoke break at Silco's refinery (probably a manager) is immediately held at gunpoint by an enforcer part of the raid, where everyone caught was likely arrested and lost their jobs. Silco never actually lost his cigar, and so when he was killed, it wasn't politically motivated, it was an accident.
Curiously, Sevika and the Enforcers from the Progress Day attack actually smoke the same kind of cigarillos. These enforcers happen to be the only Piltovans we see smoke in the series, maybe because they're lower class or former Zaunites themselves. Unlike all the the other times, no one had to directly force them to stop smoking, Jinx made them drop it by simply terrifying them. And Jinx would go on to kill at least a score of enforcers including the Sheriff. Jinx likely threw the chain of command in disarray, doubly so if she killed at least 5 councilmen who the Sheriff would report to.
It makes for an interesting parallel when Vi first attacks Sevika and knocks out her symbol of power. In that scene Sevika managed to win her card game with Trump cards that heavily resembles Jinx and Viktor, but even when she wins, she still loses her cigarillo. All Vi needed to do was catch Sevika off guard and apply force, the same as the other enforcers (and even the Firelights). Later she'll let Finn light up her cigarillo while he affirms her strengths in Zaun.
By the finale, we see her after she's been beaten by Vi, Sevika chooses to go to Silco's office to smoke one of Silco's cigars while he'sgone, but she can't light it on her own. While this might foreshadow that she'll try to take Silco's place, Sevika struggles to light the cigar because if you notice in her hand is a lighter with a fancy "F" on it, Sevika's using Finn's lighter. Silco, Vander, and Finn all had their own matches and lighters. To light Silco's cigar, Sevika uses means by which she took from Finn, a man she just killed for an ill planned selfish gambit for power.
This alone wouldn't look too bad, because as I see it, in Zaun, it's not the act of smoking but the imagery of smoke itself that's associated with power, and you don't need to smoke to have smoke. Look at Jinx and Vi, both command considerable influence on the ongoing developments between the two cities and align with strong figures. Neither of the two smoke, instead they cover themselves in smokelike tattoos, Jinx's tattoos literally resembles the blue smoke of her first succesful bomb. In contrast to their predecessors both manage to embody their power more wholly onto their person in a way that's less vulnerable than the smoking tradition to usurpation. Sevika herself also wears smoke like patterns on her collar, which are less prominent or permanent than Jinx and Vi's tattoos.
Each issue alone is cause for concern in the viability of Sevika's potential leadership role, but altogether they create a solid line of doubt for if she can pull it off. To make it work she needs to shape up Silco's former crew because she can't be the only one pulling any weight. They're all going to face a conflict that will only grow more complex, demanding, and fast changing as time goes on. A situation like that prior to Jinx's rocket would have easily have incapacitated them, now it's all going to happen on a larger scale. Sevika needs to recognize what went right and wrong for Silco, Vander, and Finn.
Tldr: The chance for Sevika to be Zaun's new leader will be an uphill climb for her for sure. Her biggest problems is that she takes the lead rather than utilizing the team, she gets easily caught off guard, and Jinx can put blinders on her perspective. She's kind of like an older more seasoned Vi that never gave up on Zaun's independence warts and all.
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