Cad Bane/Legends

"I'm in control. I make the rules now."

- Cad Bane to Supreme Chancellor Palpatine

Cad Bane was a male Duros born on the planet Duro, who rose to be a bounty hunter during the Clone Wars between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Bane worked for the highest bidder, and would not hesitate to turn against his original employer if his quarry offered him more credits. Because fellow bounty hunter Jango Fett&mdash;considered to be the galaxy's best&mdash;had been killed during the opening battle of the war, Bane rose to be one of the top bounty hunters in his time.

In 22 BBY, Ziro Desilijic Tiure&mdash;a Hutt crime lord based on the galactic capital of Coruscant&mdash;was arrested after he assisted the Confederacy Head of State and Sith Lord Count Dooku in a plot to kidnap the son of his own nephew Jabba Desilijic Tiure. Ziro was desperate to escape, and Bane was employed to break the Hutt out of prison. Bane assembled a team of hunters to capture members of the Galactic Senate and force Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to free Ziro. After entering the Senate Building on Coruscant and taking the senators hostage, Bane and his team encountered Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. Skywalker was captured, and Bane was successful in freeing Ziro from prison.

Later working for Count Dooku, Bane stole a holocron containing information on potential Force-sensitive infants. Bane kidnapped the infants and brought them to the planet Mustafar, where Darth Sidious, Dooku's Sith Master, planned to use them for his own purposes.

Bounty hunter
"Master Cad Bane, I presume. I've heard much about you. Who hasn't? The greatest hunter since Jango lost his head&hellip;"

- Davtokk, speaking of Cad Bane

Cad Bane was a Duros male born on the planet Duro during the last decades of the Galactic Republic. He became a bounty hunter, earning a reputation as a ruthless mercenary who worked solely for the financial reward of his missions. Bane worked for the highest bidder, caring little who employed him, as long as he continued to get his pay. If his quarry offered him a better fee, Bane had no qualms with turning on his original employer.

Bane was in operation at the time of the Clone Wars&mdash;between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems&mdash;were underway. By the time the bounty hunter considered to be the galaxy's best, Jango Fett, perished in 22 BBY during the opening battle of the war, Bane was something of a veteran in his line of work. With Fett out of the picture, Bane rose to be among the galaxy's most notorious, ruthless and fearsome bounty hunters. However, Bane had enemies, and a considerable price was placed on his head.

Recruitment
"Such fighting spirit, Davtokk. Almost commendable, if you were successful. But you know what they say about ' almost.'" "This...this was a test?''" "Yes. But not yours. A test of my colleagues. They're solitary types and I need a team. I am happy to say they passed...by ensuring that you failed''."

- Cad Bane, and Davtokk



In 22 BBY during the Clone Wars, Ziro Desilijic Tiure, a Hutt crime lord based on the galactic capital of Coruscant, assisted Sith Lord and Confederacy Head of State Count Dooku in a plot to kidnap Rotta, the son of his nephew Jabba Desilijic Tiure. The kidnapping would cause Jabba to act out against the Republic and be arrested, leaving Ziro to take his place as head of the Hutts. However, the plan failed, and Ziro was incarcerated by the Republic, and imprisoned in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center.

Ziro was desperate to escape, and Bane was hired to free the crime lord. However, Bane did not opt for a straightforward rescue. Instead, he decided to force the Republic into freeing Ziro by taking hostages. To do so, the Duros would need a group of skilled bounty hunters, and he began assembling a team. The group consisted of the notorious bounty hunter and Jedi hunter Aurra Sing, the Weequay mercenary Shahan Alama, and the piscine technician Robonino. The team was backed up by two Separatist droid commandos and a number of IG-86 sentinel droids, including one designated 3D.

As the organic members of Bane's team usually worked alone, Bane wanted to ensure that they could work together as a whole. Bane arranged a final test for his colleagues, and lured fellow bounty hunter Davtokk to the planet Keyorin&mdash;where the Duros had a safehouse&mdash;under the pretense that Bane was holding a recruitment drive. Bane knew that Davtokk intended to execute the bounty on his head, so he assembled a life-size mannequin of himself, created from a scrapped battle droid. After entering the safehouse, Davtokk fired upon the mannequin, assuming it to be Bane. Robonino then detonated explosives that had been set inside the safehouse earlier, and caught Davtokk in a razor net.

The bounty hunter quickly escaped the net, and managed to evade the onrushing Alama with a flash grenade. From a distant perch, Sing fired her sniper rifle upon Davtokk's legs, preventing him from making any further progress. Bane, having watched the entire affair unfold, made himself known to Davtokk, explaining that it had all been arranged so as to test his new team. Bane then killed the crippled mercenary, and the team headed to Coruscant.



Raid on the Senate
"I've got business with the Senate. How 'bout you fellas step aside?"

- Cad Bane to several Senate Commandos

Bane took his team to the Galactic Senate, planning to take senators hostage in order to force Supreme Chancellor Palpatine to release Ziro the Hutt. After Bane, Alama, a sentinel droid, and two droid commandos landed at the Senate Building, the Senate Commandos, a branch of the guards of the Senate, confronted Bane. Before they could arrest him, Sing used a sniper rifle from a long-range post to kill most of the guards. Bane killed one of the guards personally, tackling him and snapping his neck with his bare hands. After Sing, Robonino and several more sentinel droids arrived, the team entered the building, and Bane killed an entire group of guards with a thermal detonator. After eliminating the guard posted at the power control room, as well as several droids inside, Bane left Robonino to shut off the power before entering the atrium to confront the senators.

Entering the Republic Executive Building, Bane caught the attention of the senators discussing a piece of Senate legislation, the Enhanced Privacy Invasion Bill, by firing a blaster, and the bounty hunters surrounded the senators. When Gran Senator Philo objected to being taken hostage, walking away while refusing to "listen to insolence," Bane shot him in the back. Bane ordered the senators to turn over their communication devices, and contacted Chancellor Palpatine in his office via a holotransmission. Bane stated that if the hostages were to be freed, Ziro the Hutt must be released from prison. After Palpatine objected, Robonino shut off the power, leaving Palpatine and Twi'lek Senator Orn Free Taa trapped in the office.



As the bounty hunters collected the communication devices, Bane came across Senator Padmé Amidala. While speaking with her, Bane noticed Amidala glance at something behind him. Bane turned around and recognized Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker surveying them from an upper level window. Bane fired at the man, and Skywalker fled. Bane ordered Alama and an IG-86 sentinel droid after him. Alama returned without the droid: it had been destroyed, but from examination of the droid's remains, Alama deduced that Skywalker was without his lightsaber. Bane sent Alama and Sing to find the Jedi, and the two returned with Robonino, and an unconscious handcuffed Skywalker.

Bane contacted Palpatine once more, and told the Chancellor to make a pardon disc and give it to Senator Taa, who would be picked up by Bane's ship, and taken to deliver the disc to the prison. Taa reluctantly obeyed, and 3D took him in the airspeeder to the prison. The droid then collected the Hutt while Taa stayed at the prison in the safety of the Coruscant Guard. Preparing to leave, Bane ordered Robonino and Alama to set up their "parting gifts" around the senators&mdash;a laser web that would activate explosives upon the slightest touch.

Wishing the senators a "most respectful farewell," Bane left the building with his team. Upon arriving outside on the landing platform, two LAAT/i gunships landed, and clone troopers of the Coruscant Guard appeared and cornered the team. Palpatine contacted Bane, and ordered him to surrender. Bane informed the Chancellor of the trapped senators, and Palpatine reluctantly let Bane go. Bane's airspeeder arrived, driven by 3D, and hauling Ziro in a rear transport. Bane and his team boarded the speeder, and they zoomed away.

After they were a safe distance away, Bane remotely activated the explosives as payback for the indignities Ziro had suffered in prison. Skywalker, in the meantime, had recovered, and began to cut a hole in the floor around himself and the senators. Just as the explosives went off, the Jedi and the senators dropped into the room below. As Ziro congratulated Bane on a "job well done," Bane demanded his pay from the Hutt, as he did not work for free.

Later work
Bane was later hired by Sith Lord Count Dooku&mdash;also known as Darth Tyranus&mdash;and the Separatists to work against the Republic. On one mission for Tyranus, Bane stole a holocron containing a list of potentially Force-sensitive infants, and captured each of the infants himself. Bane took them to the remote planet Mustafar and handed them over to Tyranus's Sith Master, Darth Sidious, who planned to use them for his own deeds.

Personality and traits
"Once Ziro has been released and is handed over to me, then your associate will be released, understand?''" "Oh, I do. But I feel it is my duty to warn you that you will end up paying for this outrage." "''I can live with that."

- Cad Bane and Palpatine



Bane was one of the galaxy's most fearsome and deadly bounty hunter during the Clone Wars, as fellow bounty hunter Jango Fett was no longer around, having died in the Battle of Geonosis. Bane had much less moral content than Fett, and would often turn upon the very people who hired him unless he was paid. Bane was ruthless, and unlike the later-emerging son of Jango Fett, bounty hunter Boba Fett, he did not take prisoners, for he intended his senator hostages to be killed, even after he had gone through negotiations with the Chancellor.

Equipment
Bane carried custom-made twin blaster pistols built from BlasTech LL-30 pistols. Bane had breathing tubes that were imbedded in his cheekbones and directly connected to his lungs, allowing him to work freely in the harshest atmospheres without additional protection. Bane was also equipped with rocket boots and wrist gauntlets, which had a variety of built-in tools and weapons, including a cable launcher, comlink, data uplink, and non-lethal stunners.



Behind the scenes
Bane made his first appearance in The Clone Wars web comic Invitation Only, and then appeared in the television series' Season One finale, "Hostage Crisis." He was portrayed by voice actor Corey Burton, who also played Ziro Desilijic Tiure and Shahan Alama in the episode. Because the episode introduced the concept of bounty hunters into the series, Bane was one of the first such bounty hunters to be featured in the television series. Bane will be making more appearances in Season Two of the series, and is already scheduled for a part in the episode "Cargo of Doom."

Unused sketches of a bounty hunter existed from the original Star Wars films, and the sketches ended up providing the basis for Bane's model. Early versions of the character were based on Gen'Dai bounty hunter Durge, but the final design, at the request of George Lucas, took inspiration from Lee Van Cleef's characters from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and For a Few Dollars More.

Appearances

 * The Clone Wars: Invitation Only
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes

Notes and references
Cad Bane Cad Bane