Well, this chronicle was near and dear to my heart, since I had written into Gottii's background for about a year now that he was an ex-Valklear.
Obviously it changed some things for my characters background and the conceptualization I had of him. I was at first disappointed in myself for completely missing Theodicy and its information on Valklear. However, my "how did I not read this??" changed to "oh, thats why" when, on the first page, I saw the author.
Basically, one of the things it changed for me was the very concept of what a Valklear was. I kinda saw them as extremely tough, yes, but namely because they would be thrown into whatever battle was expected to inflict heavy losses, human-wave style. Like Silver said, having a unit filled with soldiers who no one would really mind if they died is one of, if not the, main reason to have a penal unit in the first place, at least historically.
So finding out they were some kind of commando super-soldier was a surprise to me, and kinda gave Gottii a Mary-sueish background I was hoping to avoid. But, whatever, you roll with CCP's punches I guess.
What I liked the most about the chronicle was the recruitment aspect of it, and the recruiters would be the only reason a unit like this could work. They would have to be very very selective who they went after. Criminals, as a whole, generally make poor quality soldiers. Criminality is generally rooted in some kind of dysfunction, whether from an extremely disadvantaged and/or abusive background, underlying mental health reasons, drug addiction or all of the above.
In real life, very, very rarely does a strong, capable, intelligent and ruthless person decide one day "yanno, im going to go knock over that 7-11" or even "yanno, Im going to go rob that bank and make millions". The truly capable ruthless people out there go and work on Wall Street, end up owning the Bank itself, and makes billions quasi-legally and avoids the hassel of law enforcement and the pressures of being a criminal.
So thats one reason I love the recruiting aspect of it. I loved how they brought criminals of all types into the fold, went outside of the norm when looking for those who would succeed. I wrote Gottii in as a drug addict and a murderer, but I really got a kick out of a ruthless lawyer and embezzeler being picked out to be a Valklear. Because that lawyer and embezzeler is probably more likely to succeed at the training, and be able to show initative, self-motivation and discipline, and independent thinking on a covert mission, than your typical street thug.
So I think the recruiters would have to look for a combination of smarts, aggression, social skills (to work as a unit, a unit of loners goes no-where), with just the right mixture of pathological personalities while avoiding outright, full-blown sociopaths (who arent going to stay and fight for their buddies or anyone else for that matter). I would imagine the training is heavy on unit-forming and team building, even more so than standard military infantry training, since you need to weed out the people so anti-social they simply cant work with others even when their lives depend on it.
The whole "your history is erased, and your name is changed" thing kinda threw me for a ret-conning loop, but at least it makes for a better reason why Gottii was allowed into capsuleer training in the first place. If they make these murders and thieves generals, why not a pod pilot?
At any rate, if anyone is interested, my blog already has a couple stories about some of Gottii's experiences in the Valklear, told from a first person perspective. Im actually really pleased with the recruiting story, since it jives a lot with the chronicle itself, and was written and posted a couple days before the chronicle was published. And I was even able to find a place for the "Im not here to train you. Im here to kill you" quote, and not come off too terribly cheesy (I hope).
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Topic: [Chronicle] Valklears (Read 6343 times)