The Mandalorian Wars [Star Wars]

Today we take a journey to a galaxy far, far away to explore some of the lore behind Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Specifically talking about the prelude to KOTOR with the Mandalorian Wars, where the Mandalorians (under the influence of the Sith) tried their hand at dominating the galaxy.

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Transcript

Hey there, welcome to the Lore’d to Death Podcast. My name is Brett, and today we are going to dive back into a galaxy far, far away by popular demand and explore some of the lore behind Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I got a couple comments on the KOTOR episode I did asking for more, and here it is! I figure the best place to start, since I went over the plot of KOTOR in the “why KOTOR is a perfect game” episode, is to go over the prelude to the game and cover the Mandalorian Wars, where the Mandalorians took a foothold in the galaxy and threatened to raze the core worlds. I think that, with the rising popularity of the Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett, this is a good look into what the Mandalorians really were before the events of the movies and shows. In those, we see Mandalorians as this fringe group consisting of bounty hunters and religious fanatics which is pretty far from where they got their roots as what I can only describe as space vikings. If you’re not familiar with this era of Mandalorians, you’ll understand what I mean soon enough.

Before I start, I think it’s important to set the scene with the state of the galaxy and where the Sith, Jedi, Mandalorians, and Republic are currently sitting. The start of this conflict was in 3976 BBY, before the age of the Old and High Republic, during a time where the Sith and Mandalorians had been pushed back and forced into hiding for a number of years. The Galactic Republic stood as the reigning faction in the Galaxy with the Jedi as their right hand and keepers of the peace. It’s worth noting that the Jedi at this time, while seeing themselves as the keepers of the peace, did everything in their power to not intervene in the wars of the Republic unless there was a looming Sith threat. That tidbit is VERY important to these events.

This was also about 20 years after the Great Sith War, where the Dark Lord Freedon Nadd was found influencing politics on the planet Onderon with the help of Exar Kun that led to a full assault on Coruscant in an attempt to break the foothold that the Republic and Jedi had on the galaxy. Together, the Jedi and the Republic were able to drive back the Sith, defeat Exar Kun, and force the Sith into hiding.

During this time, however, another Sith by the name of Ulic Qel-Droma was able to earn the Mandalorian’s trust by defeating their leader, Mandalore the Indomitable, and led the Mandalorians in an assault on Onderon in an attempt to put them in charge of the planet. They rode into the planet from orbit on their Basilisk Droids, a semi-sentient combat droid designed by the Basiliskan race, and began to do as Mandalorians do– raze, pillage, repeat. The sudden arrival of the Republic’s fleet quickly turned the war against their favour and the Mandalorians were forced to retreat on their Basilisk droids to Onderon’s forest moon, Dxun, where Mandalore’s Basilisk was shot down and he was devoured by creatures on the moon’s surface.

At this time, there was no darksaber ritual that you see in the Clone Wars, Rebels and the Mandalorian. At this time, there was Mandalore’s mask. If you wore the mask, the other Mandalorians would accept you as their leader. Usually one would win the mask in a duel to the death with Mandalore for the title, but in cases like this where Mandalore’s mask was abandoned with his body, the Mandalorian who found his corpse and wore the mask would be recognized as their leader. Also at this time, the predominant race of the Mandalorians was the Tuang, a large humanoid species that was native to Coruscant, that was driven from their homeworld and forced to find a new home. Their leader at the time was named Mandalore, who led the Tuangs to a new planet where they slew giant Mythosaurs that roamed the surface and tamed the wild planet. They called their new home Mandalore, and dubbed themselves Mandalorians, or Mando’ade, which means “sons and daughters of Mandalore”. I know that might seem like a bit of a tangent, but the Tuang being the predominant species of the Mandalorians is an important bit of backstory!

During this period between the Great Sith War and the Mandalorian War, the Mandalorians were defeated and largely scattered into clans across the galaxy. The Sith were in hiding, and the Republic was ushering an era of peace with the Jedi at their side. That was, until 20 years later when the Sith would once again ally themselves with the Mandalorians and begin their next galactic conquest.

Two years prior, in 3978 BBY, the current Mandalore, dubbed The Ultimate, was approached by a member of the Sith species– and yes, they were a race before the title of Sith was given to anyone who commanded the dark side of the force– who enlisted the Mandalorian’s help in locating the tomb of his master’s rival on the planet Rekkiad. Upon discovering the tomb, the mysterious emissary told Mandalore of a vision that his master had experienced of the Mandalorians sweeping across the galaxy and conquering countless worlds against the Republic before ultimately crushing them underfoot and taking control. Mandalore, being a Mandalorian during a time where they were not scattered, but a force to be reckoned with, didn’t need much convincing past the words “glory” and “indiscriminate murder.” But he was also unaware that the Sith emissary was a servant of the hidden Sith Emperor and that he was being manipulated through the force. The emissary had one goal in mind: use the Mandalorians as a weapon against the Republic to test and weaken their defences so the Sith could come in and finish the job.

Mandalore The Ultimate, under the Sith’s control, began rallying the Mandalorian clans in preparation for the impending war. He returned to Mandalorians space and began reforming the rules that Mandalorians were bound to. Firstly, they would begin openly accepting other non-Tuang species into their ranks, so as to increase their numbers, so long as they were willing to accept the Mandalorian warrior code. Second, the Mandalorians were no longer to raid, pillage, and move on to the next settlement. They were to take up fortifications and hold their newly claimed territory as a Mandalorian settlement. The point was to create a new society that would uphold Mandalorian ideals, which was quite successful and was part of the reason why they were able to get so far.

Their numbers swelled rapidly and they were dubbed as the Neo-Crusader movement under Mandalore the Ultimate, with his right-hand-man Cassus Fett. And, yes, that is THE Fett that was the predecessor to Jango and the clone army. Cassus Fett served as Mandalore’s strategist and aide, helping to unite and build the Mandalorians under his name. Through holding territory and becoming a more unified force, the Mandalorians evolved during this period to a proper civilization that consisted of more than clans fighting for space. This made them more dangerous than ever before, but the movement happened slowly enough that the Republic was none the wiser.

That brings us back to 3976 BBY– the proper start of the Mandalorian Wars. A fleet of Neo-Crusader warships raided the planet Althir III in a battle that lasted 5 days. The Althiri were unexpectedly able to hold off the Mandalorian forces until a warrior by the name of Canderous Ordo broke the stalemate. If you’ve played KOTOR, then you’ll recognize this fellow and the rough and gruff Mandalorian comrade that you recruit in the Taris Undercity. Canderous was tasked with taking the enemy flank in order to break their formation. However, he saw an opening and broke his orders by splitting his forces and forcing the Althiri to take an assault from several fronts, exposing their command ships and taking out the Althiri fleet which was 10 times the size of their own. Being almost solely responsible for their victory, Canderous Ordo was rewarded with a clan of his own to command, dubbed Clan ordo.

The battle for Althir III was the first step in the Mandalorians building a massive war machine. In a short time, they were able to mobilise a force that was able to start taking on larger planets and even the Republic. Three years later, in 3973 BBY, Cassus Fett led the Mandalorians to a planet called Cathar, home to the feline species called… well… the Cathar. Calling it a battle would imply that there was an objective resistance, but the Cathar were woefully unprepared for the slaughter that was about to happen. There was one Mandalorian woman who protested the genocide, and tried to stand in the way of the other Mandalorians, but was shot down almost immediately. And I don’t mean metaphorically, they literally shot her and everyone she was trying to protect. Basilisk war droids scoured the surface, killing over 90% of the Cathar population with only a few hundred survivors.

This was enough to garner the attention of the Republic, who, upon hearing that the Mandalorians were back to their old antics, sent a fleet over to the Dxun moon where the Mandalorians were last seen in the war years prior, as well as over the planet Taris which conveniently sat along the trade route called the Mandalorian Road which connected Mandalore to planets like Corsin and the rest of the galaxy.

Over the next several years, the Mandalorians would continue their conquest and expand their reach into Hutt Space on the eastern edge of the galaxy. They took control of trade routes along the Lianna system, following them southeast to the Kaelta and Florn system and then finally further south unto the Taskeed system where they officially encroached on Hutt Space by taking the Dennogra and Dernatine systems. The Hutts are a very territorial folk, as you might know, and resorted to hiring mercenaries to try to defend their space. The funny thing about mercenaries is that they can be easily bought out, and the ones who were tasked with defending systems against the Mandalorian threat were coerced to work against the Hutts and join the Mandalorians ranks. With that, they were able to set up an outpost on the planet Caillte as a forward operating base to invade the mid rim.

The Republic began to reinforce their fleet around Taris with their supplying planets being threatened by the Mandalorians. Taris would be their next reasonable target in the mid rim. This blockage was able to stifle the Mandalorian’s progress for a short period in 3965 BBY, already 11 years into the war. The Republic was able to stop the Mandalorians from a single victory for 8 months before they were able to take the planet Flashpoint, a weirdly named planet in the Star Wars galaxy. Flashpoint was repurposed for a fellow by the name of Demagol who captured Jedi for experimentation to see where they got their powers from so that the Mandalorians could harness that potential. This laboratory is VERY important in the next little bit.

Months after their victory on Flashpoint, the Mandalorian forces made an attempt to move forward and capture the planet Suurja. There they had an encounter with a Republic fleet under the command of Captain Saul Karath, another important name in this war, who had under his command Carth Onasi, your first permanent teammate in KOTOR. This battle resulted in a stalemate over the next couple of months.

With all of this happening so close after the Sith were on a similar warpath years earlier, you might be wondering, “where are the Jedi in all of this?” Well, I mentioned in the beginning of the episode that the Jedi were very anti-conflict at this point in time, and they did not want to get involved in any war that did not directly involve the Sith. While the Sith were pulling the strings in this war, no one could have known that at this time and so the Jedi were biding their time. Here’s where things start getting a little confusing, so I’m going to do my best to be as concise as possible.

Because the Jedi Council was not getting involved in the war, there were some Jedi who believed that there was no other end other than their involvement. These Jedi were led by one such man who advocated for revanchism, which is defined as, “a policy of seeking to retaliate, especially to recover lost territory.” This Jedi was none other than the one who would be called Revan later in the war, the protagonist of KOTOR. I’m going to refer to them as Revan, even though at this point that was not their name. What was their name? We don’t know. Seeing as they were the protagonist of an RPG, it could be whatever you want it to be and there is no canon name other than the title of Revan which comes from the term revanchist. I think canonically, it makes sense that no one knew his true name except for those close to him, and considering his eventual fall to the dark side it’s reasonable to assume that the Jedi would have scrubbed his name from their records.

Anyways, Revan started the Jedi movement against the Mandalorians with the encouragement of his master, Kreia, and a group of like-minded Jedi like his friend Alek. The council forbade them from getting involved, however, but they did so regardless at the risk of exile. The revanchists stopped in at the Jedi tower on Taris to see if they could sway the masters and padawans there to their cause, since they were so close to the war, but it ended in failure. They moved on to Suurja where they were ambushed and captured by Mandalorians and taken to Flashpoint where they were tortured by Demagol in hopes of determining where their Jedi powers came from.

Shortly after this, something was brewing at Taris that would change the war. The masters had slew their apprentices at a false knighting ceremony. The masters had a traumatic shared vision of the future where they saw not only their deaths, but the destruction of the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic. Believing that their padawans would be the ones to bring about this destruction, they struck them down in a preemptive strike. One of these padawans, Zayne Carrick, managed to escape the slaughter because he was late to the ceremony. Knowing what would happen if the news got out about masters slaying their apprentices, the masters put out a warrant for Carrick’s capture, blaming him for what would be known as the Padawan Massacre. 

He managed to evade the police on Taris, which caused public unrest and distrust that the police could adequately keep the Jedi in check which caused corporations like Lhosan Industries to pull out of Taris. This caused a massive layoff in the Taris undercity, leading to extreme poverty and a rise in gang violence that caused a mass of instability. That same day, Carrick was caught by a bounty hunter and brought back to the tower for judgement. The Jedi informed Carrick of the reasoning behind the events of the massacre before killing the bounty hunter and attempting to finish him off once and for all. However, a friend clad in red came in at the right time to save Carrick, leaving the masters with no choice but to admit failure in capturing the fugitive. This caused riots on Taris in the middle city, and the Jedi masters were reassigned to separate postings because of the public’s lack of respect for their authority after this incident. Again, this might seem like a weird tangent, but I promise it has a payoff.

The unrest on Taris and the Jedi’s withdrawal from the planet left Mandalore the Ultimate with an opening to seize the planet. He ordered his forces to attack the planet Vanquo, ending the 8 month-long stalemate with the Republic fleet’s defeat and they headed for Taris. The Republic tried to pull their forces in the system back to form a blockade around Taris, but they once again failed to form an adequate defence. Mandalorian Dreadnaughts began an orbital bombardment of the planet, bringing devastation to the already unstable Taris as they began their invasion.

Zayne Carrick, feeling pretty jaded about the Jedi, learned of a group of crusaders who were taken captive at Flashpoint. He was able to convince the Mandalorians there that the Republic had booby-trapped their ships with explosives and convinced them to leave the station while he rescued the Jedi from Demagol. Demagol managed to swap armour with one of Carrick’s crew and managed to escape conviction, and a man by the name of Rohlan Dyre was sent to Coruscant to pay for the crimes of Demagol. It’s a ridiculous Scooby-Doo level plot point, but it is what it is. With the Mandalorians constantly in foot-to-toe armour, I guess it’s easy for them to just put on another suit of armour and skedaddle.

When the Revanchists took who they believed to be Demagol back to Coruscant, they were hailed as heroes of the Republic for continuing their campaign to get the Jedi involved in the war, specifically Revan who was hailed as the Revanchist. He began travelling around, spreading the word of the Revanchists and rallying help to fight against the Mandalorian threat. One of the Revanchists, a Cathar Jedi, brought to Revan’s attention the absence of his species on their home planet. In the meantime, there was a lot happening on the warfront. The Mandalorians had Taris under siege, but were acting to secure the surrounding area to cut off any interference from the Republic along the northern rim including Ord Mantell, and a number of Zabrak colonies including their homeworld of Iridonia which they occupied and recruited several Zabrak to their ranks. Reaching further towards the core worlds, the Mandalorians set their sights on the planets Wayland and Jebble, where they set up another forward operating base to launch an attack on Alderaan. On the way, they decided to take back control of Onderon and its moon Dxun and put them back under Mandalorian control.

At this point in the conflict, there was never a more looming threat of the Mandalorian invasion of the core worlds. The Republic finally decided to start taking the situation seriously, and the galactic senate mobilised the entire Republic Navy to counter the Mandalorians threat before they reached the core worlds. Being the head of one of the only fleets that was able to keep the Mandalorians in a stalemate, Captain Saul Karath was promoted to Admiral and was sent to the planet Serraco, the next assumed target. Here, Karath set up planetary defences around heavily populated city centres, believing that the Mandalorians would take pause before commencing an orbital bombardment for fear of civilian casualties. Mandalore the Ultimate took that as a challenge to take the Republic to a seminar on “how to commit war crimes without remorse 101”.

Zayne Carrick has made his way to Serroco in the meantime, hoping to aid in the war effort against the Mandalorians. The day before the attack, he had a force vision showing him the forthcoming assault and the mass casualties that would ensue. He decided to try to get a message through to Admiral Karath, who ignored him, believing that he was a Mandalorian spy who was trying to cause a disruption. Karath ordered Carrick’s arrest, but not before allowing Carth Onasi to attempt contact with Malak, but it was too late.

Moments later, the Mandalorian fleet would appear on the edge of the system. Karath ordered that their fleet in orbit bring up their shields and prepare for an attack, but was caught off guard when the Mandalorians fired nuclear warheads around the blockade and straight towards the planet, impacting 27 population centres, killing thousands and ravaging the planet’s surface in the process. It was here that we have our first mention of the protagonist of KOTOR II, Revanchist Meetra Surik, who was on Serraco at the time of the attack. She managed to, in the knick of time, get on to one of three military vessels that jumped out of the system before the attack hit.

This was a disastrous loss for the Republic, and Admiral Karath was under fire from other Admirals for the military’s positioning near population centres, and he was pretty well personally blamed for the deaths of the civilians. His fleet was driven back until the Mandalorians caught up to his flagship, Courageous, where it was boarded. Admiral Karath and Carth Onasi were able to escape from the hangar, but ultimately the vessel was lost. Mandalore the Ultimate would tell you that they commandeered the vessel and melted it down, and the battle axe that he wielded was made from the hull. Karath returned to Coruscant where he attempted to resign from his position as Admiral, but the Admiral of the Fleet refused his resignation, seeing him as a competent Admiral despite his miscalculations at Serroco. Instead, Admiral Karath was given a brand new, state-of-the-art vessel called the Swiftsure.

Back on Taris, a resistance group had formed which consisted of a rag-tag group of gang members from the undercity and mercenaries. They were fighting on-foot against the Mandalorian occupation, which was currently being led by Cassus Fett who had taken up residence in the abandoned Jedi Tower. By the time the resistance learned this and had taken up arms to bomb the Jedi Tower, Fett had already moved on into the undercity where he would fight the resistance personally.

The continuation of the Mandalorian campaign from Wayland found a battle at Myrkr, where the Republic suffered over 2,000 casualties overnight. But not before securing a set of Neo-Crusader assault armour so they could study it for its weaknesses. From the victory over Myrkr, the Mandalorians prepared for a direct assault on Alderaan.

If you remember Demagol, he had an assistant named Pulsipher, who took up his legacy after he was captured on Flashpoint. Pulsipher, in the undercity of Taris, found a Sith artifact called the Muur Talisman and brought it to Jebble where he would present it, but not before it bit one of his subordinates. Carrick had been stowed away on his ship along with another Jedi, Celeste Morne, where they discovered the artifact and intended to warn the Republic. Before they could do so, the bitten Mandalorians turned into something foul– a grey-skinned, feral creature that would be known as a Rakghoul. Anyone who was bitten by a Rakghoul would eventually turn into one as well, which posed a problem for the Madalorian outpost on Jebble.

Carrick, instead of warning the Republic, got into contact with Cassus Fett who he told about the situation on Jebble. Pulsipher would lose control over the talisman, which held the spirit of its original owner as most Sith artifacts tend to do. This spirit would seek out force sensitives to possess, and found their way to Carrick. However, Celeste Morne would sacrifice herself and become a vessel for the Sith lord. Under Muun’s influence, Morne was able to take control of all of the Rakghouls which she led to infect all of the Mandalorians stationed on Jebble. After putting her in a stasis casket to contain the artifact’s power, Carrick was able to escape from Jebble before Cassus Fett’s forces arrived to take care of the situation. And by take care of, I mean do the Mandalorian thing and carpet bomb the life out of it. This stopped the Rakghouls, but also stopped their offensive on Alderaan, as Jebble was to be the main launch point. Fett also owed a great debt to Carrick for his warning, which will come into play later.

Around this time, the Jedi Council member who had most opposed the Revanchist movement, Master Darjander Kace, was forced to step down from the council by the Republic because of a conflict of interest. Years ago, he had fallen for a Mandalorian woman named Varda, who died in the Great Sith War. Following his heart, he went for the Mandalorians, who he believed could have a change of heart. Kace took with him other Jedi who would form the Mandalorian Knights, a group of Jedi who fought on behalf of the Mandalorians.

Master Kace was replaced by another anti-Revanchist, Lucien Draay, who issued warrants for the Revanchist’s arrest. He then planned a coup among the Jedi Order by the Jedi Covenant called Vindication. Vindication was ordered by the covenant’s true leader, Haazen, who had been using the covenant for his own needs. Haazen seized control of the Republic blockage around Coruscant by hacking their tactical computers, with which he used the blockade’s firepower to combard Coruscant, eliminating the members of the Jedi Order who opposed Draay and had been trying to seize his estate just before Vindication. The insurrection ended with Haazen’s death and the destruction of the Draay estate.The Republic couldn’t let it leak that this had been an inside attack, so they used the Mandalorians as a scapegoat and said it was a terror attack.

After Vindication, the Jedi Council went to confront the Revanchists when Master Vandar Tokare of the Jedi Council personally came to the planet of Cathar to get them to stand down in their crusade because of another force vision of the destruction of the Jedi Order and Republic.

Revan found the mask of the female Mandalorian who stood up for the Cathar and was shot down by her own kind, and upon picking it up he and the Jedi in the vicinity were enveloped in a shared force vision which depicted Cassus Fett committing a genocide against the Cathar. Disgusted by the vision, and angry at the Mandalorians, he donned the mask and officially declared that his name was now Revan. And in honour of the Mandalorian who tried to stop her kind, he would wear the mask until the Mandalorians were brought to justice.

Master Tokare, having shared in this vision, had no choice but to begrudgingly sanction the intervention of the Revanchists in the war, though the council publicly denounced Revan’s actions as unwise and hasty. It was hard to justify the involvement in a war based on a vision that they had, since most people wouldn’t understand that this force vision was real and not just a delusion of their religion.

Revan came up with a solution to any public unease in the Jedi getting involved in the war. That was to deploy the Jedi as a Mercy Corps which was to aid the Republic by acting as standby healers instead of warriors. They were granted that much and deployed to war. Revan’s friend, Alek, was pretty jealous of the fancy new name that Revan had dubbed himself with and decided that he should don a new title as well and hastily scribbled an ‘M’ at the beginning of his name and was now Malak. So Revan and Malak were now in direct command of this Mercy Corps and were headed to join the war properly.

Revan was able to prove himself a capable military leader in several battles where he and his squad won against the Mandalorians. Their group was less of a Mercy Corps and more of a death squad, hunting the Mandalorians and instilling fear.

Zayne Carrick, still on his random escapades, was trying to find information about his friend, Jarael, who had disappeared after they saved Carrick from his execution by the hands of his masters. Carrick called in his favour from Cassus Fett for his help with the Jebble-Rakghoul situation, arranging for Fett’s forces to be intercepted by Admiral Karath’s new fleet near the Ithor system and draw out a slaver known as Dace Golliard. He got what he wanted, as Fett’s forces began their assault on Karath to finish him off before drawing out the slaver and jumping into hyperspace, allowing Carrick and Karath to capture Golliard and learn Jarael’s location.

By now, the war had been going on for 14 years and it was now 3962 BBY. Jedi Master Dorjander Kace, who was forced to forfeit his position on the Jedi Council and had joined the Mandalorians, was hatching a plan to create a legion of Mandalorian Jedi. His plan was to kidnap Jedi younglings from the Jedi Enclave on Dantooine, which was approved by Mandalore the Ultimate who allowed Kace to proceed and train the younglings on the planet Ordo with a group of Mandalorians for backup. Kace enacted his plan and continued an assault on the northern edge of the galaxy on behalf of the Mandalorians. This campaign allowed them to take the planet Essien due to a low Republic presence in the area.

The Republic did not know that Kace had defected yet, however. Kace was able to trick the local militias, including Zayne Carrick, into leading an assault against the Mandalorians, which was a ruse. Kace acted as the good guy, and before anyone could suspect that they were being led into a trap, Basilisk war droids rained down from the sky on the militia and captured them with Kace’s Mandalorian Knights at the lead. The militia was forcibly drafted into the Neo-Crusader movement, and they continued their warpath towards Dantooine, as per Kace’s plan. Long story short, Zayne Carrick was able to escape by being slippery yet again. He was able to stage an outbreak at the Phaedacomm relay station where he commandeered a dreadnought and took it towards Dantooine to follow Kace and the Mandalorian Knights.

The Mandalorian Knights were able to move quickly through the enclave, securing the students that Kace was after. But not before Carrick showed up with his fancy new ship and destroyed their means of getting off-planet. Because of this failure, the Mandalorians withdrew their support for Kace and his plans to kidnap Jedi younglings, which Kace found out while he was duelling Carrick. With this, Carrick was able to convince Kace to surrender, and he and his knights were put to trial for treason. Because of his repeated heroics, the Republic recognized Zayne Carrick as a lieutenant and special diplomatic agent, preaching his use of restraint when it came to dealing with the Mandalorian threat, always trying to find a way out without killing everyone. The Mandalorians, however, backed out of their northern campaign and dropped support for Kace altogether.

The Mandalorians focused their efforts elsewhere and had gained ground on Eres III, and set fire to the planet’s plains which burned for a decade afterwards, remaining a site that was proof to the Mandalorian’s brutality. They had several other victories, including the Charros system, and through to the Gizer, Nazri and Vena systems. And after meeting up with forces from Dxun, they took the Ambria and Zel systems as well. This period was very successful for the Mandalorians and was known as the Mandalorian Triumph where they were able to gain a lot of ground very quickly.

However, with the Republic in full war-mode, they were able to pioneer new ships and droids for their fleets. This is where the iconic Centurion, Intradictor, and Hammerhead-class cruisers were created. While the Mandalorians were continuing with their conquest by capturing the Quellor and Exodeen systems as well as Bespin, they moved on to Duro where they started an orbital bombardment of their shipyards. While this was devastating for Duro, having their shipyards and orbital platforms destroyed, Revan, Malak, and Meetra Surik were able to stop a full occupation by showing up in their shiny new whips, the Intradictor-class cruisers, stopping the Mandalorians from making off with any of the material from the shipyards, causing a massive blow to the Mandalorian war effort.

With Revan at the helm of the Republic Navy, they were able to get off the defensive and take an offensive stance towards the Mandalorians. Revan spearheaded a campaign to liberate Taris from the occupation, which was successful. He led a Jedi task force through the undercity, liberating slaves and dispatching Mandalorians. It was there that he saved a young force-sensitive Cathar named Juhani, who he convinced to join the Jedi enclave on Dantooine, who was also one of his companions later on in KOTOR.

Revan was able to take victory after victory through his tactical prowess, but not without a cost. His methods were quick and brutal, which gave way to many moral shortcuts. Revan and Malak adopted a policy of victory by any means necessary, which meant using the Republic’s industrial might to power through Mandalorian forces and sacrifice populations to do it. It was not popular, but it was seen as a necessary evil. This took a moral toll on the duo, giving way to the dark side.

Revan and Malak uncovered a ruin on Dantooine from an ancient civilization from the Rakata species on Dantooine, which held a Star Map– a relic that held partial information of the location of a large space station called the Star Forge, a massive automated factory that used the power of a nearby star to churn out a near endless supply of ships, droids, and other war material. The Rakata being a savage species, the star maps locations were deeply steeped in the dark side. Revan began a hunt for the rest of the star maps, seeking the location of the Star Forge to aid the Republic and end the war.

They searched across the galaxy, and found a Star Map on the Wookie planet of Kashyyyk and learned of another on the Sith homeworld of Korriban. From there Revan learned of Trayus Academy on Malachor V, a sith training ground where he and Malak sought more power to be able to handle the Mandalorian threat. They convinced themselves that they had noble intentions, to help the Republic, and took what they needed before leaving. They hadn’t renounced the Jedi code yet, and would continue to lead the Republic Navy against the Mandalorians while searching for the remaining Star Maps.

The Jedi found themselves in a ground battle on Vur IV for several weeks, where they were able to push back the Mandalorians. They were forced to abandon the planet and regroup on a neutral planet nearby while one warrior, Worr Muugyn, refused to abandon his post and held up a fortified position with a handful of others called Blood Ridge. The small force was able to defend against the Jedi for several days while mounting a counterattack from other angles. Muugyn drew out his plans on a piece of leather cut from his taberd, which ended up being immortalised as a symbol of courage and determination to the Mandalorians. They would end up overrun eventually, but it was a great effort nonetheless.

I mentioned before that the Republic, led by Revan, was on the offensive around this time. They were now heading into Mandalorians space to head them off, where they took the Vorzyd system and took a two-pronged attack to two adjacent systems. They saw a defeat at the Lucadec system while gaining ground from the Stenos system and moved from there to take Elom. Confident in their attack, they pushed further into the Jaga’s Cluster where they would be humbled. Despite Revan and Malak being on the front lines, Cassus Fett and his forces were able to hold ground and emerge victorious. Fett infamously personally boarded a Republic vessel, fighting his way to the bridge to kill the captain.

However, the back and forth continued when the Republic fleet under Revan’s command moved to the Althir system, defeating the Mandalorian forces and pushing them offworld, ending the almost 20 year occupation. Riding on the recent victories of liberating Mandalorian occupied planets, Revan decided to revisit Onderon and Dxun to try to liberate them from the Mandalorians once and for all. This was no small undertaking, though, because the Mandalorians have had decades to fortify the moon of Dxun by this point. It was a costly venture for the Republic, but with Revan at the helm of it they had a chance.

Revan’s plan had battle droids deployed on the Dxun to take out the anti-air turrets so that they could drop forces on the ground. Meetra Surik led the initial offensive on the ground with hit and run tactics to get a feel for the Mandalorian’s defences. The Mandalorians had set minefields around their perimeters, which eventually took most of Surik’s forces. Once the main attack force had settled in, the battle lasted for months. This resulted in higher casualties than they had seen in the war yet, with veterans of the battle saying that the Republic lost 10 soldiers for every Mandalorian killed. They were too deep in this offensive to pull out, so they fought on and eventually took control of the moon, driving the Mandalorians further back towards the outer rim.

The Republic forces were in tatters– damaged and weakened, but they had to push forward with the momentum that they had. They pushed through the Lianna system and forced a confrontation at Malachor V, deploying all of the ships they could muster to the planet as bait. Revan knew that they would not be able to beat the Mandalorians in a fair fight, so he had a Zabrak engineer by the name of Bao Dur, yet another companion from KOTOR II, create a superweapon called the Mass Shadow Generator. The Mass Shadow Generator drew upon the natural mass shadows generated by planetary bodies, and the gravitational anomalies at work on Malachor V allowed it to cause massive damage to anything in proximity to the planet. Basically, it took advantage of the planet’s gravity and pulled anything in orbit to the surface of the planet. The idea was to gather the bulk of the Mandalorian forces to the planet and take them out in one fell swoop.

Revan was held up by Mandalorian scouts and arrived late to the battle, where a full-scale naval battle was already underway. Meetra Surik, meanwhile, was in charge of getting the Mandalorian fleet in range of the Mass Shadow Generator, which was on the surface of Malachor V. The Republic was able to gather more resources than the Mandalorians were expecting and Mandalore quickly realised that his defeat was imminent. Mandalore challenged Revan to a duel on his flagship, which Revan accepted. Despite his massive stature, Revan was able to overpower him and struck him down.

Before Mandalore died, he took off his mask and began his villain-at-the-edge-of-death monologue, where he came to his senses and realised that this whole war was orchestrated by the Sith and that he had been manipulated this entire time. In his last moments, he explained this to Revan, how it all started and where it was to lead to. To verify his story, he gave Revan the coordinates to Rekkiad where it all began with the Sith emissary. When he died, Revan took the mask of Mandalore, their symbol of leadership, and took it for himself as to prevent a new Mandalore from being chosen, hoping to scatter the Mandalorians for good.

Despite Revan’s victory over Mandalore, there was still a massive naval battle happening over Malachor V and the Republic was pushing the Mandalorian fleet closer to the planet’s orbit as per the plan. The Republic would not hold out forever, though, which prompted Surik to give the orders to Bao Dur to activate the Mass Shadow Generator and end the battle, regardless of the consequences.

Both Revan and Surik’s vessels were out of range, and they watched in horror as both fleets were sucked towards the planet in a massive gravity vortex, causing tens of thousands of deaths within minutes. The Republic suffered many casualties, but nowhere near the amount that the Mandalorians suffered. The planet, once lush and green, was torn apart and became a grey world of craters, downed ships, and death. 

If you remember in the Star Wars movies, when a great number of people were killed at once it caused a ripple in the force that was able to be felt from Tatooine to Coruscant. This was so much worse. So much worse, in fact, that Meetra Surik was forced to cut herself off from the force entirely to avoid being killed in the resulting shockwave. The sheer destruction caused a wound in the force, transforming Malachor V into a planet that sustained itself off of the dark side of the force.

The fun thing about wounds in the force is that they can manifest in many different ways. On Malachor V, the planet became basically a leyline for the dark side of the force because it already had a relationship with the dark side in Trayus Academy, the sith training grounds that Revan and Malak had visited before. It could also manifest itself in people, and one such event happened on Malachor V as a result of the Mass Shadow Generator. This event saw the creation of Darth Nihilus, who would come into play after the Jedi Civil War in the years to come.

We don’t know much about him before he was Darth Nihilus, but we know that he was a human male who was on Malachor when they set off the Mass Shadow Generator. While not explicitly mentioned, I’m under the assumption that he was a Jedi Knight who was fighting on behalf of the Revanchists. While Meetra Surik cut herself off from the force to withstand the trauma from the loss of life, Nihilus opened himself to it. He had somehow survived the Mass Shadow Generator, but was in a limbo between life and death. He gave himself to the force, literally, feeding off of the trauma that was manifesting itself through the wound in the force. He used the force to sustain himself and gain strength, but at a great cost. He was cursed with a hunger for the force, craving it as sustenance like you or I would crave food, and syphoned the force from living things be it people or planets. Yeah… planets. He was no joke. Eventually the amount of raw power he needed to consume wasn’t sustainable for his body and he engaged in a ritual that would seal his spirit inside his mask so he could live on. I would be more than happy to elaborate on this further in another episode. The Sith that were alive at this time were crazy cool.

Anyways– seeing the destruction of most of their forces and their leader, the Mandalorians transmitted their unconditional surrender to the Republic, and the war was declared over. The remaining Mandalorians were ordered to be stripped of their weapons and armour and dismantle their Basilisk war droids– the crutch of their invasion. With the loss of Mandalore and his mask, the Mandalorians didn’t choose a new leader and instead scattered into clans, back to how they were after the Great Sith War. The various clans fought amongst themselves for power in an effort to control the Mandalorians, but to no avail. Some clans banded together to try to find the mask, as they knew that that might be the one unifying force to allow the Mandalorians to survive.

After all was said and done, the Jedi who chose to follow Revan were called back to Coruscant to receive judgement. While they were given the green light to serve as medics, they were not meant to be warriors and the Jedi Council as a whole did not agree with their methods. Meetra Surik, despite being disconnected from the force, along with other Jedi, returned and faced exile. Revan and Malak refused to return, for they still had work to do seeing as this war was orchestrated by the Sith.

Revan created an assassination droid, HK-47, to eliminate threats to the galaxy before they could start another war, hoping to prevent another Mandalorian War. Malak urged Revan to use HK-47 to kill Surik so that she could not spill the beans on their plentiful war crimes to the council, but Revan saw her as dead already since she had been cut off from the force.

The two set out for Rekkiad to confirm whether Mandalore’s story was true or not. There, in the tomb, they found a datacron describing the Sith Dramath’s history and the existence of a hidden Sith empire, confirming Mandalore’s words as true. Before leaving, Revan chose to leave Mandalore’s mask in the tomb, hoping it would be forever lost.

Revan and Malak followed the datacron and found themselves in Dromund Kaas, the hidden Sith Empire’s capital, where they sought to kill the Sith Emperor and prevent him from invading the Republic. Given their history with the dark side during this war, the Emperor was able to dominate their minds and turn them fully to the dark side, anointing them as Darth Revan and Darth Malak, the new Dark Lords of the Sith. They were tasked with finding the Star Forge to create an army that was worthy of the Sith Legacy and could overrun the Republic. They would go on to look for the remaining Star Maps, but not because they were under control of the Emperor, but because they wanted it for themselves.

They found it, and took the Jedi who had served with them as Revanchists and formed the new Sith Empire with which they would invade the Republic in 3959 BBY in what would be known as the Jedi Civil War. They took along with them a number of high-ranking Republic officers, including Admiral Saul Karath, who would lead their fleets in the conflict.

But that marks the end of the Mandalorian Wars. I know that was a lot to cover, and I hope you were able to keep up! It’s a fun exercise to get a map of the galaxy up and follow along with the systems to keep up with the conquest and see how exactly it happened.

But with that, it comes down to this: what did you think? Do you think that 

And remember, if a red, tentacled man comes up and asks you to go tomb raiding, you should think twice about following him into a cave.