A small infant opens his eyes. He has just born. He is in a shiny, white hall. Tall, slender creatures are walking around him, they are working with cloning vats. One of those tall beings comes to him, a female one. She greets the new-born babies. Her voice is sweet, soft, and filled with love. An other three small babies get the same welcome in the same room. They are the future members of the Delta Squad, we are at Kamino, and we hear the dependable voice of Taun We.

"Greetings young one. I am Taun We. You are a small clone. You are the property of the Republic. We were expecting you." The infant "Boss", "Fixer", "Sev", "Scorch" has been born.

These are the first screens of the FPS game called Republic Commando. This is the first time when you see those clones, who you can direct through an important period of their life. For a short antecedent you can see some flashing pictures about their life's first minutes, then later their educations, practices, drills, and combat simulations. They don't have names. They have identifiers. These are only numbers, but later they stick nick names one an other. Here are our heroes, and their identifiers:

Republic Commando characters

RC-1162 Scorch

RC-1207 Sev

RC-1140 Fixer

RC-1138 Boss, that is your character

RC is for Recon Commando. The clones identify each other with the last two digit of their ID. Even they call themselves with those numbers, so e.g. Scorch thinks on himself as six-two. Kinda prison feeling, ain't it? Prisoner 1162, you have a visitor! Captive 1207 hold your pot, here is your soup! :)

For us, this is weird. Human mind identifies the name of the person as the part of the ego. We identify ourselves with our names, if we hear somebody calling our names we turn to him. Our name is our identity, as a matter of fact almost equal as our self-awareness. But the clones don't care about this. But Master Obi-wan Kenobi was not able to call his men on their numbers. We all know an example, the name "Cody" was given by Kenobi. But he named an other clone, too. A clone commander from the elite ARC trooper Alfa squad was named Alfa. So practically Obi-wan was the godfather of two clones... :)

Six-Two earned the nickname "Scorch" after an ordnance accident during training that left him without eyebrows for a short time. This is rather a mockery nickname. Once, during a mission Boss refers to this accident, saying "just get us inside without killing the squad, okay Scorch?". However they all trust him, and vica-versa. The Delta squad could not have been so successful, if they haven't trusted one an other, as a small group of four they are dependent on one an other. Nevertheless they always play somebody up, not just Scorch, but the others, too.

Clone training:

The four clones got perfect training in tactics, in warfare strategies, and were trained physically, too. They had to study many thing when they were younger, they were sitting in front of their monitors all the time in their small blue outfits. Even when playing they had to learn much.

They had physical education, too. They were trained by Walon Vau. They were trained specially, and were handled differently then the ordinary clones. They were planned to be a special force one day. They will get special missions behind enemy lines, they will have to do important tasks quickly, silently, in a perfect harmony with each other. They will have to operate every machinery, will have to be able to kill with any weapon, they will have to get through all doors, and will have to slice in all computers. If they won't have a firearm to use, they have to be prepared to fight with bare hands, or with a vibroblade fast and deadly.

British special force SAS worked in enemy territory pretty the same way during the second world war. They got special missions. They did not have to fight on the fronts, as the other foot soldiers. They did not have to kill everybody that came by, but rather had to neutralize only the target person if that were possible. But mostly they didn't have to kill a person, but to take photo of a secret document, or to spy and find out enemy plans or moves, or to get data on new innovations, to destroy enemy objects, or to hold important locations till the arrival of the reinforcement. Well, these sort of missions are almost all available in the games nowadays, so Repcom also gives you these kinda tasks! Great veteran soldiers supervised the reality of military actions when planning the game. Delta squad is a special squad, an elite team, and it is an honor to be a member of it. They were respected by the foot clones, and were received special treatment. If there were an extremely difficult situation, or a dangerous task, or any of those special missions that I mentioned about the SAS above, Delta Squad were sent to the spot.

Missions:

Let me mention some of their missions in brief. Just a few moments of the Delta squad, a few events that this commando took part. As Battle of Geonosis has ended on the battlefield, it was just started for the Delta. After the seen events of Episode II, Republic Commando characters was secretly transported near the HQ of Sun Fac, and they were sent down into the catacombs under the droid factory levels to find and assassin the geonosian commander. They were flown in individually, dispersed. So first they had to rendezvous on the surface. All 3 team members was first seen while doing some very typical of them. For example Scorch was found as detonating a big machine for us, or Sev was first seen while in close combat with a droid. After your Delta squad is teamed up, you gotta fight many droids, and geonosians to get in to the catacombs and to find Sun Fac. They/or rather we manage to find that talented geonosian warlord, who almost escaped, but in the last moment we can shoot down his starfighter.

The developers invented a very unique new battle droid. The droids have big "eyes", they have round vision sensors, that seems like a spectacles. That is funny, seems like that glasses that Harry Potter has, or that clever dwarf had in the cartoon "Smurfs". :) Despite the droids wear glasses, they still pretty inaccurate. :-) If you wanna spare some ammo, just run them down, and finish them with your wrist blade, they will fire around you even if you are in front of them. :-) I will mention this wrist blade later on, but let me tell you a nice bug about this! The best way to take out a shielded destroyer droid to run to it, and start stabbing it through its shield with your blade, a few stabs, and the destroyer is down! If you kill them, any type of droids, or even the trandoshans and the geonosians, their blood or hydraulic liquid will/can be sprayed into your face. But fortunately, your helmet has a self-cleaning system, that will clean away the dirt from your eyes. That is a cool effect, also very nice when your helmet cleans the rain drops.

Let's go back to their missions. So after taking out Sun Fac, they had to prevent a Confederacy ship to escape with steeling its launch codes, and before the whole ship had been detonated, they had to reach the escape point, and leave behind the destroyed CIS ship.

Later, on the board of the Assault Ship (that is the early form of the imperial star destroyers) called Prosecutor most of the Delta team members had been injured and captured. The only unnoticed, and unhurt Boss (that's you) gotta find and rescue the others. After healing them the squad continued the planned mission, what was to destroy a drop ship that was a business between the trandoshans and the CIS. (The Trandoshans were conspiring to sell the ship to the Separatists to buy battle droids.) After that they had to survive a huge attack of droids, and to hold their positions while the reinforcement arrived.

At Kashyyyk they free Tarfful, who will be the future leader of the Wookie army, and one of the organizers of the resistance in the time of Episode III. They will meet General Grievous here, but unfortunately they cannot capture him, but they defeat some of his Magnaguards. They destroy the bridge of Kachirno (a Wookie city), they free the Citadel, then they disperse again, to capture 4 heavy Anti-Air turrets in 4 locations, to be able to prevent the landing of the CIS fleet, that wanna start the invasion of Kashyyyk.

Equipments and Armaments:

During the training years all 4 Delta commando gained weapon mastery with all kinda weapons. So practically any of the members are able to use any weapons under any circumstances. However they are all experts, each Delta clone has a preferred duty or weapon.

Boss is the brain of the squad, he has a good strategic thinking, he understands the field tactics, and uses it perfectly, he decides quickly, and mostly chooses the best alternative. Delta commando trust him, and obey his orders immediately, without thinking.

Fixer can fix everything, and is able to repair all kinda military stuff. Also, he slices the computers, the opening mechanism of the doors, and the security systems.

Where you can't get in gently with codes, there you gotta breech. Scorch is the demolition expert. He uses the demolition packs, timed bombs, door breech plastics, trap mines, and sometimes the anti-armor explosives.

Sev is the master of vibroblade, martial art, and hand-to-hand fight. Aggressive, fast moving, but in the meantime very strong. Also, he is maybe the best sniper of the team, so mostly he takes the sharpshooter positions on the battlefield.

But in the game that won't be so differenced. In general, all 4 clones use the same armament. Their main (and practically the only) weapon is the DC-17m Republic clone blaster rifle.

You will attach later extra attachments on this rifle. You'll soon find the sniper attachment, an ion pulse equipment, which contains a scope, an electromagnetic zoom (10x-20x), and a laser target system. This equipment can take a magazine with 5 bullets, and they have 4 of these magazines, so each commando can shoot 20 aimed shots per rifle. This rifle is mostly related to Sev, but that is not only his duty, the other 3 Republic Commando characters can use it almost the same accurate.

Later we get the Anti-armor attachment. It is a thick barrel, you can load in those rockets that can be seen on Scorch's right thigh. He stores 2 cylinder-like ammunition in that holder, this charge can destroy an SBD (Super battle droid - as they say it short), its armor can't ward off this big firepower. This charge is also good against spider walkers, but you gotta pump several of these anti-armor charges till it goes down. This weapon is often mismatched with Scorch, but in the game YOU will use it with Boss in most cases.

This is their armament. They have a small pistol too, but this DC-15s Side Arm Blaster is very weak, has a short range, but if you are short of ammo, or out of ammo you can protect yourself at least. But this is not a big deal. Also, Republic Commando has some great grenades, and detonators.

As the last resort they can use the vibro knives, that they have under their armor attached on their wrist. This is kinda Wrist blade, similar that the Predator has. This is a hand-to-hand weapon, that Predators use to "scalp" the enemy, which means they cut the enemy's head off. They dehydrate the heads, and put the dried heads into their treasury, to be able to prove and verify for their grandchildren some 40 years later how a big hero the grandpa was. :-)

But Delta commando use it for an other reason. They like this weapon for quite missions, attacking enemy from behind, silently and quickly killing him with the blade. Except Sev... Who enjoys to fence with that, he likes to jump into close combat, and spinning amongst the hordes of enemy troops, and killing them with his wrist blade. It is like a deadly dance, but he is covered with the blood and/or the hydraulic liquid of his dance partners...

Their helmet is a special helmet. Maybe because of Sev's death dance, it was developed to clear off the dirt from the visor. No matter if it was blood or any kind of liquids, the helmet automatically wipes it off. With this method the Republic Commando clones can always see during the combat. Very similar that the Formula 1 pilots have many layers on their helmet, and if one became dirty, they tear it down, and throw it away, so the can see on the track. They usually have some rubber pieces, or water- or oil drops to clean off, while Delta clones have blood, rain, or hydraulic liquid getting on their visors. But anyway, both professions need a continuous eye sight, and both need to see every small details to survive the danger!

In the night, and in the dark areas, too. So the helmet has  a special "night vision mode" which amplifies the light, and makes it possible to continue the fight in the dark, too. It is very similar (again) with one of the Predator's vision modes. They have 3 modes. First is good against humans, this amplifies the heat of their body, or their aura, the second is good against Aliens, and the third is good for detecting hostile Predators, who wears the cloaking field on them, which makes them invisible. This vision mode makes me remember delta clones' night vision mode.

Maybe one of their most indispensable equipments is the reviving kit. This is a small equipment, but this can help to save the life of a severely injured team member. Putting it on his heart you can bring him back from agony. Even if dying, the revived clone can be healed up to the maximum vitality, just send him into a large bacta machine, or into this small bacta equipment which can be found on the wall at several locations of the game. J

Figures:

An action figure of Scorch was made by Hasbro in early 2006 with the permission of Lucasarts, to make a memento for the game Republic Commando. Soon there was released the geonosian commander, Sun Fac. And in 2007 the rest of Delta Squad were turned into action figures as an exclusive set of the four Delta clone along with three Geonosian warriors. But it contained the same Scorch and Sun Fac figures again, that we already had, but also the two other geonosians were just a repainted figures.

Sun Fac

A great warlord, with a big strategic potential. Sun Fac served as Poggle the Lessers's chief lieutenant. He was an aristocrat geonosian, his royal outfit is gorgeous. His chest armor is ornamented, made of gold, has some gemstones on it, and is really splendid. Even his inguinal belt is very exquisite. A great figure! There were some geonosians available in the shops, but I think Sun Fac is the best of them! He has a beautiful painting not only on his outfit, but also on his body. His skin was painted greenish, and brownish. His thigh is prickly! This insect-like look makes him really cool. It comes with a kinda spear. This is different then the worker geonosian's goad. It is better, and nicer. Its handle is in the middle, it is abraded black. He also have a stronger sonic weapon, which is a dangerous weapon in the game, especially the laser beamed, new type!

Sun Fac aristocratic position was evident in his insect-like wings, as well as the tusks at the edge of his mouth. Like most other Geonosian aristocrats, he was ruthless in his management of the wingless worker geonosians. Sun Fac's right eye has either been sealed shut or entirely missing. The large scar across his face suggests his missing eye was due to a battle wound, or a duel. It can be well seen on the figure, too.

Sun Fac was the right-hand of Poggle the Lesser. He knew the plans about the preparing Death Star. He was present as Poggle the Lesser presided over Amidala's trial, where Padme was found guilty of treason, and sentenced to death in the Geonosian arena. Sun Fac was an intelligent and creative geonosian, not a simple geonosian, maybe that was the reason he was released as an action figure.

After the battle of geonosis Sun Fac wanted to escape, he did manage to get in his starfighter, but as the ship lifted from the landing platform, it was shot in its engine by clone commando RC-1207 (Sev), the sharpshooter of Delta Squad. The engine has severely damaged in the explosion, and with a thick smoke it crashed back into the platform with Sun Fac perishing in the cockpit.

Scorch

"62" has a quite nice painting. He is having mostly yellow-white-gray colors all over his armor. There are dirty spots on his leg and on his stomach. He looks pretty cool. He has a real good stance in the box, but after you opened it, you may be a little bit disappointed, as it seems you can't articulate it too much. The figure has articulation points in its neck, shoulder, wrist, and thigh. His rifle is the already mentioned DC-17m clone rifle. He is holding it in his hand, and already had attached the anti-armor attachment. On his right thigh there are two more anti-armor shells in that storage tank. You can remove that storage, bud sadly there will remain the strap, the was holding the storage. Also, there will be a hole in Scorch's thigh. So I suggest you to let that storage tank on his thigh. It looks better with it anyways.