House Venn
Subject: Tip me in the right direction to clean this up, my boy
Date: 14 Nelona 12730
I still exchange holocalls with a few of you lads around the anniversary of the Battle of Falling Sky. You're good lads. A few of your siblings took retirement and moved back here around Telona of 'Seven-twenty-three, now they're among my neighbors.
Bariz, Gate, and Mir run that pit barbecue in the autumn. Good stuff. Good way to end the day after working on the harvest. Some hot food, sit at those tables they made out of old starfighter wrecks, drink some of that beer their cousins brew, listen to a ball game on the longwave. Nice.
The cousins are Pru and Coil Hayc. Scary looking lads, for sure, especially Pru with that glowing robot eye of his. He keeps talking about getting his ma to swap it out for a vat-grown "original". Every couple of months I remind him that he gets headaches from it early every spring. He says he can't travel when it hurts, and he's got too much else to do when it don't hurt. I think what really bothers him is that he'll have to learn precision shooting all over again when he don't have a built-in rangefinder.
T'other night, I finally ask Coil and Gate what the hell keeps Pru dragging his heels. This winter'ud be a good time for an operation and recovery and some drills. They give each other one of them looks, then Gate shrugs and Coil nods and they grab some plates for themselves and take me off to sit by the memorial wall.
Now, I know anywhere you get people, you get drama. That's just life.
But dang!
If I got this right: Most of the cousins are members of something called "House Venn". It's not like a Vor House, exceptin' that it is: you got to look at how a bunch of Low Vor Houses will all be part of a Great House. Like, House Vorfalin was part of House Vorbarnaba. It's a political Vor thing. Well, House Venn is a political Mando thing, sort of the same idea, with most of the two hundred or so "cousins" having registered or declared or however the Mandalorians say "this is an official House now".
And then some of you lads opted in, some more deeply than others.
Do I have all that right so far?
I don't know if it's more of a church or a voting faction, honest. I don't think the older Mandalorians know, either. If they do, they ain't wasting outsiders' time by getting into details.
But the thing is, what Coil tells me, some other faction call themselves Death Watch and say that House Venn cannot be a thing. Their points are, one, that the Jedi are all assholes so you can't name a Mando thing in honor of one.
Obviously all you lads and all your cousins got a serious problem with the first point. You'll agree how plenty of Jedi throughout history might be assholes, but Sela Venn is the name at the center of the memorial wall because she protected her people with her life.
I get that. I surely do.
And then the Death Watch loudmouths throw down a second point. The people of the Ghost Fleet, the people of the 257th, they cannot be a Mando House because they cannot be Mando in the first place. Because of how they were raised. Because a trained fighter who takes off his helmet is a person without a soul.
I tell you what. That's nonsense. Utter nonsense. I don't know much about being Mandalorian, but I know telling former child soldiers that they can't be a part of a warrior religion because they now have lives besides "faceless cannon fodder", that is the sin. I don't care what old screed you point at.
So Pru'dar Hayc won't go get a natural eye to replace his cyborg one because these Death Watch fanatics might take advantage of his weakness.
I ain't a man to watch my neighbors suffer because of some loudmouth's posturing.
If it was a Vor problem, I would file a complaint to my Count's Voice. I would petition for Count Vortapani to make sure his vassal can have the right care.
Little bit stumped on the Mandalorian thing, though. I still don't get how Mandalorian Houses are supposed to work. Judge Lou Welch says there's a "Mand'alor" but that would be like someone way out at the end of Reena Province jumping their troubles straight up to the Emperor.
Lou also says I can drop a line to the Beskar Aran Chaplain, might be over on Allandor these days. I think that's likely to make things worse pretty fast. But it gave me the idea, I could record a letter to you, lad. I reckon you know who ought best to be smacking them Death Watch yahoos down, eh? Write me who I should be writing for fast results, first, and then take your time to explain this whole "Mando House" thing better to an old man.
It's been a few years since the family reunion was here at Thistleberry Grange. Rico likely already made arrangements for this year, but tell him that the usual date in 'Seven-thirty-one will be right after the end of harvest season here. That's a good time to bring everyone in for a visit. Come in a little early, you and me can go flying around sunrise. You'll like the rebuilt Uglies I got parked in the shed.
History
VNY's notes:
Author's advisory: If you're providing spiritual or mental health support to any of the Clone Troopers currently resident in Tapani Sector, you may need a bit of context for some stresses ongoing in their extended support network. For your use, I am detailing the information that the affected people have cleared me to post in public.
I have run final drafts of this message past six members of House Venn:
- two that I have known for more than five years and can expect to provide unguarded feedback,
- one with whom I have a year-plus friendly relationship that I know is in the thick of this thing,
- one with whom I have a long-term cordial professional association as his Chaplain,
- one with whom I have a year-plus civil acquaintance as her designated Chaplain who received independent confirmation that I would take criticism and correction sincerely from respected mutual contacts,
- and one who is publicly known for disliking me on spec but has the maturity and self-respect to be accurate in his feedback. (Druu, if your client asks.)
Everything in this edition is approved by the lot, as sufficiently accurate data at time of publication for operational purposes and as containing no boundary-crossing private information.
I cannot emphasize enough how important it will be to check the current state of affairs according to your client before making any key decisions.
- published 17 Melona 12729
House Venn is a Mandalorian House begun by -- but not exclusive to -- veterans of the Venn Ghost Fleet mission. They took their initial guidance on the process from Jaing Skirata of Clan Skirata with additional advice and recommendations directly from The Mand'alor. At founding, Jaing stood in as proxy for the official head of the House while Commander Loren, Sgt. Sev, and Sgt. Striker took a few months to prove themselves as Mandalorians.
Since that first wave, the House has grown to a little over two hundred members, only a fraction of whom have further organized into affiliated Clans. Everyone expects the total membership number and the number of Clan affiliations to rise each month for at least two standard years before it settles.
The stress comes in when a different faction of Mandalorian culture, one calling itself Death Watch, decides that the entire Galaxy needs its oversight on what everyone does. The current leaders of Death Watch are, to put it bluntly, everything-ist meatheads. Spent your childhood doing something other than learning how to wear armor and shoot people? You're not really a person because you lack a proper soul; you're a target. Follow a different religion? You're not really a person because you lack a proper soul; you're a target. Do something with your life other than looking for fights to get into? You're not really a person because you lack a proper soul; you're a target. Have informed, consenting sexual activity while taking sensible precautions to prevent procreation? You're not really a person because you lack a proper soul; you're a target. Physical or mental disabilities that limit or prevent strict compliance with the strictest possible readings of the Six Actions? You're not really a person because you lack a proper soul; you're a target, and if you used to be a person, you're also an embarrassment.
The only way to GET a soul (and stop being a target) is to swear to the Creed, put on whatever armor you can afford including a helmet, and live more fundamentalist-like than the actual leaders dictating this thing are living. Forever. Loudly. And you can't do it if you are from certain specific origins.
Not all members of the Death Watch faction are quite this fundamentalist. (But all of them would probably call me a "sorcerer" and look for a good chance to shoot me dead, mind!) But none of them openly disagree with their leadership on these xenophobic positions, possibly because none of them want their peers to declare them soulless traitors.
"Naturally", scare quotes intended: one of the origins that make a person forever ineligible for meathead-approved Mando-ness is being a designed person.
I think this is because this clause is the only way said leaders can soothe their bruised egos over Spar becoming The Mand'alor instead of one of them.
Since designer persons cannot be truly Mando, it automatically follows that TCs cannot be Mando. And anybody who says otherwise, especially anybody who helps them become "false Mando'ade", is by definition a soulless traitor.
You see the problem here.
Type
Geopolitical, Great house
Leader
Subsidiary Organizations
Related Ethnicities
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