Death Watch/Legends

"It’s the Death Watch!''" "Who?" "Before your time, Silas. Ex-Mandalorians who split with Jaster years ago. We thought they were finished. Guess we were wrong."

- Jango Fett and Silas during an ambush by the Death Watch at the Battle of Korda 6

The Death Watch—or Kyr'tsad in Mando'a—was a Mandalorian splinter group founded by Tor Vizsla, who opposed Jaster Mereel's Supercommando Codex. Their primary goal was to return the Mandalorians to their ancient roots as warriors, and advocated the savage raider mentality of the past. The Death Watch fought Mereel's True Mandalorians for primacy during the Mandalorian Civil War, manipulating a team of Jedi led by Master Dooku into wiping them out at the Battle of Galidraan. When the only surviving True Mandalorian, Jango Fett escaped from slavery, he hunted and killed Tor Vizsla.

The Death Watch scattered and seemingly disbanded until the beginning of the Clone Wars when they reemerged under the leadership of Pre Vizsla, targeting Duchess Satine Kryze of the New Mandalorians. Striking from their hidden base on Mandalore's moon, Concordia, they orchestrated several terrorist attacks on Mandalore and Kalevala while garnering support from the Confederacy of Independent Systems. When Spar founded the Mandalorian Protectors as Mandalore the Resurrector, the Death Watch went into hiding again, under the leadership of Lorka Gedyc, but resurfaced again during the Galactic Civil War, operating out of a base on Endor.

Early history
"They dressed themselves up as patriots wanting a return to the good old days of the Mando empire, but it was just a cover for organized crime."

- Kal Skirata

In the wake of the Ithullan genocide in 200 BBY, many Mandalorian warriors expressed a desire to shed the dishonorable ways of the past. A century and a half later, the charismatic warrior Jaster Mereel became the new Mand'alor, and instituted a new standard of Mandalorian behavior known as the Supercommando Codex. He asserted that the Mandalorians were simply highly-paid soldiers, and should conduct themselves as honorable mercenaries. However, not all agreed with the Codex and Mereel's radical changes. A barbaric soldier by the name of Tor Vizsla attracted warriors fond of the old ways into his own movement, giving birth to the Death Watch. The Death Watch were skilled warriors, but ill-disciplined to the extreme and plagued with constant in-fighting under the egotistical leadership of Vizsla. In accordance with Vizsla's beliefs, the Death Watch stood for a return to the ways of the ancient Mandalorians, raiders and savages, and aimed to eventually wage a second war of conquest across the galaxy. In turn, Mereel's faction recast themselves as the True Mandalorians and a civil war broke out between the two groups.

Mandalorian Civil War
On the agricultural world of Concord Dawn, the Death Watch engaged the True Mandalorians in a fierce firefight that ended in the True Mandalorians' retreat. As Jaster Mereel and his men fled into the farming fields, Vizsla ordered his own forces to hunt them down. When they came upon a young Jango Fett working on his family's harvester, they took him captive and forced the boy to lead them to his home where Jango's father was harboring Mereel's troops. Vizsla savagely beat the man in front of Jango while he demanded the location of the hidden Mandalorians, going so far as threatening to shoot him in the head right in front of his son. However, Jango's mother intervened, killing one of the Death Watch soldiers with Vizla with a blaster rifle. Jango was rescued from Vizsla by the intervention of Mereel and his soldiers, but his parents were murdered and his sister taken by the Death Watch. As they escaped into the fields, Vizsla ordered that they be burned with the hopes of killing Mereel and the True Mandalorians. The Death Watch moved into a nearby town following their perceived victory over the True Mandalorians, intent on a celebratory raid before moving on to Moonus Mandel. Unfortunately for them, the True Mandalorians were lying in wait, striking the Death Watch when their guard was down. Nearly all of the Death Watch soldiers fell to blasterfire or perished in the bombing of their tank, and although Jango Fett avenged the death of his family by killing the Death Watch soldier responsible for their murderer, Vizsla managed to escape.

Years later, the Death Watch would lure their True Mandalorian foes into a trap on the planet Korda 6. When Jaster Mereel and his troops came to the aid of a Korda Defense Force security squad pinned down on the planet by local enemy forces, the Death Watch revealed themselves—much to the surprise of the True Mandalorians. Jango Fett, now a fully-fledged Mandalorian warrior, fought back dozens of Death Watch soldiers alongside the True Mandalorians under his command, while Jaster Mereel and his second-in-command Montross came under fire from Vizsla himself. Baring the scars from their previous encounter on his face, Vizsla rained down attacks from his four-wheeled tank on Montross and the injured Mereel. When Montross betrayed the wounded Mand'alor and left him alone on the battlefield, Vizsla was granted his revenge as he gunned down Mereel with his tank's laser cannons. The True Mandalorians were forced to flee the planet and the Death Watch was victorious.

Approximately 44 BBY, the Death Watch became involved with the governor of the Outer Rim world Galidraan. The governor provided refuge for the Death Watch at his castle and was involved in funding Tor Vizsla's attempts to rebuild the Death Watch, presumably after a costly loss. He also hired the True Mandalorians to deal with an insurrection on his world as part of a plot by the Death Watch to draw in their enemy. While the True Mandalorians—now under the leadership of Jango Fett, replacing Jaster Mereel as Mand'alor—dealt with the rebels, the Governor of Galidraan contacted the Jedi Council, claiming that the that Mandalorians were murdering "political activists", along with women and children. In order to lend credence to these claims and gain the Jedi Council's assistance, Vizsla and his own troops provided the body count of innocents. Upon completing their contracted assignment, Jango Fett went to personally speak with Galidraan's governor, both to collect the Mandalorians' payment and to find out where Vizsla was being harbored. Vizsla and a few of his troops revealed themselves and opened fire on Fett, forcing him to escape out of a nearby window via jetpack at the same time the Jedi ships were arriving to deal with the supposed Mandalorian threat. Vizsla and the Death Watch had only to stand aside while the Jedi strike team under Jedi Master Dooku all but wiped out the True Mandalorians, save for Fett himself who was captured and delivered into the custody of the governor of Galidraan who subsequently sold Fett into slavery.

Two years later, Fett would escape and return to Galidraan, recovering his lost Mandalorian armor and demanding the location of the Death Watch from the governor at blasterpoint. He would find the Death Watch forces aboard Vizsla's personal starship, the Death Rattle, over Corellia. Fett used a starfighter to cripple the ship's engines while assaulting the bridge, using his jetpack to fly through the viewport. He clashed with Vizsla in a lengthy fight that spanned the halls of the dying ship and even into an escape pod, continuing on after crashing to the surface of Corellia. At the climax of their fight, both injured and Fett poisoned by Vizsla, a pack of dire-cats attacked and killed Vizsla, while sparing the poisoned Fett. With Vizsla finally defeated, the remaining members of the group scattered throughout the galaxy, but although they were seemingly destroyed, the beliefs of the Death Watch remained amongst some Mandalorians.

Clone Wars
"Not everyone on Mandalore believes our commitment to peace is a sign of progress. There is a group that calls itself Death Watch. I imagine these are the renegades you are looking for. They idolize violence and the warrior ways of the past."

- Duchess Satine Kryze of Mandalore to Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi

During the formation of the Grand Army of the Republic on Kamino, Jango Fett—clone template and primary military adviser for the Grand Army—hand-picked a group of one-hundred individuals, seventy-five of which were Mandalorian, to train elite clone commandos for the army, a group that would become known as the Cuy'val Dar—"Those Who No-Longer Exist". Two of the Mandalorian trainers, Isabet Reau and Dred Priest, attempted to ingrain the beliefs of the Death Watch into their clones by secretly forming battle circles in the bowels of Tipoca City. Jango Fett discovered the existence of the battle circles and quickly put them to an end, viciously beating Priest.

Though weakened, the Death Watch managed to operate under the Mandalorian principle of ba'slan shev'la, or "strategic disappearance". Maintaining a fairly secret existence following Tor Vizsla's death, the remains of the Death Watch showed themselves nearly twelve years later, shortly after the Battle of Geonosis. With the True Mandalorians gone and Jango Fett dead following the events on Geonosis, the Death Watch set its sights on the Mandalorian faction known as the New Mandalorians, a reformist political faction emphasizing pacifism that was interested in moving the Mandalorians even further from it's conquering warrior roots than the True Mandalorians, with their goal being a peaceful and neutral Mandalorian state. At the time, the Death Watch was operating from a base on Concordia, a moon of Mandalore, where they were secretly led by Concordia's governor, Pre Vizsla. In order to get support for their attempt at taking over the Mandalorian government, the Death Watch allied themselves with the Confederacy of Independent Systems. As part of this alliance, Death Watch commandos performed sabotage missions for the Separatists against Republic targets. One such mission involved a commando attempting to sabotage a Republic cruiser; the Death Watch commando was captured, but rather than surrender and submit to questioning, he committed suicide. His actions in addition to falsified rumors led to the Republic's belief that Duchess Satine Kryze, leader of the New Mandalorians and head of the Council of Neutral Systems, was training a Mandalorian army for the Separatists.

In order to investigate this matter further, the Jedi Council dispatched Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to Mandalore to meet with Satine. At first, the Duchess and her advisers discounted any Mandalorian involvement until Kenobi showed holographic recordings of the Death Watch saboteur. She later revealed the existence of rumors of the Death Watch's return. This was later proven when a Mandalorian bombed the memorial shrine in the New Mandalorian capital of Sundari before committing suicide when Kenobi attempted to apprehend him. Left at the bomb site was a holographic representation of the Death Watch symbol, further highlighting the group's return. During these events Pre Vizsla communicated with Count Dooku who revealed his strategy for the Republic to establish peacekeeping forces on Mandalore. Dooku hoped this would cause unrest and lead the Mandalorian populace to the Death Watch's ideals. Kenobi later discovered the Death Watch base of operations on Concordia and Pre Vizsla revealed himself to the Jedi and the duchess as the leader of the faction. The Death Watch Mandalorians managed to escape and abandoned their base, allowing them to remain at large.

When Satine journeyed to Coruscant to dismiss any thought of Republic occupation, Death Watch made a second attempt on her life. Mandalore's senator, Tal Merrik, was secretly in league with the Death Watch and used his senatorial stamp to smuggle several assassin probes aboard the duchess' ship. When Kenobi gathered the senatorial passengers together and confronted them with a probe killer, its docility betrayed Merrik and he made his move to take Kryze hostage. With the duchess in tow, he made his way to the bridge where he murdered the crew and contacted Vizsla for extraction. A trio of Droch-class boarding ships attached themselves to the vessel and unloaded several B2 super battle droids to cover Merrik's escape. When Kenobi attempted to arrest the senator, Merrik revealed that he had also taken the precaution of rigging the ship's engines to explode and made his way to the waiting boarding ships. Before he could make his escape, however, he was stabbed in the back by Anakin Skywalker.

Once Satine safely arrived at the galactic capital, the Death Watch reoccupied their base on Concordia as a staging area for their impending invasion of Mandalore. During a holographic conference with Count Dooku, Pre Vizsla made his move to secure Mandalore's support. A Death Watch assassin was sent to Coruscant to assassinate Satine, as well as an informant who gave her a recording from Deputy Minister Jerec pleading no military assistance. The assassin, however, failed to stop Satine from delivering the evidence to the Galactic Senate thanks to Kenobi's intervention. The Senate revoked its vote to dispatch Republic forces, which compelled Death Watch to cease its planned attack.

When the ARC trooper deserter known as Spar fled Kamino and journeyed to Mandalore, where he eventually took up the role of "Mandalore the Resurrector", he invited many former Death Watch members to join his army of Mandalorian Protectors. Although Spar formed the Protectors in the image of the True Mandalorians, the Death Watch's desire for Mandalore's return to its warrior roots would come to fruition when the Protectors overturned Mandalore's status as a neutral system and aligned with the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

Rise of the Empire and beyond
"We conquered whole star systems. We had an empire. When cities heard our armies were coming, populations fled before a shot was fired. Now we cling to a pathetic sector of dirtball planets, we scramble for the crumbs that the cowardly aruetiise throw when they want us to fight for them, and they use us as a breeding stock for their clone armies. The aruetiise will always treat us like an animal species to be used for their convenience until we stand up for ourselves again."

- Lorka Gedyc

By the time of the Galactic Empire's foundation in 19 BBY, Lorka Gedyc had become the leader of the Death Watch as it continued to exist in hiding. Among this latest generation of Death Watch were former Cuy'val Dar members Isabet Reau and Dred Priest. During a run in with fellow former Cuy'val Dar Mij Gilamar in the Mandalorian capital Keldabe, Priest revealed that the Death Watch was indeed still in existence—even openly wearing the group's sigil on his shoulder plate, albeit in a dark blue coloration—and that Lorka Gedyc had "big plans" for the future. He also believed that the Death Watch had changed under Gedyc and was different than the way it had been under Vizsla. The Death Watch had also allied with the Empire, with Priest even assisting the Imperials move in to the garrison being established outside Keldabe. When he'd learned all he felt he could, Gilamar surprise-attacked Priest, stabbing and killing him, and threw his body in the Kelita River, firmly believing that the Death Watch's return to prominence couldn't be allowed for the good of the Mandalorians.

Around 1 ABY, several Death Watch members had established a base in a bunker on the forest moon of Endor, operating under the leadership of Overlord Teti Viba, before he was killed by spacers.

In the early days of the Rebellion, a man wearing the armor of a Death Watch soldier was seen protecting Tungo Li during the hearing of Janek Sunber.

Legacy
The Death Watch was far from loved in the eyes of many Mandalorians. To most, they were considered little more than savages, hooligans, and undisciplined thugs rather than soldiers. Following the outbreak of the Mandalorian Civil War, Jango Fett considered the Death Watch to be "ex-Mandalorians" due to their radical beliefs and refusal to follow the Mand'alor. The New Mandalorian government labeled them as terrorists and vandals for their destructive actions in opposing the government's peaceful ways. Walon Vau, a member of the Cuy'val Dar, was known to say the Death Watch was the only group he truly considered his enemy. Kal Skirata, another Cuy'val Dar member, felt that the Death Watch—at least its incarnation under Tor Vizsla—was more interested in theft and other crime rather than their supposed goals of reinstating a Mandalorian empire.

As a child growing up on Plavin 6, Nashiak Llalik was fascinated with the armor worn by the Death Watch. He read a lot about them and entertained his younger sister, Saren, with stories about their armor. As an adult, Saren regretted being separated from her brother, partly because she would have enjoyed hearing those stories again.

By 40 ABY, Mand'alor Boba Fett stated in a conversation with Jaing Skirata that the destruction of the Death Watch was his father's lasting legacy for the Mandalorians.

Known members

 * Tor Vizsla
 * Pre Vizsla
 * Lorka Gedyc
 * Teti Viba
 * Arla Fett
 * Epo Areur
 * Rarckokoo Athaichoso
 * Fenri Dalso
 * A-Op Igi
 * Tal Merrik
 * Klin Nif
 * Dred Priest
 * Isabet Reau
 * Rageon Vart
 * Unidentified Death Watch assassin
 * Unidentified Death Watch Mandalorian 1
 * Unidentified Death Watch Mandalorian 2
 * Unidentified Death Watch Mandalorian 3
 * Unidentified Death Watch trooper
 * Unidentified Death Watch saboteur
 * Death Watch bomber

Symbol
The sign of the Death Watch was the symbol of Clan Vizsla, which was designed after a stylized jai'galaar in mid-dive, colored red. By the Clone Wars and after, however, the symbol's color had been changed to blue.

Appearances

 * Jango Fett: Open Seasons
 * Star Wars: Bounty Hunter
 * Republic Commando: Hard Contact
 * The Clone Wars: Season Four
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars Secret Missions 3: Duel at Shattered Rock
 * Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel
 * Imperial Commando: 501st
 * Star Wars Rebellion 4: My Brother, My Enemy, Part 4
 * Sacrifice
 * Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel
 * Imperial Commando: 501st
 * Star Wars Rebellion 4: My Brother, My Enemy, Part 4
 * Sacrifice
 * Sacrifice

Notes and references
Death Watch Guardia de la Muerte デス・ウォッチ Death Watch Straż Śmierci Дозор смерти