Fanfic / Roger, Roger

Wait, the protagonist is one of those?

Roger, Roger is a Star Wars Self-Insert fanfiction written by Tabi. It is hosted on SpaceBattles.com, and it features Tabi as a B1 Battledroid named 711. Much of the story is centered around 711's career as an increasingly prominent officer in the Droid Army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

Has two threads: Thread 1, which is closed, and Thread 2, the current thread.

Last updated February 2018.

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Roger, Roger contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Padme, as usual.
• Actually Pretty Funny: At one point, Anakin is griping about a new regulation passed in the Senate. Obi-wan soon informs him that a Senator had arrived on the planet for an inspection, and Anakin storms off to give said Senator a piece of his mind. Turns out, Obi-wan had deliberately neglected to mention that the Senator in question was Padme.
  Anakin: Oh really funny. ... Okay, maybe that was a little funny.
• A Good, Old-Fashioned Paint Watching: Towards the beginning of the story, 711 feels this way about watching the Clone prisoners. Not that you can blame him...
  711: Sixteen hours. Sixteen. Hours. Of doing nothing but staring at the console screen, going back and forth to feed the prisoners and retrieving their empty trays. By now I had learned nearly all their name, their little quirks and whether or not I wanted to have my revenge against the Separatists for putting me through such torture.
• Artificial Stupidity: Battledroids are normally like this, which makes 711's tactics all the more terrifying, because when he's in charge, his battledroids use his intelligence instead of theirs, making them frighteningly effective.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The Battle of Kamino.
• Brain Uploading: A fairly atypical example. The premise of the story is that the writer's mind has been downloaded into a B1 battledroid.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Obi-wan, Anakin, and Shaak Ti work together to catch an extra massive Star Destroyer in freefall. It works, but they're a mess afterwards.
• Cannon Fodder: Prior to the Battle of Kamino, 711 prepares his forces with this usage in mind.
• The Cavalry:
  • During the Battle of Kamino, just as the Republic forces are being overwhelmed on all fronts, the Pride of the Core^note a Mandator-II Star Dreadnought, arrives with an entire Sector Fleet ^note twenty Tector-class Star Destroyers as reinforcements.
  • Also during the Battle of Kamino, a hodgepodge fleet of older Corellian ships came to the rescue of the Republic, seeing as the previous cavalry charge hadn't stuck.
• The Chessmaster: 711 is almost explicitly referred to as such by Ventress.
• Colony Drop: 711's last ditch attempt to destroy Tipoca City was to drop an eight-kilometer long dreadnought on it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), this trope was averted thanks to Anakin, Shaak Ti, and Obi-Wan using the Force to prevent it from crashing (and knocking themselves out in the process).
• Continuity Nod:
  • At one point, 711 impersonates a Corellian officer named "Thrackan Sal-Solo".
  • Later, there's a commander named "Antilles".
• Cruel to Be Kind: When the Jedi Council discovers that Anakin had married Padmé in secret, they promote him to Jedi Master just before dismissing him from the Jedi Order, as they realize their lifestyle is not right for him and trying to force him into a role that doesn’t fit him will only cause more misery for him and the Order alike.
• Dark Action Girl: Ventress, to nobody's surprise.
• Deadpan Snarker: 711 has shades of this.
  711: Sir, you don't look well at all. Perhaps you should go to the medical bay. I'm sure they'll have the medication for your brown-nosing condition.
• Decisive Battle: The Battle of Kamino
• Distracted by the Sexy: Warlord Gout experiences this in regards to Ventress at one point.
• "Double, Double" Title
• Do with Him as You Will: 711 decides to turn Himmler over to the Iraknians after Himmler destroys their capitol, complete with 60 million civilians.
• Dressing as the Enemy: In order to safely get themselves off of a planet under Republic blockade, 711 and Ventress steal a Republic frigate and fly off. This while under fire from Republic forces whom had commandeered Separatist frigates. It works.
• Elite Mooks: Commando Droids, as per canon.
  • Admiral Himmler has the Marauders; clone troopers whom are each wearing a huge set of battle armor capable of tanking blasterbolts seemingly indefinitely.
• Enigmatic Minion: 711 is one of these. Maybe. It's complicated.
• False Flag Operation: The issue with face-concealing helmets for the clone troopers is that battledroids can suddenly pass for a clone if they just put one on.
• Feed the Mole: Just before the Battle of Kamino, Ventress and General Grievous deliberately leak a transmission about the attack as part of a Xanatos Gambit.
• For the Greater Good: Himmler's stated reason for obliterating the capitol of the Iraknians, an ally.
  Iraknian General: There are millions of my people there! I cannot evacuate so many in so little time! You cannot do this!
  Himmler: Sacrifice a few million to save your planet or let billions become slaves to the corporate will of the Confederacy. It is for the greater good!
• From Nobody to Nightmare: 711 goes from a Mecha Mook to leading strategic attacks on Republic strongholds.
• Gone Horribly Right: Palpatine did want an attack on Kamino, but he did it to trick the Republic into funneling more money into military matters and to unify them against the Seperatists. What he really wanted was for everyone to think that the Separatists were making a determined push, but in reality there would be superficial damage to the actual facilities. Thanks to 711, the damage to Kamino was far more extensive than he planned, doing severe damage to the war effort of the Republic. Oh, and what's more, it reveals Anakin's relationship to Padme to the galaxy, so not only is he dealing with an unexpectedly hypercompetant droid commander, but he's just lost one of his big sources of leverage over Anakin. And because the Droid General is loyal to Ventress, not him, he can’t even count on it as an asset.
• Grievous Harm with a Body:
  Metal bodies ran into armored squishy ones. The modified B2s didn’t bother with using their wrist-blasters. They just pummeled the clones with their fists. One picked up a screaming clone and began using him as a makeshift club.
• Heavily Armored Mook: The Marauders, as noted under Elite Mooks.
• Hellhole Prison: Warlord Gout has one of these waiting and ready for the prisoners captured by 711. Apparently, he plans to work them to death and then use their bodies as food rations for the other prisoners.
• Hidden Army Reveal: Remember all that debris from blown up Separatist ships that fell to the planet early on in the Battle of Kamino? Turns out that a lot of that was not actually debris.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs:
  ...His saber flashed as it cut through droids like a plasma knife through Corellian butter...
• Ignored Expert: Clone Commander Wolffe is suspicious when his force manages to repel a much larger CIS assault force, and gets even more suspicious when the CIS force goes into a full retreat, despite their advantages. Unfortunately for the Republic, his CO, Major Ozzel does not share his suspicions, and falls right into the trap.
• I Like Those Odds: Just before the Battle of Kamino, General Skywalker gives a speech to his men in which he lays out the game plan, mentioning that "It is likely we will be outnumbered by a large margin", which garners the response:
  Echo: We're always outnumbered. Can't be that bad.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Apparently, B1 battledroids literally have worse aim than an untrained human with the same gun.
  I popped out of cover and let the programming do the job. I fired a few bolts...and hit nothing at all. Mentally, I frowned and forcibly took control, ignoring the protests of my programming. Sighting down the barrel of my blaster, I pulled the trigger, striking a clone in the arm on the other end of the corridor.
  B1 Commander: "Good shot soldier!"
• It's Raining Men: The Separatist strategy in the Battle of Kamino involves dropping a lot of troops down to the surface by almost any means possible.
• I Was Just Joking: During the Battle of Kamino, Obi-wan tells Anakin about incoming Colony Drop. Anakin asks if there's any way stop it, to which Obi-wan responds,
  Obi-Wan: " Unless you want to try your hand at stopping that battleship from crashing with the Force, no."
  Anakin stared at Obi-wan with an incredulous expression for a moment. Obi-wan returned his stare levelly before exasperation filled his face.
  Obi-Wan: "“Anakin, no.”
• I Was Never Here: Invoked by 711.
  Clone Prisoner: "Never thought I'd say this to a clanker, but...thanks."
  "I was never here," I reply, nodding. "You got out all on your own."
• Jerkass Has a Point: Several CIS commanders object strongly to taking orders from 711, since he's a B1 Battle Droid. While their interactions with him should prove that it's a little more sophisticated than the normal rank-and-file, they are used to dealing with standard B1 droids, which are, putting it as charitably as possible, absolute morons.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Happens a number of times.
  Soldier: Buzzers in the ventilation! They're - Eiiiaaaah!
• Klingon Promotion: While he doesn't do the killing himself, early on 711's rank benefits from the completely unforeseeable death of a Neimoidian superior. See Too Dumb to Live further down the page.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: As per canon, Tactical Droids. Theoretically, they're really smart, but they also seem to be entirely unable to account for the existence of The Force when they're making their predictions. Seeing as this is Star Wars...
• Mecha-Mooks: Entirely unsurprisingly, the Droid Army. More surprisingly, our protagonist is one of them.
• Mind Hive: 711 eventually has his mind spread out over thousands of droids during battle, he calls it "the Network".
• More Dakka: When Anakin joins the fight at the battle of Kamino, 711 knows that there's no chance that random droid fire will take him down thanks to the Force giving Anakin virtual Plot Armor. He instead tasks the entierity of three different ships' anti-air arrays to taking him down, as well as all droid fighters in the area.
• Oh, Crap!:
  “You hurt her,” whispered Skywalker. "You hurt my Padme." Grievous instinctively took a step back, his mind screaming for him to retreat.
• Orbital Bombardment: A Republic Admiral ends up bombing one of his own worlds in response to 711. The Senate does not like this.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Technically, the Battle of Kamino ended in a Republic victory in that the mission objective was accomplished and the CIS did not completely destroy the Cloning Facilities. In the process of that, though, they did massive damage to Kamino's infrastructure, crippling clone production for a long time to come, and destroying a lot of Republic Fleet Assets.
• Ramming Always Works: 711 is fond of this trope. Either both ships explode or his army of robots takes the opportunity to preform a boarding action, either way works for him.
• Redshirt Army: As per canon, the Droid Army, made up of cheap and expendable battledroids. Until 711 creates the Network, linking all the droid brains together, and allowing each battledroid to share it's processing power and data, turning them into a horrifying army whenever 711 is in command.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: Happens on occasion with Star Wars words, for example:
  • Obi-wan gets called "Obiwan" a bunch of times.
  • Padme gets referred to as "Nubian" instead of "Naboo" on a few occasions. ^note This is a canonical mistake, dating back to Episode I, where the Royal cruiser of the Naboo is identified as a 'Nubian' ship, causing many fans to think that people from Naboo are called that.
  • Shaak Ti sometimes gets referred to as Shaak'ti.
• Sadistic Choice: 711 gives one to the Republic near the end of the Battle of Kamino: finish off his crippled naval forces in space and watch Tipoca City be destroyed, or save the city, and leave his fleet intact.
• Self-Insert: The story is based on the concept of the author being put into the Star Wars universe. Unusually, he's not in the body of some Force-Sensitive organic, but into a B1 droid- one of the weakest, dumbest droids in the entire setting.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Towards the beginning of the Battle of Kamino, Anakin leads a wing of fighters and bombers on a suicide run to take out the massive Ion Cannons on the Separatist mothership, losing half his forces in the process of blowing them up. The cannons were decoys.
• Shout-Out:
  • "By your command."
  • "Just as planned."
• Skewed Priorities: When Obi-Wan is contemplating finding out that Anakin is married to Padme, there's a little part of him that's just mad he wasn't invited to the wedding.
• Superweapon Surprise: The ion cannon in the Battle of Kamino wasn't really destroyed. Surprise!
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • A Neimoidian captain bumbles some boot licking in regards to Ventress, and ends up demoted almost immediately. He decides that shouting at the Darksider with spittle flinging from his lips will make her see his way. Three guesses how that went.
  • Warlord Gout, who really should have seen it coming.
• Unstoppable Rage: Padme hits Grievous with some EMP grenades, electrocuting him and launching him into a murderous rage that nearly results in her death.
  • Which gets turned around immediately, as Padme is on the comlink with Anakin, who hears her screams. Oops.
• True Companions: Obi-wan sticks with Anakin, even when he does something dumb like get Padme pregnant.
• Villain Protagonist: He's a Separatist general, and he's really really good at it.

• Wham Line: The use of the Pride of the Core as a Colony Drop.
  “Her engines are online and are at full burn,” whispered the sensor & comms officer in dull horror. “She’ll hit Kamino, six thousand miles from Tipoca City in under an hour.”
• Xanatos Speed Chess: 711's plan during the battle of Kamino is an example of this.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: 711 gets sick of the Tactical Droid second guessing his decisions during the Battle of Kamino and removes it.
• Zerg Rush: "CHARGE!"