Work Text:
The clones are, baseline, human.
They’re also both more and less. Engineered for war, there were many, many wires crossed in the Kaminoan effort to create a being that loved war and yet was docile enough to follow orders, to not strive beyond. Dopamine triggers tied into all kinds of things. Marching in a group was made pleasant, cleaning armor, blaster maintenance.
However, for every trigger that worked, that helped to build the better soldier, there were many others that didn’t. Anything related to killing, and taking a satisfaction in it, for instance, bred psychotic breaks or soldiers one step above serial killers. Not conducive to group cohesion.
Same for anything related to Force use, and witnessing it, or Force users. It encouraged reverence and obedience to the Jedi, yes, and would be useful for whatever endgame Lord Tyranus had, but the setbacks were too high. Too often, the feelings built to obsession and possession. Savior complexes about literally being built for the Jedi, the only things that could protect them from harm. The biochips were the ultimate failsafe, but it wouldn’t do to have a soldier who would sooner kill himself than harm his Jedi general.
Then there were things that went in the other direction.
Nala Se, specifically, had a pet project for a brief time about clone medics, back when Jango Fett still lived, and wilder experimentation was possible. The idea of a clone medic was almost a contradiction, something that worked backwards. How do you make a soldier want to heal?
Some clones took to it naturally. There was that much personality evident immediately, unfortunately. But for an army as big as the one the Jedi had ordered, there was going to be a lot of injury, and out on the field droids couldn’t really fill the gap. Incentivizing worked well in the past. Why couldn’t it again?
So, there was an effort. It was short lived.
Several batches, intended to be medics, with all of the other crossed wires of the other clones and several new ones, of their very own. This ranged from an increased sense of satisfaction related to performing medical procedures, and stocking supplies to, at the far end, something that approached genuine euphoria when a patient was in a medbed, a bone-deep desire to help, and a restlessness when not caring for something.
That last batch was culled, with one exception, before reaching adulthood for being neurotic, controlling, and on multiple occasions, willing to injure their fellow clones to keep those medbeds full.
This one exception, of course, came in the form of CT-23-0911, or Captain Emergency, CMO of the 929th. He’d been eyed with suspicion on all sides on Kamino, from both Kaminoans unwilling to deliver subpar product and other clones who remembered his batchmates and what exactly they’d done but he’d proven himself. Alone amongst his batchmates able to master his modifications, and rise above, a competent medic with a good bedside manner and a mastery of all that was needed of him, quick to respond in crisis and with genuine care. An experiment not to be repeated, but worthwhile, as it had created one truly great result.
All of that was true, in broad strokes. Emergency was a good medic, really. He wanted to be a good medic. He, bone-deep, needed to be a good medic. Because of that need, he’d been able to see the bigger picture. To become a full-fledged trooper meant leaving Kamino and leaving Kamino meant working as a medic for an actual deployment. Soldiers who risked losing limbs, explosions, and everything worse in the field, nearly every day.
The idea was intoxicating.
Emergency didn’t want his brothers to be injured. He just wanted to help them get better.
So, he’d actively made an effort to excel, to qualify for the extra training that would make him a Captain. It was all in service of that greater goal.
As CMO of the 929th, a Battalion that spent a lot of its time transporting clones to the large clone medical stations, he got to. The medbay was never empty. Always new patients, with new problems. Everyone got lots of personal attention. He had all the supplies he could need.
It worked well.