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“A militia sir?” Cody asked. He was familiar with the concept, but this was the first that the 212th had run into such a thing on a Republic planet.
“Indeed.” The General’s smile looked both wry and sorrowful. “Their enlistment rates jumped at the outbreak of the war. It seems that many people still believe the Old Lie.” Cody could practically hear the capital letters.
“The Old Lie sir?” Waxer asked, confusion writ clear in his voice.
“Yes.” The General stroked his beard, considering. “It’s a reference to an old poem written by a Jedi during the Jedi-Sith War of the early 2600s, which is itself a reference to an older poem written just prior to the Treaty of Coruscant.”
There was a pause and then he continued.
“The earlier poem is an adulation of the soldier and of warfare. The later poem contrasts both that and the propaganda sentiments of the time, which encouraged a similar sort of adulation.”
Another pause and then the General began, in a tone different from any other Cody had heard from him, to recite the poem.
The briefing room rang with silence as the General stopped speaking, all of them trying to absorb what they had just heard.
The 212th had yet to encounter a gas attack on the field of battle, but they had been trained for it on Kamino. It was horrible, to be dosed with various kinds of gas and to feel its affects. Many of them had had symptoms that lasted long after training when they didn’t get their bucket on fast enough, and Cody had known more than one brother who had had to be decommissioned for failure in gas training. He didn’t like the thought of any Jedi having to deal with that bucketless, as Kenobi would be, it couldn’t possibly be good for them.
“What does it translate to sir?” Iiaa, their head comms officer asked after a few minutes.
“It’s Old Coruscanti, it translates approximately to ‘it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s homeland.’” The General said softly.
It reminded Cody of the teachings of the trainers. If they had thought them anything similar to that, it was that it was sweet and fitting to die for the Republic, but many of them fought and died for their vode and for their Jedi.
He wondered what the General fought for, what he had enlisted for, what drove him to keep fighting, if he believed some variation of the Old Lie.