Writing Vol 3 involved a LOT of establishing things that really should have been established or better established in the previous two books. With Bocce, it was really weird that NO ONE in the first 2 books makes a comment about his arm, especially when readers always ask me about it. So I wanted to finally have someone address it so that some background could be given (more on that later). I also always planned for Bocce to have memory loss, a very important part of his character, but that was never established. Of course it would have been easy to have him mention it in Vol 1 to bond with Sky, who also had memory issues, but that ship had sailed. So in this book, I had to not only finally establish it but also come up with a reason for him to have NOT told her earlier.
Sky’s tattoo is an important part of her character but it wasn’t shown at all in Vol 2, so I wanted to clearly reintroduce it here.
Is it really weird that no one mentions his arm in the story?
How common is it for other species to have this type of replacement?
Has Bocce discussed his arm with the rest of the crew?
What if everyone in the crew decided it’s not their place to ask about his arm?
Sky is being honest, but is she fair?
Will the current situation with Bocce make her decide to leave the crew?
Where can she go?
Oops, more reader questions… 😉
I figured two things:
1. That Bocce, being the only Human-Human we see apart from flashbacks to his younger days was possibly the only species capable of making and using that sort of “prosthetic” arm. In the process, nobody asked because being a Human was probably 10 or 12 questions above the arm in the queue of what anyone would ask.
2. I genuinely thought the arm probably required nervous system augmentation and/or serious mental damage that would result in memory loss. I gleaned he had memory issues, but nowhere near this much. I would imagine the discipline and trauma it would take to control that arm is beyond what many can do. We get inklings that he has martial arts training, but to control that arm is probably something akin to if Bruce Lee was a Guild Navigator in Dune.
All that said, my going theory is that the Dhamas found Humans to be the perfect candidates for all sorts of augmentation. That’s why they are so rare in the story. They’ve been hunted and harvested to near extinction to be twisted and defiled to meet the Dhamas’ whims. Bocce is what happens when a martial arts sect of farmers evades them until the Kaagan-Vas showed up. Sky is what happens when Humans are warped into something almost wholly new.
Interesting theory. Good points.
Although, how much of what we have seen is representative of the whole Runners universe?
All really cool thoughts! I honestly can’t remember why I decided to include very human-looking characters (Bocce, Hamron, Keets, Sky kinda) in the universe other than to have some sort of physically relatable characters. In my mind though, I always imagined them as the same thing as human-looking characters in Star Wars, IE not really called out as being different from all the other aliens of the galaxy and not necessarily “human” in an Earth-related way. I hadn’t even considered that some might think the arm was just a part of whatever race he is. I could’ve had some fun with that!