Great Clan Wars

"A civil war killed most of Satine's people, hence her aversion to violence. When she returned, she took on the difficult task of rebuilding her world alone."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi

The Great Clan Wars were a series of Mandalorian inter-clan conflicts that engulfed the planet Mandalore over a decade prior to the Clone Wars. The civil war resulted from clan disputes that escalated into full-scale hostilities in the wake of the Mandalorian Civil War. Clans and even families found themselves at odds, sparking a number of battles that devastated the Mandalorian homeworld. The Death Watch splinter group soon entered the war, intending to topple the dominant New Mandalorian regime, but was unable to do so.

As the civil war ravaged Mandalore and its clans, the New Mandalorians gained a new leader: Duchess Satine Kryze, whose father, the warlord of Clan Kryze, was among the conflict's casualties. The charismatic Kryze convinced most of the quarreling clan leaders and warriors to embrace pacifism, effectively ending the war. While Kryze ushered in a new age of peace and prosperity to Mandalore, the Death Watch survived into the time of the Clone Wars, never relenting in its campaign to oust Kryze and her regime.

Prelude
For the Mandalorian warrior clans, the repercussions of the Mandalorian Excision of 738 BBY&mdash;in which the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order invaded and devastated Mandalorian Space &mdash;surpassed even the Republic's onslaught on their worlds. With the pacifistic New Mandalorian regime ascending to power, the Mandalorians' ancient warrior traditions were forced under the thumb of peace. Yet, there were some by the name of the Aka'liit, translated from Mando'a as the "Faithful," who refused to let the old ways atrophy. Determined to preserve their cultural heritage, the Faithful secretly continued to pass the ancient traditions from generation to generation.

The following centuries tested the unity of the Faithful, with disagreements and divisions spawning conflicts like a crusade against the Ithullan species. The breaking point came in the year 60 BBY, when two opposing factions attained prominence: the reformist True Mandalorians and the violent and radical Death Watch. The ensuing Mandalorian Civil War claimed many lives, culminating with the massacre of the True Mandalorians at the Battle of Galidraan of 44 BBY. However, the Mandalorian Civil War did little to mend some growing rifts back on Mandalore, the heart of Mandalorian Space, where squabbles between the Mandalorian clans were quickly intensifying.

The conflict
"But even as Mereel's ideas died on Galidraan, Mandalore was in flames. The Great Clan Wars had begun. We declared ourselves and sought to rally out kinsmen to our standard, but we were too few, weakened by petty clan disputes that had flared into conflagrations while the fight with the True Mandalorians distracted us."

- Tor Vizsla

Around 44 BBY, the inter-clan dissension on Mandalore reached a boiling point, erupting into all-out civil war. Multiple warlords turned on each other, with their clans and even families caught in the middle of the crossfire. Although the Death Watch, under the command of the warrior Tor Vizsla, entered the conflict in an attempt to garner public support, it too had suffered from the clan disputes. The battles that followed resulted in many deaths and further devastation to the Mandalorian homeworld.

Amidst the fighting, the warlord of Clan Kryze sent his daughter, Satine Kryze, to the Republic capital of Coruscant for diplomatic training. After her father died in the conflict, Kryze became the best hope to save her clan. As she gained leadership over the New Mandalorians, the Jedi High Council assigned her two bodyguards for her return to the embattled Mandalore: Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Jinn's and Kenobi's mission to protect Kryze lasted a full year, as the insurgents opposed to her rule sent bounty hunters after the young duchess. Kryze and her Jedi allies were forced off-world at times, taking refuge on nearby planets such as Draboon. Kryze's and Kenobi's shared time together shaped a budding romance between the two, a bond that was complicated by their greater commitments. Ultimately, Kryze was able to convince the majority of the war-weary clan leaders and warriors to adopt the pacifism of her regime, ending all hostilities prior to 32 BBY.

Aftermath
"Satine is weak-minded, like a child, with a child's faith in goodness and rationality. She has proved all too ready to believe the exiles have given up their fight. In fact, the Death Watch is being rebuilt. As always, our trials have made us stronger."

- Tor Vizsla

The Great Clan Wars, as the event came to be known, became reputed as the deadliest conflict on Mandalore since the Mandalorian Excision of centuries prior. Kryze shouldered the burden of rebuilding her world alone, as Jinn and Kenobi only briefly stayed on-world to observe the situation for the Republic before new orders sent them elsewhere. Determined to never repeat the madness of the Great Clan Wars, Kryze ensured that Mandalore once again rejected violence as it had in the wake of the Excision, thus fostering a new age of growth and prosperity for her people. As part of her reforms, Kryze restructured the Mandalorian Guard, Mandalore's primary law enforcement, because Guardsmen units had primarily become power bases for various clans.

The Death Watch seethed with frustration from its failure to unseat the New Mandalorians. Nevertheless, the Death Watchmen bode their time, their beliefs surviving in particular among the unrepentant warriors who were exiled to Mandalore's moon, Concordia. Tor Vizsla recorded the Great Clan Wars in a Death Watch manifesto that he authored. The rise of his successor, Pre Vizsla, ensured that the Death Watch would continue its campaign against Kryze's New Mandalorians well into the Clone Wars over a decade later.

Behind the scenes
The Great Clan Wars were created for "Voyage of Temptation," a 2010 episode in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series' second season, in which they were mentioned in passing as a "civil war" connected to Obi-Wan Kenobi's relationship with Satine Kryze. A trading card from 2011's Star Wars Galaxy Series 6, drawn by Grant Gould, was the first source to depict the conflict, illustrating Kenobi's and Qui-Gon Jinn's efforts to protect Kryze during the war.

In the episode, the conflict was merely identified as a "civil war," which left it open to interpretation as to whether it was a reference to the Mandalorian Civil War from the 2002 comic Jango Fett: Open Seasons or an entirely new event. It was confirmed to be the latter in Jason Fry's 2012 young readers' book Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy, which named and detailed the conflict. Further information on the event has since been published in 2013's The Bounty Hunter Code: From the Files of Boba Fett.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy