Jos Vondar

"Sometimes I feel like finding whoever started this rankweed war and performing a pneumonectomy with my bare hands"

―Jos Vondar^[2]

Jos Vondar was a Human male Corellian surgeon who served the Galactic Republic as chief medical officer of Republic Mobile Surgical Unit 7 during the Clone Wars. While stationed at Republic Mobile Surgical Unit 7 on Drongar, he forged a close friendship with his roommate, Zabrak surgeon Zan Yant, as well as Sullustan reporter Den Dhur, protocol droid I-5YQ, Padawan Barriss Offee, Equani therapist Klo Merit and—after Zan Yant's unfortunate death—with his roommate Kornell 'Uli' Divini. Yet the most important relationship he formed while on Drongar was with the Lorrdian nurse Tolk le Trene, with whom he fell in love. By falling in love and marrying an Ekster (a non-Corellian), he was shamed in the eyes of his culture. Even Admiral Erel Kersos, Jos’ great-uncle, tried to intervene in the relationship to avoid that his great-nephew didn’t go through the same trauma he had, yet Vondar stood his ground and convinced him of otherwise.

As the battles on Drongar were coming to a head, Vondar proved himself to be a hero by killing Klo Merit, who was discovered to be a double-agent spy who had infiltrated their Rimsoo and was working for both the Separatists and the criminal organization Black Sun. He also found an unexpected support in his great-uncle Erel, who wanted to return with him to Corellia and Tolk, to help them build a relationship against the family tradition.

Biography

Jos Vondar was born and raised in a small farm town on Corellia,^[3] in a temperate zone where the weather was pleasant most of the year, and even during the rainy season it was mild. There were a lot of doctors in his family, and several surgeons; the Vondars and the Kersos, his father’s and mother’s clans, were very solidly enster, disciples of a long and traditional sociopolitical affiliation in which Jos had also been raised. A big part of an enster’s core belief system was that no marriage could be made, much less consummated, outside the inhabitants of one’s own planetary system.^[1] At six years of age, Jos had never been off-world, and the only sighting of aliens he’d had were at a distance. So when the subject of outlanders came up in the school rec-dome, it had been puzzling to him. He had asked his father about it on one of the rare evenings in which he had been home and not working at the clinic. It had taken him some time to work up the courage to approach him. His father was never violent, and Jos had no doubt that the man loved him. But he was big; when he stood, he towered over Jos. And he could be loud, very loud, though never when he was talking to his son. In retrospect, it was clear that his father had not been ready for that conversation. What Jos recalled of the time was that, once he had approached and told him about his schoolmates’ talk, his father had stopped whatever he was doing and took his time on trying to explain to Jos in a ludic way the complexities of their family tradition. Only by living the paradigm himself, decades later, Jos finally had a much better idea of what his father meant.^[2] When he was twenty, Vondar left home to Coruscant, the planetary capital of the Republic, and became a student at medical school. Subsequently, he did his internship at the “Big Zoo”, the unofficial name of Galactic Polysapient, the multi-sentient-species medcenter on Alderaan.^[2]

Serving the Republic

By the time of the Clone Wars, Jos was stationed on Drongar, attained the rank of captain and was named Chief Surgeon at Rimsoo Seven, reporting to Colonel D'Arc Vaetes.^[3] Vondar didn’t have any believe in the Force until he met Barriss Offee, who was stationed at Rimsoo Seven some two years after the Battle of Geonosis. He knew very little about it – not even how to test for it, because that knowledge was supposedly reserved for the Jedi. He was aware of the power of the mind-body connection, of course, but he had no talents in that direction. Though he’d heard about the Force all his life, he’d never really believed such a thing could exist until he met the Jedi Padawan, who not only demonstrated to him in locum and in real time, but also saved him in another occasion, as well as challenged his credo regarding the “human” nature of the clones. Jos had seen evidence of individuation, but only in areas that didn’t interfere with their ability to fight, or their loyalty to the Republic. He’d often heard them referred to disparagingly as “meat droids”…he didn’t care for the term, but as a description, it seemed apt. Nevertheless, after his brief but impactful encounters with CT-914 – and his subsequent demise – assisted by his appointments with the Empath Klo Merit, who also challenged the chief surgeon’s beliefs about highly advanced artificial living forms – like the one of I-5YQ - Jos’ view of life was gradually shaken up and turned into an existential conundrum he hardly could wrestle with.^[1]

Additionally, as the culmination of all his personal dilemmas, Jos Vondar found himself physically and emotionally attracted to the Lorrdian nurse Tolk le Trene, even though he knew any relationship they could have would go against his Ensterite background. The more extreme zealots restricted it even further, refusing to allow any affiliations offplanet. No exceptions were made. Yes, a young man or woman could go offworld, and yes, even the staunchest Ensterites might turn a blind eye if a son or a daughter somehow managed a temporary alliance with one of the Ekster – the “outsiders” – it wasn’t spoken of in polite circles, but it was done. However, one could not bring an ekster home to meet one’s parents. That was simply not done.^[2]

Despite the fact Tolk indeed offered him the chance of a relationship, even if it was brief and uncommitted, Jos did not like nor was he comfortable with the idea of brief liaisons. He decisively changed his mind, nonetheless, after the tragic death of his co-worker and friend Zan Yant – a dedicated surgeon and a wonderful musician – and decided to engage on a full committed love affair with the nurse.^[1] Consequently, their relationship was put to the test when Jos’ great-uncle, Admira Erel Kersos, was positioned as the new Commanding Officer of the MedStar-class frigate, replacing Admiral Tarnese Bleyd after his murder by an assassin in 20 BBY. An Ensterite surgeon like Jos himself, coming from his mother’s clan, speaker of the High Tongue inclusively, Erel’s name wasn’t totally unfamiliar to Jos. Somewhere during his boyhood, he and a cousin had discovered in the family archives fragments of broken holograms – shattered images of, among others, the young man who had thrown away his heritage and been disowned by the family he chose to abandon. By all that was strict and proper, Jos knew he wasn’t allowed to address Erel Kersos at all, save as a military subordinate replying to a superior officer. Great-Uncle Erel was still a non-permes – the social and personal invisibility did not diminished with time, or even with death. Yet, because of the relationship he chose to engage with an ekster female and his determination to keep it that way, the prohibition against speaking to a shunned relative didn’t seem quite such a major infraction. Until Kersos himself decided to meddle with his great-nephew’s relationship.^[2]

Determined to “spare him of grief” due to the trauma of his own personal experience, Erel had a private conversation with Tolk le Trene on the matter, and explained the situation regarding his and Jos’ culture in such a way that it convinced her to request for a transfer to Rimsoo 3, across the Sea of Sponges, a thousand klicks north away from Jos. At first, Vondar could not fathom why Tolk left him until later on, after daysunder high stress and fighting depression, in a moment of epiphany, he realized how his great-uncle intervened in his relationship with the nurse, and in an exasperated move, he went to see Admiral Kersos in his office abord the Medstar, demanding explanations for his inconvenient act. After a severe debate in which Jos was, in several moments, at the verge of physically assaulting his great-uncle, and even the state of the Ensterite culture and values were put to the test, with Jos eventually bringing up how the practice of Hustru fönster became more widespread in their homeworld, Erel - who mirrored his younger self in Jos in that moment - decided to support his great-nephew’s choice, and corrected his mistake by having Tolk transferred back to Rimsoo 7. After the Battle of Drongar, convinced his family’s beliefs were not his anymore, Jos chose to marry Tolk. He returned to Corellia and, with the support of his great-uncle Erel Kersos, decided to face his family on at least trying to reason with them over his decision.^[2]

Facing moral battlefields

Jos Vondar’s medical ethics were put to the test as well during his service on Drongar. Only a couple of days after the death of his friend Zan Yant, he had to operate on an enemy combatant – a Separatist mercenary, who was also a male Zabrak – Colonel Sar Omant, of the Freelance Mercenary Corps. Vondar later found out that Omant was the commander of the strike force of bios and droids who led the charge against their Rimsoo camp – which resulted on Zan’s death. With Sar’s sarcastic comments and total lack of repentance, and the operation itself considered of high risk – thirty, maybe forty percent chance of survival – Jos fiercely struggled between his grief and anger of somehow “doing justice” for Zan’s death by letting the Zabrak mercenary die, and his medical code of honor and conduct, as well as his consciousness as a person. Even Barriss Offee, who sensed Vondar’s wrath through the Force, tried to intervene in a way, in order to avoid that the Corellian surgeon’s darkest impulses maculated his deeds. Eventually, all the Jedi padawan could do was, watching over from afar through the Force, to regulate the anesthesia given to Sar Omant, who was fairly resistant to it. Ultimately, after a brief but profound and edifying conversation with the minder Klo Merit in the [[Refresher/Legends|refresher], Jos let go of his anger and reflected that the best way to serve his friend’s memory was by doing what he did best: saving lives.^[4]

Jos with patient . — Jos with patient Sar Omant.

As the battles on Drongar were coming to a head, after several weeks of investigation, Bariss Offee concluded that, in a process of elimination, the spy behind the sabotage acts in their camp was Klo Merit. The Equani Empath had infiltrated their Rimsoo and was working for both the Separatists and the criminal organization Black Sun with the codenames of Column and Lens, respectively. Soon after this revelation, Jos Vondar went personally to face Merit, who was on the run, at first pretty decided to shoot him to kill. But after listening to Klo’s testimony and motivations – the undoing of his homeworld being the Republic’s fault, which never took any accountability for – Jos hesitated for a while. Following a debate in which both doctors were measuring the pain and grief of losing one being in comparison to losing billions, Vondar concluded that killing Merit wouldn’t bring anyone he cared back, but he couldn’t let him go either, and so he fired at him. In the wake of an explosion and his subsequent unconsciousness, Jos woke up at the Sickbay One on Medstar, as he was treated by Lieutenant Divini, Tolk le Trene and Bariss Offee. He was congratulated by both his superiors Colonel D'Arc Vaetes and Admiral Erel Kersos, as well as his fellow colleagues, for doing the right thing. Despite his personal conflict triggered by the fact that he as a doctor, had killed a sentient being on purpose - regardless it was the right thing to do – all Jos Vondar could do was to learn how to deal with that fact for the rest of his life.^[2]

Personalities and traits

"I guess I’m just not a very introspective sort. My family and clan are big on tradition, not communication. My dad’s idea of revealing moment is forgetting to lock the ‘fresher."

―Jos Vondar to Klo Merit^[1]

Jos Vondar was known to be a formidable surgeon; he knew how to slice and splice the innards of a dozen species, including his own. That was his talent, his gift, and he was very good at it. So good that at times he felt almost bored with the routine plumbing repairs he had to make, for the most part, on the clones. He very rarely lost one, and when he did, due to sepsis or hidden trauma or some other nasty surprise, it was hard to feel too much grief. Consequently, like so many others in his profession, he was a pragmatist – he believed in what was real, what was quantifiable and measurable.^[1]

Additionally, Jos was somewhat a skeptical and cynical individual. The dire and calamitous conditions of his work on Drongar as well as the Clone Wars overall made him learn pretty quickly how to cope with whatever was wrong at the moment and not worry about future problems until he had to; the mental equivalent of a triage. Due to his overwhelming workload and lack of any regular sleeping schedule, one of the very little entertainments he had – and perhaps coping mechanisms - was drinking and playing sabacc in Rimsoo 7’s only cantina with his co-workers and friends. It was a way of relaxing and rebuilding for the next onslaught of blood and pain, as well as for the next hour or two being able to disconnect from the war.^[2]

Furthermore, Vondar wasn’t a very meditative kind of person, although he presented, not infrequently, signs of wistfulness or melancholic periods. Mostly due to the conditions of his environment yet also, and especially, due to his personal dilemma triggered by him falling in love with the Lorrdian nurse Tolk le Trene, and ultimately deciding to be with her. Because of his Ensterite background, his relationship with Tolk was technically forbidden. Even though on his world it was acceptable – barely – that a young unmarried person might go forth into the galaxy and sample the pleasures of Ekster company. It wasn’t spoken of in polite circles, but it was done. Then the young, having got it out of their systems, were to return home, find a spouse from a proper enster family, and settle down. But even in his younger and wilder days, Jos had never been comfortable with the idea of brief liaisons. He’s done it, of course, but the essentially meaningless encounters had weighed heavily upon him; at the core of his being, Jos knew that there would only be one love in his life, and that he should not be unfaithful to her – even if he did so before he ever met her.^[1] He concluded that, despite his rotations on Coruscant and Alderaan, during which dozens of sentients had been laid open before him, even though he no longer spoke the High Tongue or observed the Purging Days – even then, though he fancied himself fairly galactopolitan… the interdiction, the barrier between his kind and all others, had worked for him on a deep level, so deep he hadn’t even realized its power…until he decided to finally break away from it. Jos not only acknowledged that his persona should not be predefined by his family name or culture, but also understood that his choices should not be measured by a credo he ceased to believe in.^[2]

Behind the scenes

"I've always imagined him as the Star Wars equivalent of Hawkeye Pierce."

―Daniel Wallace, on Jos Vondar^[5]

Jos Vondar was created by authors Michael Reaves and Steve Perry as the primary protagonist of the 2004 Medstar Duology of novels, Battle Surgeons and Jedi Healer.^[1]^[2] The duology was envisioned as Star Wars's answer to the M*A*S*H film and television series,^[6] and it was pitched to Reaves and Perry as "M*A*S*H in space."^[7] Both of them were large fans of both the movie and TV show and felt that doctors-during-war were interesting characters^[8]—Perry additionally had a medical background^[9]—and they made an effort to design characters who felt real, with personal problems that needed to be solved.^[8] Jos Vondar in particular has been compared by fellow Star Wars author Daniel Wallace to Hawkeye Pierce, the protagonist of the M*A*S*H franchise.^[5] In a review of Battle Surgeons posted on TheForce.net, reviewer Mike Cooper stated that he found it impossible to read any of Vondar's lines without hearing the voice of Alan Alda, the actor who played Hawkeye in the M*A*S*H TV series.^[10]

Throughout the second half of Jedi Healer, Vondar's name is misspelled "Vandar" in almost every appearance, until the epilogue when it is once again correctly spelled.^[2]