KAREN TRAVISS (2 of 2)

Her experiences in the British Military Reserve and as a Defense Correspondent bring something new to the table: a knowledge and understanding of the military that most writers could only hope to have. A relatively new author, Karen Travis has already gained enough recognition to write for Star Wars. Not only did she write Republic Commando: Hard Contact, a tie-in to the upcoming Video Game, but she is also slated to write three books in a 9-book series set approximately 10 years after the end of The New Jedi Order Series.

For more information on Karen Traviss and her other works and accomplishments, check out her official website HERE.

TUCWS: Thank you once again for talking to us for a second time Karen. How has Republic Commando been selling in stores thus far?

Karen Traviss: No idea. The thing about publishing is that there's this thing called "returns". Basically, bookstores and wholesalers agree to take a certain number of books, but they can return them unsold later. That whole process can take a year to shake down. So you know how many books shipped, more or less, but not how many will actually go down as sales. That's why authors watch rankings at Amazon and Barnes & Noble online: you can't get an idea of numbers - although some people think they can work those out - but you do get a feel for how much interest there is in a book.

TUCWS: Now that we've all read the book, we have some more questions for you about some things that we found in it. First, how do you think the armor that the commandos is metaphorically for their work and how they have been trained?

KT: In a way, the commandos are their armor, and the complexity of their relationship with it can be seen as a metaphor for their situation: they are constrained by it, defined by it and protected by it, in both the physical and psychological sense. They long to take it off sometimes; but when they do they feel vulnerable, and they miss some of its comforts like temperature control.

The irony is that it makes them both distinctive and anonymous - if you see that gray armor heading your way in a battle, you know you're probably not going home for tea again. But when the lads take off the armor, they're still anonymous to the average onlooker, because they all look the same even if they're individuals under the skin - so they're still wearing a kind of armor.

And when they operate without their armor, they're always capable of doing more than they expect they can. They could probably step out of that imprisonment if they tried. It's something for them to ponder.

TUCWS: This is a question that really hasn't been asked by anyone yet: Do you think that breeding clones for a war is ethical?

KT: Ooh no. No way. Now, I'm not one of those authors who has their characters put forward their personal point of view - you'll see every viewpoint expressed in my books - but I like to pose those questions, because they matter. Personally, I find it repellent. I'm just as cranky about people breeding animals the same way, so I'd probably have serious issues with both the Kaminoans and the Yuuzhan Vong, except at least with the Yuuzhan Vong what you see is what you get. The Kaminoans really disturb me. They're so nice and softly-spoken and they have these tasteful, civilized Ikea-style homes - and then they breed cloned humans and treat them like products. I can feel myself locking and loading already...and that's why I've grown to love Star Wars so rapidly. This is definitely not kids' stuff. This is real politics and real people. And what is the Republic doing getting involved in all these dubious ethical areas? It really troubles Padawan Bardan Jusik too.

TUCWS: Do you think that if given the chance, that the commandos or ARC troopers would try and live a normal life, free of war and violence?

KT: Purely personal view, and speaking as a hard SF writer...yes, I think they would if they had something else to give them purpose. Humans basically don't like getting hurt and no organism chooses death if there's a better option.

But you see this in real life. There are occasionally people who join the armed forces almost looking for a sense of family: they get comradeship, shared values and goals, and sometimes a welcome ordered structure to their lives for the first time. When they leave the services, sometimes they're lost because all that reassuring structure is gone. Now, most ex-servicemen and women manage to fit back into civilian society perfectly well, but a few don't. I do know that some former special forces men find it hard, because their training is so intense and their combat experiences - which are about as far beyond most people's imagining as walking on the Moon - leave them missing the buzz and feeling isolated from civilians. And that's before we even get to thinking about what PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder - i.e. battle trauma) does to anyone who's seen real combat.

Now, the clones are an extreme example of that. They've never known anything but the military - not even a biological family. Their human instincts to co-operate with their group, be socially compliant (i.e. follow orders) and excel at skills that help them survive have been manipulated to the highest degree. That's their whole world. If you take that away from them, then you have to put something back in to fill the gap or they're going to be completely alienated and directionless, and that makes them dangerous to themselves and others. So if we rehabilitate clones, we've got to find a way of reprogramming them in the psychological sense - because we're all programmed by what we experience.

TUCWS: A question that I'm sure has been asked before, but what exactly is the difference between the Clone Commandos and the ARC Troopers? How does their training differ?

KT: I'm not sure about the ARCs - I've got to do some more studying there myself. But they're the guys who are best at operating alone, ideal for "black ops", although they can obviously operate with troopers or in small groups too. The big difference between ARCs and RCs is that ARCs were trained by Jango himself. Since Jango is dead, there can be no more clones with that same set of bounty-hunter type skills.

The commandos are trained separately by a hand-picked group of instructors - the training sergeants referred to in RC:HC - who all have special skills. The RCs spend a lot of their time training in what we think of in the real world as counter-terrorism and sabotage.

The RCs have the same core military skills as the troopers and the ARCs, but with special skills on top of that, and they're trained to be best at operating in four-man squads and groups of squads. There are things that four commandos can do that a single ARC couldn't, like storming a building, where you need multiple points of entry. I suspect that a lot of the special skills are common to both RCs and ARCs: they all need to know abour handling explosives, for example. Now, I don't see RCs commanding troopers. That's not what they're there for. They'd probably have a go at it if they had to, but command isn't their thing.

The key is to see what each is best at, rather than think in terms of rigid demarcation lines. I imagine even a lone clone trooper would be smart enough to inflict some damage on an enemy if he ever found himself separated from his platoon. But he's best at operating in larger formations, which is a good reason for training him to be more obedient to orders than a commando.

TUCWS: After the events in Republic Commando, what did you have in mind for Darman, Atin, Fi and Niner?

KT: I always have to know what happens to characters before and after the book they appear in, because that's the detail that makes them real and convincing, so yes, I thought what happened when RC:HC ended. I've got a pretty good idea where they go and who else they run into. I have an idea in my head of their whole lives. I won't expand on that here for obvious reasons!

TUCWS: What about Etain and General Zey?

KT: I wouldn't mind seeing what happens to them, too. Etain grew on me. I didn't have a lot of time for her at first, because I'd have given her a slap and told her to get a grip (okay, Jinart very nearly did!) but she's shaping up and she's not as inclined to mysticism as some Jedi. She has her moments of feeling uncomfortable with her skills and she identifies strongly with non-Jedi, sometimes almost enviously. She's a bit deviant. Ironically, that makes her a better Jedi in my book - she really cares about the rest of creation in a very practical way, and she's not bothered if that upsets other Jedi - even her Master. It's *not* denying her passions that makes her effective in the end. She succeeds because she accepts them and channels them into action. I suppose she's best described as the gutsy kind of Jedi who'll risk her life to rescue injured animals and can also help you change a flat tire - which is why Fulier was so set on giving her a second chance, because he was as intense as she was . Zey will have his hands full with her, that's for sure.

TUCWS: Etain finds that the Clones are all similar in her mind, but not copies of each other. How much difference is there, and do you think that there is a difference in mentalities between the regular clone troopers and the commandos through to the ARC troopers?

KT: Well, the ARCs haven't had any genetic manipulation to make them more obedient. So they're "raw Jango", as Atin says, and that means they're going to start out with a greater predisposition to do their own thing. But my personal view is that any clone - ARC, RC or trooper - will be an individual because they have an innate sense of self like any other human. Cloning just means that they have the same predispositions to behave in certain ways.

How those predispositions express themselves depend on what they experience on a daily basis and the complexities of how they interact with others. I always cite zygotic twins(identical twins from a single split egg) as a perfect example of this but on a smaller scale. They're individuals. They know they're individuals. It's only the rest of the world that can't see that.

But they can develop differently due to environmental factors. For example, if one zygotic twin is autistic, then if autism is purely genetic, the other twin should be autistic too. But in studies they've found that happens only 60% of the time, so even something like autism is influenced by external factors. That shows you just how much difference environment can make to genetically identical organisms. So I reckon clones are partly shaped by their genes and partly what the world makes them, just like the rest of us.

Here endeth the biology lecture...

TUCWS: One of the principle villains in this novel was a Mandalorian. What made you use him as a protagonist?

KT: I have a soft spot for Mandalorians, and I'm not sure why. There's a certain tragic nobility about them even if they have a strong sociopathic streak. I don't really think of my villains as villains: they're just the other side of the argument. So making Ghez Hokan a Mandalorian wasn't a statement about Mandalorians being bad boys. (Hey, if the Republic is happily using cloned men as cannon fodder, who's got the moral high ground?)I wanted someone who was very clear about what they believed, and would have a real conflict of emotions about the clone army. He's not a simple mercenary, although if he was that would be fine too. He wants money as a means to an end, although he isn't sure quite what that end is, other than getting off Qiilura. I was sorry about what I had to do to him. I really liked him and I could see his point of view: he wasn't irredeemably evil, any more than the "good guys" like Darman were wholly good. in the end, it's Hokan's sense of honor that's his downfall, not the fact that he's a "bad guy".

TUCWS: Do you think that biological weapons are an acceptable weapon for the battlefield?

KT: In my wess'har wars series, I have a character who says: "Dead's dead, whichever way you look at it." I don't imagine that the soldiers who died at the battle of Cannae in hand-to-hand sword fighting suffered any less than men killed by gas in the trenches of WWI. For some people, it's the numbers that appal them. But there's no such thing in my mind as "only one casualty". That one casualty is the whole world for the family left behind. So, no, I can't get too worked up about drawing a line of acceptability. All this business of "ethical" and "unethical" war always smacks of sophistry to me, especially if you're on the receiving end.

TUCWS: Do you have any involvement in the upcoming Tales comic that ties into Republic Commando?

KT: None whatsoever, I'm afraid.

TUCWS: A little off topic from the book, but can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming Star Wars novels? What else do you have coming up?

KT: Right now, I have no details, although the whole 9-book series is set after the end of the NJO period. We're having a planning meeting very, very soon and after that, all will be clear...!

Outside of the SW world, I have the third book in the wess'har wars series coming out in November 2005 - The World Before - so I'm about to do revisions on that. I'm also working on other SF book outlines, including more in the wess'har wars, and even one fantasy. (Okay, I admit it. I do fantasy - once in a while.)

TUCWS: Would you continue the stories of Omega Squad if given the chance?

KT: Ooh, of course I would. They're my lads. I care what happens to them!

TUCWS: Now that you've written the book, are you going to try the game at all?

KT: Yes, definitely. It's high time I learned. And I won't be able to resist finding all the little bits of the book that went into the game in strange places...yes, there are references that the games team put in, apparently. I was really, really delighted about that.

TUCWS: Final question for now, do you have any advice for any new and upcoming writers?

KT: Write every day, without fail, and finish what you start. If you want to write for a living, treat it as a business, and that means respecting the customer (the reader) and behaving professionally and politely towards the many people who help get your book or story published, all the way from the editor to the sales assistant in the bookstore. Learn to accept that rejection isn't personal: it's about one story, not everything you write, and certainly not about you personally.

And care about what you write. You can certainly write passable fiction if your heart isn't in it, but you won't write really good stuff unless you put some passion into it.

 

Star Wars: Republic Commando: Hard Contact is in stores now! Click here to purchase it from Amazon.com.

(NOT Star WARS) Crossing the Line is in stores now! Click here to purchase it from Amazon.com.

(NOT Star WARS) City of Pearl is in stores now! Click here to purchase it from Amazon.com.

 

Related Items
Karen Traviss interview, Part 1

Conducted by Andrew Liptak, November 2004