Attack on Mahranee

"I've been monitoring your transmissions, General, and I know that this little chat is being sent to the Jedi Council. So let me make one thing perfectly clear. As long as the Republic resists me, 'innocents' will continue to die. Every death in this war lies firmly at the feet of the Jedi. And now&hellip; it is time for you and your passengers to join the ranks of the fallen."

- Dooku, to Chubor

The attack on Mahranee, which occurred late in the second year of the Clone Wars, resulted in the genocide of all Mahran refugees who were escaping from their embattled homeworld of Mahranee. When the Confederacy of Independent Systems targeted Mahranee for its plentiful resources, the native Mahran people appealed to the Jedi Order for aid. Jedi General Chubor brought a Galactic Republic task force of clone troopers to Mahranee, but they were too late to prevent the Confederate forces from laying waste to the planet's capital city. Though Chubor's task force tried to escort the Mahran off-world to safety, the Separatists were unwilling to leave any survivors, killing thousands of Mahran civilians alongside the Jedi and clone soldiers. Separatist leader Count Dooku irrevocably blamed the Jedi Order for the massacre, leading the Jedi Council to finally sanction an operation to assassinate Dooku as a means of stemming the war's casualties.

Prelude
Toward the end of the Clone Wars' second year, the Confederacy of Independent Systems set its sights on capturing Mahranee, a member world of the Galactic Republic, whose abundant resources made it a valuable target. The planet's native Mahran inhabitants transmitted a distress call to the Jedi Order, which responded by dispatching a detachment of clone troopers led by Jedi General Chubor to aid the Mahran against the Separatists.

The attack
"You've got your victory, Dooku. The planet is yours&hellip; let us have the people. We have entire families aboard, many of whom are injured. They're innocents!''" "My dear General Chubor. You should know by now that in a war, there is no such thing as an innocent." "Count, I repeat, our passengers are civilian families. Half of the refugees are younglings. Permit them, at least, to&mdash;" "''Younglings whose parents, unwisely, chose to ally with the Republic."

- Chubor pleads Dooku to call off the Separatist attack

When the Mahranee government refused to capitulate to their demands, the Confederate forces initiated an assault on the planet, turning it into a battlefield. Chubor and his clone soldiers arrived too late to stop the Separatists from obliterating the planet's capital city, which was summarily reduced to rubble. As a result, the Mahran civilians&mdash;many of whom were injured&mdash;attempted to escape off-world. While some of the refugees departed aboard their planet's vessels, others were ferried away aboard Republic craft such as Chubor's Republic frigate, with clone troopers aiding in the escort operation. Yet, the Republic and Separatist forces continued to do battle in orbit of Mahranee, exchanging barrages of laser fire through the vacuum of realspace, and the Mahran refugee craft were caught in the middle.

Desperate to save the refugees, Chubor opened a direct holographic transmission to Count Dooku, the leader of the Confederacy. Chubor pleaded with Dooku to spare the Mahran, citing the fact that his own frigate's passengers were comprised of civilian families; moreover, half of the Mahran were only younglings. However, Dooku was unsympathetic to the plight of the Mahran. Knowing that their conversation was being broadcast to the Jedi Council, Dooku took the opportunity to blame the Jedi Order for the innumerable casualties that the war had caused, claiming that such was the price of the Republic's resistance to his Confederacy. Chubor's frigate was the next ship to fall to Separatist fire, with members of Mahranee's prominent bloodline of Ashu&mdash;including Ashu-Nyamal, the Firstborn of Ashu&mdash;being among the deaths. Altogether, it took the Separatists a matter of hours to capture Mahranee and slaughter its thousands of inhabitants, resulting in a victory for their side.

Aftermath
"Mahranee's fall is terrible. But it's only the most recent crime Dooku has committed against a world and its people.''" "The Mahran who died today already have more than enough company. Do we want to increase those numbers? One man's life must be weighted against those of potentially millions of innocents. Isn't protecting the innocent the very definition of what it means to be a Jedi? We are failing the Republic and its citizens. We must stop this&mdash;now''."

- Anakin Skywalker and Mace Windu, explicating the latter's proposal to assassinate Dooku

Once they had established control of Mahranee, the Separatists all but issued a death warrant for any surviving Mahran, claiming that they were extremely hostile and were to be killed on sight. Dooku's message to the Jedi Council, meanwhile, was met with dismay and anguish from its recipients. At a subsequent session, the Council decided that the time had come to assassinate Dooku, an act that Jedi Master Mace Windu and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker&mdash;the latter of whom had been invited by Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to sit in on the meeting&mdash;believed would collapse the Separatist regime and also prevent further bloodshed from occurring. Even Grand Master Yoda agreed to such a plan, acknowledging that Dooku's schemes placed too many innocent lives at risk.

The maverick Jedi Master Quinlan Vos was assigned the task of killing Dooku with the aid of the Sith Lord's jilted apprentice, Asajj Ventress, who could assist in getting close to the elusive count. Ventress still harbored a grudge for her former Master, who previously tried to eliminate her at the behest of his own Master, Darth Sidious. Yet, Ventress and Vos failed to execute Dooku, and it was not until the later Battle of Coruscant that Skywalker finally managed to kill him.

Behind the scenes
The attack on Mahranee served as the opening scene of author Christie Golden's novel Dark Disciple, which was published on July 7, 2015. Dark Disciple was based upon an eight-part story arc that had been scripted for the seventh season of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series; the series ended before the scripts could be produced as episodes. On one occasion in the novel, the narrative referred to the event as "Dooku's devastating attack on Mahranee," providing the battle with a name.

Appearances

 * Dark Disciple