History Literature / RepublicCommandoSeries

* PropagandaMachine: In-series, the public is being misled about the size of the CIS forces. The holonews keeps saying "quadrillions". But as the protagonists point out, if there were quadrillions of battle droids, they'd have lost the war long ago. All of this is revealed to be a ploy by [[BigBad Palpatine]] to keep support for the war going. Out of universe, this was probably meant as a TakeThat to other ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' writers with SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfUnits.

** Bardan Jusik, a Jedi Knight sympathetic to the clone troopers, is eventually recorded giving the Jedi Council a TheReasonYouSuckSpeech over their increasing willingness to sacrifice their stated ideals on the altar of MyCountryRightOrWrong, then quits the Jedi Order as a conscientious objector and moves to Mandalore. [[SerendipitiousSurvival Which proves to be a fortunate choice given what happens later...]]

** Amongst other things, armor has withstood blaster bolts, bullets, flamethrowers, grenades, and vaccuum.

** Etain, a Jedi apprentice who survives the death of her master at the outbreak of the Clone Wars and becomes a badass in her own right. Rav Bralor is implied to be one. Also, Ny.

* AntiHero: Lots.
** Skirata himself bounces from a Type III to a Type V throughout the course of the books.
** Vau is a solid Type V, with shades of IV.

* BadassAdorable: Kad Skirata. He's a baby, but he's [[spoiler: the son of an elite solider and a Jedi and is Force-sensitive.]] In the ''Literature/LegacyOfTheForce'' series, he's grown up to be an awesome Mandalorian wearing a hodgepodge of armor from all of his uncles.

* BigBad: Interestingly, Palpatine still seems to play this role. Instead of a Sith Lord however, he's merely perceived by the main characters as a manipulative politican who's much meaner than he looks. The fact that the protagonists realized this immediately while the Jedi are still unsure is a testament to their experience.

* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: Darman on Skirata when he finds out that [[spoiler: Kad is his son.]]

* {{Retcon}}:
** This series did a number on the then-recent "History of the Mandalorians" article by Abel G. Pena. Instead of Spar being an insane, fanatical, and charismatic Mandalore who becomes a ShellShockedVeteran, he's a cynical puppet warlord who's OnlyInItForTheMoney, the Mandalorian Civil War was a minor affair that most Mandalorians ignored, and instead of only around 212 highly dangerous Mandalorians, we have an entire planet of them. Also, that totally awesome City of Bone from the Marvel Comics? Now a failed tourist trap. Of course, with the 3rd-person character POV the reader's provided with, we never do get the entire picture of just what was going on with Spar -- and it all becomes a moot point, anyway, when just about ''everything'' in the series was retconned out.
** ''Order 66'' does a little of it to patch holes between the prequel trilogy canon and preceding EU -- now Legends -- material.
*** The Spaarti cloning cylinders from ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' make an appearance, explained as a different technology than used by the Kaminoans that [[QuantityVsQuality can grow clones faster at the cost of reduced quality control]].
*** Jedi Master Djinn Altis, first discussed in ''Literature/TheCallistaTrilogy'', appears with his mobile Jedi Academy on the starship ''Chu'unthor'', along with Callista Ming herself. They're explained as a Jedi splinter sect deemed semi-heretical by the Jedi Council, in large part for their acceptance of romantic relationships. They return in ''501st'' and allow a couple of Jedi being sheltered by the Mandalorians to join them.

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: {{Lampshaded}} with the 1.2 million clone trooper number, which Traviss upped to 3 million: she was only following the lead of the higher-canon ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' novelization from two years earlier and even mocks it in the short story "Odds." ''Order 66'' introduces non-Kaminoan clones to compensate, invoking the "Spaarti cylinders" technology from ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' with the explanation that [[QuantityVsQuality quality control with the Arkanian tech isn't as good but it allows a much higher rate of production than the ten-year-long Kaminoan process]].
* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: Clan Skirata gradually prepares an "exit route" from the Grand Army of the Republic that they use when Order 66 goes down. They then set up a sanctuary so that any clone feeling the itch can follow after them. This can feel cruel, but as Skirata points out, clones don't get paid and don't have a retirement plan. This is just giving them the work benefits they're entitled to.

* SuperSoldier: The commandos.

* SparseListOfRules: Order 66 comes from a list of [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Contingency_Orders_for_the_Grand_Army_of_the_Republic:_Order_Initiation,_Orders_1_Through_150 at least 150 contingency orders]], of which this series gives us the text of numbers 4, 5, 37, 65, and 66.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: A lot of the series is about employing this trope on events in the main ''Star Wars'' films.[[BroadStrokes These are all also still canon unless stated otherwise.]]
** The Battle of Geonosis looked really cool, but was apparently a tactical clustercuss, with huge clone and Jedi casualties. The Republic Commandos are thus overstretched and at half the strength they were meant to be.
** The Jedi are great warriors, but never trained to lead militaries, leaving the Republic Army less prepared than it'd like to be.

** All the battles look really cool, but strategically the running of the war seems like a total mess.
--->'''Atin:''' It's almost as if [[BigBad someone]] is trying to strand as many generals as possible in as many stupid places with inadequate support.'''

* {{Tearjerker}}: [[spoiler: Etain's]] death and the scenes that immediately follow at Kyrimorut. Also, [[spoiler:Delta Squad leaving Sev behind.]]

* TakeThat: The main characters consider Boba Fett (a twelve-year-old as of this series) to be an entitled punk, and one of them gave him a {{swirlie}} off-screen.

* CloningBlues: Done a number of ways. On the surface level, the clones don't care. They're even ''proud'' of their heritage, because they were bred to be whoopass on every other "randomly conceived being" in the galaxy. On the other hand, near every single one of them has issues from being born and raised to be soldiers. The series is about how they're kind of overlooked in the scheme of things and how their mentors try to get them out of it.

* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: The Mandalorians prize readiness to defend what one cares about, to the point where (as noted in ''Literature/LegacyOfTheForce: Revelation'' by the same author) their language lacks a word for "hero," not because they don't recognize the concept, but because they don't consider it particularly ''noteworthy''. At least four of the Six Actions are tied partially or fully to martial arts.

* ManOnFire: Darman [[spoiler: survives with little damage but plenty of nightmares]].

* SparseListOfRules: [[KillEmAll Order 66]] comes from a list of [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Contingency_Orders_for_the_Grand_Army_of_the_Republic:_Order_Initiation,_Orders_1_Through_150 at least 150 contingency orders]], of which this series gives us the text of numbers 4, 5, 37, 65, and 66.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: ''Order 66'' has the main commandoes briefly run into several disguised Jedi apprentices who escaped the massacre at the Jedi Temple and are trying to get off-planet (with at least one of them escaping after they are discovered). However, most of the commandoes would object to calling those Jedi "heroes" part of the trope, since the Jedi accidentally kill some civilians while deflecting blaster bolts in a closed space and one of them [[spoiler:accidentally cuts down Etain when she tries to save a clone who reminds her of Darman.]]

* BadassBookworm: Jusik, and, surprisingly [[spoiler: Maze]].

* HeadInTheSandManagement: General Zey is portrayed with shades of this. He gets better.

* PropagandaMachine: In-series, the public is being misled about the CIS force. The holonews keeps saying "quadrillions". But as the protagonists point out, if there were quadrillions of battle droids, they'd have lost the war long ago. All of this is revealed to be a ploy by [[BigBad Palpatine]] to keep support for the war going. Out of universe, this was probably meant as a TakeThat to other ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' writers with SciFiWritersHave/NoSenseOfUnits.

* TwinSwitch: The Nulls take advantage of this often, combining it with BavarianFireDrill to infiltrate.

* CanonImmigrant: The specific characters and events of this series were rendered CanonDiscontinuity by ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': Creator/GeorgeLucas reportedly had a very different vision of the present-day Mandalorians than anybody working for him (his original idea of "New Mandalorians" became Satine Kryze's faction), and the series using RestrainingBolts rather than SlaveLiberation as an explanation for the clones to participate in Order 66. However, because of its popularity, Creator/DaveFiloni built a lot of his portrayal of the Mandalorians on Traviss's novels. Particular examples include:

* CanonImmigrant: While the characters and events of this series were rendered CanonDiscontinuity by ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'' (Creator/GeorgeLucas reportedly having had a very different vision of the present-day Mandalorians than anybody working for him), because of its popularity, Creator/DaveFiloni built a lot of his portrayal of the Mandalorians on Traviss's novels. Particular examples include:

* TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong: [[spoiler:A pregnant Etain wants to give her child a normal life, which she never had since she was a Jedi. Kal insists that because Darman is Mandalorian, so should the child, to which Etain accepts without question, despite there being nothing wrong with giving the child a normal life and Kal has no business telling Etain how to raise her kid, [[{{Hypocrite}} making him not much better than how the Jedi dealt with Force-sensitive kids]].]]

* CorruptedContingency: {{Invoked|Trope}} in ''Order 66''. In this novel, the eponymous WhamLine from ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' is shown to be part of a SparseListOfRules covering over 150 GodzillaThreshold scenarios for the Grand Army of the Republic: the one right before it requires the army to remove Supreme Chancellor Palpatine instead. [[ExactWords A careful reading]] shows that while Order 65 permits lethal force against the sitting chancellor ''if necessary'', Order 66 ''commands'' the clone army to use lethal force against the Jedi. This difference went unnoticed by anyone but Palpatine, who had created the army of SlaveMooks in the first place as a trap for the Jedi, until it was too late.

* CanonImmigrant: On the receiving end of this.

** Barden Jusik. It's just he defected from the ''Jedi Order.''

* BigBad: Interestingly, Palpatine still seems to play this role. Instead of a Sith Lord however, he's merely perceived as a manipulative politican who's much meaner than he looks. That the protagonists perceive this immediately while the Jedi are still unsure is a testament to their experience.

* GeniusBonus: Many examples. The series is written by a long-time war correspondent, so a lot of it is recognizable to people acquainted with military life.
** The Mandalorain Morse code {{Expy}} is called ''dadita''. Written or spoken, dots and dashes in Morse code are called ''dits'' and ''das''.
** he tendency to harangue the upper brass is pretty realistic.
** While toning itself down to fit the tone and age bracket of ''Star Wars'', the series reads as military fiction/political drama as much as it can.

** This series did a number on the then-recent "History of the Mandalorians" article by Abel G. Pena. Instead of Spar being an insane, fanatical, and charismatic Mandalore who becomes a ShellShockedVeteran, he's a cynical puppet warlord who's in it for the MoneyDearBoy, the Mandalorian Civil War was a minor affair that most Mandalorians ignored, and instead of only around 212 highly dangerous Mandalorians, we have an entire planet of them. Also, that totally awesome City of Bone from the Marvel Comics? Now a failed tourist trap. Of course, with the 3rd-person character POV the reader's provided with, we never do get the entire picture of just what was going on with Spar -- and it all becomes a moot point, anyway, when just about ''everything'' in the series was retconned out.

** ''Order 66'' does a little of it to patch holes between the prequel trilogy canon and the preceding EU -- now Legends -- material. The Spaarti cloning cylinders from ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' make an appearance, explained as a different technology than used by the Kaminoans that [[QuantityVsQuality can grow clones faster at the cost of reduced quality control]].

* SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: {{Lampshaded}} with the 1.2 million clone trooper number, which Traviss upped to 3 million: she was only following the lead of the higher-canon ''Film/AttackOfTheClones'' novelization from two years earlier and even mocks it in the short story "Odds." ''Order 66'' introduces non-Kaminoan clones to compensate, invoking the "Spaarti cylinders" technology from ''Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy'' with the explanation that [[QuantityVsQuality quality control with the Arkanian tech isn't as good but it allows a higher rate of production than the Kaminoan process]].

* FiveManBand: (only in ''Hard Contact''):
** TheHero: Darman
** TheLancer: Atin
** TheSmartGuy: Fi
** TheBigGuy: Niner
** TheChick: Etain

* KnifeNut: Skirata's three-sided blade is mentioned quite often, as it is his close-ranged weapon of choice that he keeps on him at all times. We discover in ''Order 66'' that it used to belong to his biological father.
** Corr enjoys performing knife tricks with his prosthetic hands.

* MoralDissonance: Kal Skirata, likes to make a big stink about how the Jedi ([[DependingOnTheAuthor supposedly]]) don't care about the clones as individuals like he does, all while he imposes his own culture onto the clone troopers under his command without any consideration given to them ever having a choice in the matter. Since the culture in question is the [[CreatorsPet Mandalorian culture]], and the writer is Creator/KarenTraviss, [[SarcasmMode naturally this is the only right thing to do.]]

** In ''Order 66'', [[Geneticist Dr. Nenilin turning in his research to the Chancellor's office]] makes it a lot harder for Skirata to operate.
** In the same book, the assault on Coruscant - AKA the beginning of Episode III - derails the plan to desert. [[XanatosSpeedGambit t on the plus side, it gets everyone back to Coruscant quickly.]]

** The exclamation ''Fierfek''. This one is preexisting Huttese for "hex" or "curse" (it's also used to mean "poison" but few poisons work on Hutts), but the commandos adopted it as a battlefield swear word.

** The exclamation ''Fierfek''. This one is actually Huttese for "hex", "curse", or "poison", but the commandos adopted it as a battlefield swear word.

* PregnantBadass: Later on in the series [[spoiler: Etain]] becomes one.
* PropagandaMachine: In-series, the public is being misled about the CIS force. The holonews keeps saying "quadrillions". But as the protagonists point out, if there were quadrillions of battle droids, they'd have lost the war long ago. All of this is revealed to be a ploy by [[BigBad Palpatine]] to keep support for the war going.

** The exclamation ''Fierfek''