Chapter Text
[COMM-STARTLINE 3489609.00003]
[LINE//ENCRPT77.00.54390857SUBSUB09/RELTRACODE105-FREQ55/DEDSEC]
[Relay_open_dedsec_locked]
/open_chatlog01
/chatlog01=Chat
/add_comm#CT-0409
/acc:_GAR_CT_databank-14094/encrptpc46AA0p4HR6671NK_commreg_autolink
/asn#CT-0409_user,#CT-5555_user,#CT-4040_user,#CT-782_user,#CT-2010_user
/asn#CT-0409_admin,#CT-5555_admin,#CT-4040_admin,#CT-782_admin,#CT-2010_admin
[Run_Setup]
Encryption Accepted
Commands Accepted
Signal Found
Signal Locked
Commline “Chat” Is Active
Welcome, CT-0409
[CT-0409 has added CT-5555, CT-4040, CT-782, CT-2010 to Chat]
CT-0409: I want you all to know I am doing this under protest.
CT-5555: Echo, we talked about this! Hey! Voice-to-text, wizard!
CT-782: What the kriff is this?
CT-2010: Oh is that what that icon is for?? I wondered.
CT-4040: We have our own personal commline??
CT-0409: It’s not ours! It’s a redundant communication system that should only be used in case of an emergency. It’s not even in the main subspace array.
CT-4040: So how did you find it?
CT-782: Wait for it, wait for it…
CT-0409: It’s listed in the commspec regulation manual as part of the emergency procedures guide.
CT-782: There it is.
CT-0409: Which you all should have read.
CT-2010: You could bash someone’s head in with the amount of bytes on that datapad. Who has time to read all of that?
CT-4040: Wait, wait, I think I know the answer to this one…
CT-0409: No you couldn’t. The datapad’s the same weight as any other datapad.
CT-2010: It’s a joke.
CT-782: Kriff, Echo, how can someone as smart as you be that dumb?
CT-5555: Hey! Number one, Echo’s not dumb, okay, he just thinks literally
CT-5555: And number two, we’re getting a little off topic here! I asked Echo to make this chat
CT-0409: Forced me to make this chat!
CT-5555: Hush. I asked Echo to make this chat because now we can focus on our ultimate goal! Good communication is the key to success!
CT-782: Since when???
CT-5555: I dunno. I read it somewhere.
CT-2010: What ultimate goal??
CT-5555: We can change the chat name, right Echo?
CT-0409: Yes, that’s what admin means. Toggle to the settings screen by darting your eyes from the upper right to the lower left then across the bottom to the upper left. You have to hit all four corner framing dots with your retinas .05 seconds, no blinking
CT-782: What the kark is all that??
CT-782: I’ve had to dismantle IED’s less complicated than that!
CT-0409: Hey, finding a HUD iris activation pattern that wasn’t already in use was hard! I had to find something that wouldn’t interfere with our normal helmet functions. That is definitely and completely against regulations.
CT-0409: You could also just access the chat function on your holocomm or GAR issued datapad.
CT-5555: No need, I think I got it.
[CT-5555 has changed the commline name to ARC DESIGN MOTHERKARKERS!!!!]
[CT-5555 has changed Username to A Five Is Speaking]
A Five Is Speaking: We can change our names too!
CT-4040: I wanna try that!
CT-4040: Was it left across, right, across, or right, across, left, across?
CT-0409: Start right, diagonal to left, across to right, diagonal to left. Don’t blink or you’ll
CT-4040: Arg!
CT-0409: activate lowlight visor mode.
A Five Is Speaking: omf lmso
CT-782: How’s those retinas, Cutup?
CT-4040: Seared, thanks
[CT-2010 has changed Username to Droid Killer]
CT-4040: How’d you do that so fast, Bait?
Droid Killer: I used my datapad like Echo said. The commline shows up in the connection settings
CT-4040: I think I got it
CT-4040: Yeouch!
CT-4040: Hold on
CT-4040: Wait, no I don’t want to perform a system upgrade
CT-4040: Cancel! Cancel! Aw shavit!
Droid Killer: I am judging you so hard right now
CT-4040: WHAT THE KARK DOES THE SPINNY CIRCLE MEAN WHY CAN’T I BRING UP ANY MENUS NOW?
CT-0409: I’m not sure how you did it, but you managed to enable a full system diagnostic on a helmet that’s active and not attached to a charge station. Hold on.
[CT-0409 is offline]
CT-782: As much fun as it is to see Cutup earn a defective sticker from quality control, can we possibly circle back to what the kark this all his? We live in the same tiny room and we work the same lousy shifts. 327 doesn’t care if we talk while we work and O’Niner and Nub work the second shift. Why the kriff do we need a chat function? What goal?? We’re in the middle of nowhere. This outpost is the place where goals go to die.
A Five Is Speaking: Well if you let me finish
[CT-0409 is online]
CT-0409: Okay Cutup, try again. Remember, start up-right, go down left, go straight across and then up across. Don’t blink!
[CT-4040 has changed Username to Paper Cut]
Paper Cut: I did it!
Paper Cut: I emerge triumphant!
Paper Cut: Blind, but triumphant
CT-782: *singsonging* I’m still waaaaiting to find out why I’m heeeere
A Five Is Speaking: Change your user first and then we’ll talk. You too Echo.
CT-782: What? Why?
CT-0409: Is that really necessary?
A Five Is Speaking: Because teamwork is relevant to my reasons for doing this.
Droid Killer: And he hates watching an endless scroll of numbers rolling in his face
A Five Is Speaking: And that.
CT-782: Kriff this. I got, like, four hours of rec time and you want me to waste it on this stupid chat when I can literally YELL AT YOU FROM THE NEXT ROOM?!
Paper Cut: YOU KNOW WHEN HE PUTS IT LIKE THAT…
CT-0409: Everybody stop yelling or the Sergeant will start and Sergeant's yell louder than anyone.
CT-0409: Fives, can we please just get on with this? I want to get some extra hours in the decryption suite
Droid Killer: Echo, vod. Normal people on twelve hour shifts don’t ask for more work
CT-0409: Decryption is interesting!
A Five Is Speaking: I’m not doing squat until I’m not looking at numbers anymore. Move it!
CT-782: You do realise we could just, you know, leave the stupid chat, right?
A Five Is Speaking: You do realise I could change your names myself, right?
A Five Is Speaking: You may not enjoy the outcome.
CT-0409: Kark
CT-782: Kark
[CT-782 has changed username to High Grav]
High Grav: Happy now?
A Five Is Speaking: Echo?
[CT-0409 has changed username to Echo]
A Five Is Speaking: Laaaame. Come on, try a little harder.
Echo: You never specified either a nickname or a joke.
Echo: Take it or leave it.
Echo: I can delete the whole chat program, if you like.
A Five Is Speaking: Okay then! We’re ready to start.
High Grav: like wet flimsi
A Five Is Speaking: Hush.
Droid Killer: Start what??
High Grav: Thank you
High Grav: That’s only what I’ve been saying this entire time.
A Five Is Speaking: Okay, okay. Just warning you, this is gonna sound a little bit crazy at first, but just hear me out before you start screaming okay?
A Five Is Speaking: I know it’s been a little rough lately.
A Five Is Speaking: We hit a little turbulence with our plan to become ARC troopers.
High Grav: If by turbulence you mean…
High Grav: Bombed out of the final exam
High Grav: Became the laughingstock of our entire gen
High Grav: And got sent to the shebspirba of nowhere to slowly die of boredom, then yeah
High Grav: “Turbulence”
Paper Cut: Come on, Hevy, lighten up. We passed okay? Second try, but we passed!
Echo: And this listening post is very important! That’s what the sergeant said.
Droid Killer: Everyone shut up, I wanna hear what Fives has to say
A Five Is Speaking: Thank you!!! (Beskar plated)
Droid Killer: It can’t be any worse than sitting around here listening to our brain cells die.
A Five Is Speaking: My thank you is reduced. It is now a clay plated thank you.
A Five Is Speaking: ANYWAY
A Five Is Speaking: As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted
A Five Is Speaking: I initiated this chat so that we’d have a dedicated commline between the squad all the time.
Droid Killer: … don’t we already have those??
Paper Cut: Don’t we have, like, millions of those technically, since we’re staffing a listening post?
A Five Is Speaking: Those are official channels, this one is a super classified ultra encrypted top secret one.
Echo: (it really isn’t)
A Five Is Speaking: One that’s not monitored by the GAR or the trainers or anything. And we’ll need it for my super classified ultra encrypted top secret plan.
A Five Is Speaking: That includes leaving Rishi Moon for good when it works, in case you’re wondering.
Paper Cut: What????
Droid Killer: How?!
High Grav: … okay, I’m listening.
A Five Is Speaking: This is brilliant, you’re gonna love it. Prepare to avert your eyes from the magnificence of my genius.
Droid Killer: Anyone else getting a chill down their spines?
Paper Cut: Oh good, it’s not just me.
A Five Is Speaking: If we pull this off we, the Domino squad, are going to go down in history. There’s going to be songs about us. Holos. A fruity punch drink in our name. The whole works. But it’s going to be a LOT of hard work. It’s going to be rough. It’s going to be hardcore. We’re probably going to drink the tears of our lamentations more than once…
High Grav: Get on with it!
A Five Is Speaking: But! It will be WORTH IT. If we all work together and give a hundred and twenty percent, this will work, I know it. As long as we’re dedicated and we all help each other. we’ll get off this stinking moon and onto the battlefront, just like we wanted.
A Five Is Speaking: Hence this chat. We hit some turbulence, things didn’t work out, but we can change that.
A Five is Speaking: Domino squad! You know what we’re going to do?
A Five Is Speaking: We’re going
Echo: To train to be ARC’s here on the station.
A Five Is Speaking:
A Five Is Speaking: HOW DID YOU KNOW??
Echo: Well, you did name the chat ARC Design. I mean, wasn’t that kind of obvious?
Paper Cut: What?
Droid Killer: What??
High Grav: What.
Paper Cut: Is anyone else confused? I’m confused.
Droid Killer: How are we supposed to train to be ARCs here?? There isn’t anyone to train us.
Echo: Sgt O’Niner saw some action on Geonosis, but I don’t think he’s ever done advanced training. Nub’s a commspec, he’s never been posted anywhere else. I don’t know about 327, but I’m pretty sure he’s never been to ARC training. He wouldn’t be here if he had.
High Grav: And they sure as shavit don’t hold ARC training via correspondence course. Some magnificence, genius.
A Five Is Speaking: Aha! But you haven’t heard the whole plan yet. What if we don’t wait around for a trainer?
A Five Is Speaking: What if we do it all ourselves?
High Grav:
High Grav: Have you lost the plot? We can’t train ourselves to be ARCs! They’re top tier, jate be te jate. We don’t even know what it takes to become an ARC!
Echo: … actually…
Droid Killer: Echo, do you know about ARC training?
Echo: I know what they’re tested on. Like, what kind of tests they have to pass to qualify. You know, like, carry such and such amount of weight for such and such time and such and such distance. Pass such and such exam, that kind of thing. There’s a lot of stuff. Like a lot. But it’s all in the records on Kamino.
Echo: So, yeah, I know the benchmarks we have to hit. So does Fives. He and I researched it back on Kamino when we decided we wanted to be ARCs
A Five Is Speaking: See? All we need to do is find a way to hit those benchmarks!
Droid Killer: But, like, they’d have to run simulations, right? We don’t have a training room here. We don’t even have a gym!
Paper Cut: And it’s not like they’re gonna let us leave to run a field survival course, are they? ARCs in training must have to complete those.
Echo: I don’t know about this either, Fives. You have to qual in just about everything. Long and short marksmanship, field medicine, close combat, survival, piloting, infils and exfils, demolitions, artillery. ARCs have to be able to do it all.
High Grav: And in case you needed a further impossibility to get past, we don’t even know if CTs can be ARCs. The only ARCs I’ve ever seen have been Nulls, Alphas, RCs and CCs and they’re built different than us.
Droid Killer: No, there was one, wasn’t there? A CT who became an ARC?
Echo: CT-7567, codename Rex. He’s currently the head of special operations in the 501st Battalion. His marksmanship is off the charts. He earned jaig eyes on Geonosis.
A Five Is Speaking: You’ll have to forgive Echo. He’s got a little crush.
Echo: No I don’t! I just really admire him!
Paper Cut: Echo, vod. That’s the literal definition of a crush.
High Grav: You should draw hearts on your armour
Droid Killer: With little blaster bolts through them. You know, ‘cause he’s a markman.
Echo: Shut up! It’s not like that!
A Five Is Speaking: Alright, layoff Echo’s little crush. We’re getting off topic here.
High Grav: What topic? Fives, this has to be the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard! This isn’t just impossible, it’s lunatic and impossible.
A Five Is Speaking: How would you know?? Have you ever studied ARCs? Well, I have! They can make an ARC in less than six weeks if the training’s hard enough. We just need to put in the work.
Droid Killer: The ARCs have, like, sim rooms, and the bleeding edge guns and they can travel for field tests. They have equipment! Staff support! Firing ranges!
Echo: Access to flash training modules we don’t…
Droid Killer: Right!
Paper Cut: Plus, they can dedicate a hundred percent of their day to becoming ARCs. O’Niner’s pretty relaxed but I doubt he’s going to be fine with it if we just go up to him and say ‘sorry we can’t take our shifts today, we’re in bootleg ARC training’.
A Five Is Speaking: You guys are getting bogged down in the wrong ideas.
A Five Is Speaking: We won’t be trying to replicate the TECHNIQUES
A Five Is Speaking: We’ll be trying to replicate the RESULTS
A Five Is Speaking: If an ARC can carry a wounded man uphill for half a klik and qualify, what, exactly, is the difference between doing that in a sim room on Kamino or carrying each other up the spiral staircase that leads to and from the generator room? That’s a klik and half! I measured it!
Echo: …oh. Oh. I get it. So if we can train until we can do that, we should be able to take on the actual ARC exams.
A Five Is Speaking: Exactly! Remember, the one thing they want most of all out of ARCs is creativity and resourcefulness. If we can find ways to replicate ARC training using whatever we’ve got here, I bet you anything that will count as training itself.
A Five Is Speaking: I think we should work on building muscle and stamina first, since we won’t be able to do anything else without that. So the plan is, whenever the generator down in the sub basement needs cleaning or maintenance, we don’t just send M1DI-443. We volunteer to go ourselves. We run up and down them. That’s a good workout to start.
A Five Is Speaking: Anyone else got any other things we could start with?
Echo: Well…it’s not against regulations for troopers to do extracurricular study. I could download the educational modules we need for extra theory training
A Five Is Speaking: Great! That’s another thing we can do. What else?
A Five Is Speaking: Come on, there must be more that we can start with!
High Grav: When you say building muscle, you mean weight training. How are we supposed to do that? We don’t have a gym, remember?
Paper Cut: But that’s just moving heavy stuff around, right? There’s lots of heavy stuff to move around in the store room. We could volunteer to clean it up or something.
High Grav: Every day??
A Five Is Speaking: It’s not restricted, though. We can go in there any time for any reason we like. So that’s great! Extra weight training!
Echo: We’ll need to practise marksmanship too. The stats required to pass gun quals for ARCs is insane. Their accuracy has to be something like 99.9% percent. Not, on average, across the board. And you have to qual in long guns as well as blasters.
High Grav: How are we supposed to do that?? We don’t have sniper rifles here and we don’t have a firing range to practise on if we did!
Droid Killer: No, there’s one sniper rifle.
A Five Is Speaking: What? Where?
Echo: It’s in a cage just inside the main bulkhead out to the landing platform.
Droid Killer: Yeah. Nub told me it’s there just in case the eels get frisky. They hang around the base because the frequencies put out by the dish attract them or something. Apparently one of the last guys posted here got snapped up by one. Like CHOMP, then bye-bye. They never found a trace of him.
Paper Cut: Can you imagine going out like that? That’s wild!
Echo: Maybe we can ask to use it for target practice? It’s not against the regs to do extra training on your own time.
A Five Is Speaking: This is great, I’m writing this all down. We can work out a training routine from all this. Once Echo can get us a list of all the qual pass conditions, we can find ways to replicate them here. This is going to be awesome! If they won’t train us, we’ll train ourselves. ARC Design, baby!
Paper Cut: Yeah! I mean, it’s a lot of our free time, but it’s worth it, right?
Droid Killer: What else were we doing off-shift anyway? I mean, if it gets us off this icy hellscape faster, sure, let’s start doing laps.
High Grav: Okay, we do all this, but then what? Then what?? I don’t think O’Niner’s got a set of kamas just waiting to be presented. It’s not enough to be as good as an ARC. Everyone else has to agree you’re as good as an ARC. And ‘everyone else’ right now is a veteran of exactly one battle who’s now on permanent medical leave, a commspec softshell who may not have ever even fired a blaster and a trooper whom I have literally never heard even talk. How the sith hells is doing this supposed to get us off this icecube when only they will know?
Echo: After a mandatory probation period, you are allowed to request a transfer into new training modules, as per regulations.
High Grav: And how many of those requests go through, Echo?
Echo: … not many.
High Grav: Right. There you go!
A Five Is Speaking: It’s difficult, but not impossible. Also, high ranking officers are scheduled to drop by for inspections every once in a while. If we get good enough, we might be able to get their attention.
High Grav: Big stinking if, Fives. No CC is going to give a scutwork trooper the time of day. If you’re lucky, all they’ll do is laugh at you!
A Five Is Speaking: You know what, Hevy? You’ve been naysaying literally everything we’re trying to do here. What the kark is your problem? Don’t you want to get off this moon and be an ARC for real? You wanted that more than any of us back on Kamino!
High Grav: Back on Kamino! When that was, you know, attainable! What you’ve got here isn’t even a spice dream! We’re gonna train without a training room or trainers, without any kind of regime to follow, without any of the field experiences that would actually help us, and we’re doing this in the tiny amount of recreation time we barely have, and what? You actually expect us to get good enough to get the attention of some mythical Commander who just happens to visit? We still don’t even know that CTs can become ARCs!
Echo: But Rex…
High Grav: I know all about your precious Rex, Echo. Rumour was he got shunted into the CC dorm after his gene line was terminated and they kept him around like a pet. It’s pretty easy to become an ARC when you’re around them all day every day for years! That isn’t talent! That’s just connections!
Echo: He earned jaig eyes! They don’t just hand them out! If he didn’t have the skills, he’d be dead by now! Just because you’ve never seen it doesn’t mean it can’t happen!
High Grav: So he’s got talent. Big whoop. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have gotten the opportunity to show it without kissing some shebse to be given the chance. Even if we had the chance, we sure don’t have the talent. We’re washups! All the talented ones, Bric and the rest of them, they got assigned to actual battalions. We got sent to this dump, letting our brains turn to slag listening to a bunch of signals that never mean anything. Only losers and failures end up in postings like this. The defectives. The unexceptional dregs that only know how to parrot reg manuals, as if that’s the same as having talent at all!
Echo:
[Echo is Offline]
Paper Cut: Hey!
Droid Killer: Hevy!
A Five Is Speaking: Over the line, vod. Way over!
High Grav: Look, maybe I was a little harsh and I’m sorry. But that doesn’t change the facts! If the trainers of Kamino actually saw any potential in us, they’d’ve sent us somewhere we’d be of use! A droid and an automated comm system could run this place! The only reason they don’t is that they need somewhere to put the failures. Which is us! Why are we trying to lie to ourselves and pretend that’s not true?
A Five Is Speaking: Because it isn’t! Because we weren’t ready and we made mistakes but that shouldn’t dictate our entire destiny! Because we have to keep going. We weren’t made for this place. We were made for the fight! Why resign ourselves when we could have so much more if we just tried?
Droid Killer: Besides, what do we have to lose? If we make it off the moon, great! But if we don’t, we’re no worse off than before, right? What’s the harm?
High Grav: It’s a waste of time and it’ll only lead to disappointment. Is that what you want?
Paper Cut: Well I don’t know about you, vod, but I’ve got nothing but time to waste. Keeping trim isn’t the dumbest way I’ve wasted it by a long shot.
Paper Cut: And also?
Paper Cut: Jumping all over Echo because you don’t see the point of this was pretty disappointing of you in my view. So why are you worried about inviting disappointment when you’re already living in it’s house?
High Grav:
Paper Cut: Just saying.
Droid Killer: Sithing hells, Cutup!
High Grav: Shut up! That was nasty. I apologised!
A Five Is Speaking: Maybe it was a little harsh and Cutup is sorry too. But it doesn’t change the facts, right Hevy?
High Grav: Okay, okay! You’ve made your point. I’m not trying to be cruel, okay? I just think we need to have more reasonable expectations. If we don’t we’re only going to hurt ourselves. Maybe we’ll get used to this place. Maybe it’s not so bad. But we’re going to make ourselves miserable if we keep spending our time chasing a dream that won’t happen.
[Echo is Online]
A Five Is Speaking: Echo, are you okay?
Droid Killer: Hevy didn’t mean it. He just spoke without thinking.
High Grav: They’re right. I’m sorry, Echo. I was just frustrated. You can punch me in the face if you like.
Echo: I don’t want us to fight.
High Grav: Okay.
Echo: I also don’t know how Rex became an ARC, or earned his jaig eyes. You’re right about that.
High Grav: ?? Okay?
A Five Is Speaking: Vod, no, don’t give up!
Echo: I damn well know how he DIDN’T get them, though.
High Grav: Huh?
Echo: He DIDN’T get them by doing nothing. He DIDN’T get them by giving up when things looked impossible. And he sure didn’t get them by moping around and whining when he failed, either. They don’t give you jaig eyes because you have talent. Or connections. They don’t give them to you for being perfect, either, or for never failing ever.
High Grav: …Echo…
Echo: They give you jaig eyes for being brave. And maybe I’m not a very good soldier, maybe I’ll never have talent like any of you.
Echo: But I’ll tell you one thing, CT-782. I’m not a karking coward.
Echo: I’m not going to stop fighting just because it’s impossible. Impossible is an ARCs job. So I’ll either be an ARC or I’ll be able to look myself in the mirror and say that I never stopped trying.
Echo: Are you brave enough to do the same?
Echo: Because last time I checked, you were the bravest of us.
Echo: If that’s changed, let me know.
Paper Cut: Oya! You tell him, Echo!
Droid Killer: He’s right. We should do this, or die trying! We’ve got nothing to lose, right? And if we’re already at rock bottom, even better. Then all we can do is go up!
A Five Is Speaking: Now THAT’S what I’m talking about!
A Five Is Speaking: So what do you say, Hevy?
A Five Is Speaking: Are you in or are you out?
A Five Is Speaking: Look at it this way. We’ve tried literally everything else. We might as well give teamwork a go.
A Five Is Speaking: And if I’m wrong, you’re free to point your fingers and laugh at me.
High Grav: … I do like laughing at you.
A Five Is Speaking: So we’re agreed. We’re doing this. We’re becoming ARCs.
Echo: Or, you know, overdoing it, being derelict in our duties and getting ourselves killed, whichever comes first. Probability of the latter is currently a lot higher.
A Five Is Speaking: Okay, you know what?
[Fives has changed CT-0409’s username to Double Downer]
Double Downer: Hey!
A Five Is Speaking: You brought this on yourself, vod.