Spar

"Why take prisoners? Why not just shoot them?"

- Spar

Spar, born Alpha-Ø2 and later known as Mandalore the Resurrector, was a rogue Alpha-class Advanced Recon Commando who rebuilt the Mandalorian Supercommandos and fought for the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars. Alpha-Ø2 was cloned from Jango Fett on Kamino for the Grand Army of the Republic. An aberrant clone with more independence and free-thinking than his fellow soldiers, Alpha-Ø2 found after eight and a half years that he had inherited the memories of Jango Fett. With the aid of Cuy'val Dar doctor Mij Gilamar, Alpha-Ø2 made his escape off Kamino in the hold of Slave I, taking the name "Spar" from what the Kaminoan trainers had called him.

Spar traveled the galaxy as a bounty hunter before the Clone Wars. When war broke out and Jango Fett was killed in the Battle of Geonosis, Spar realized he needed to reform the Mandalorians Supercommandos and traveled to the planet Mandalore. After overcoming the pacifist movement of Duchess Satine, Spar became Mandalore and formed the Mandalorian Protectors, recruiting 200 police from Mandalore&mdash;including Fenn Shysa and Tobbi Dala&mdash;and a dozen former Death Watch members. He took the name "Mandalore the Resurrector" as a sign he would honor the old traditions of the Mandalorians. Hating the Jedi for their killing of Mandalorians at the Battle of Galidraan, Spar joined the war on the side of the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

The Protectors fought throughout the war at Null, New Bornalex, Kamino, New Holstice, Zaadja, and even Mandalore, where they seized the headquarters of MandalMotors for Separatist use. Spar brought new materiel to the Mandalorian cause, including Pursuer-class enforcement ships and the BL-series Battle Legionnaire droid. Their final mission ended in betrayal, when Darth Sidious ordered the Protectors to capture Padmé Amidala on Norval II, in a mission that proved to be a Republic ambush. Only three survivors walked away: Shysa, Dala, and a shellshocked Spar. Spar left the post of Mandalore, but stayed on the planet for some months longer, in which time he joined with the colleagues of Kal Skirata to retrieve information that could help cure the rapid aging of clone troopers. He eventually disappeared into the Extrictarium Nebula, where years later Ailyn Vel, the daughter of Boba Fett, mistook him for her father and killed him.

Life on Kamino
Alpha-Ø2 was cloned from Jango Fett by the Kaminoan cloners on Kamino in 32 BBY, one of the first test class of Advanced Recon Commando soldiers made as part of the order for the Grand Army of the Republic. While the Kaminoans instilled uniformity in their clones, limiting the choices and individuality available to them, Alpha-Ø2 was a case of a 1% failure rate in the Kaminoans' product; of the hundred ARC troopers in his class, he alone was independent and free-thinking, rejecting the anonymity enforced on him. Nor did Alpha-Ø2 internalize any loyalty to the Galactic Republic. Like all aberrant clones&mdash;which appeared in 3.5 percent of the general clone population&mdash;Alpha-Ø2 was put through reconditioning. The process did not take, but Alpha-Ø2 seemed to blend in with the other clones, and his peculiarity was not noticed. The Kaminoan handlers came to call him "Spar". Alpha-Ø2 developed a friendship with Mij Gilamar, one of the Mandalorian Cuy'val Dar trainers working as a doctor. Eight and a half years after his cloning, when he was biologically seventeen years of age, Alpha-Ø2 heard a mention of Jango Fett's exploits, which triggered a memory in him&mdash;not of his own life, but of Fett's. Fett's memories returned to Alpha-Ø2 in a rush, and knowing that they would be reconditioned out of him, he prepared to make his escape from Kamino. Alpha-Ø2 began faking insanity and headaches to meet with Gilamar. Gilamar eventually cashed in a favor with Jango Fett to smuggle Alpha-Ø2 off Kamino in the hold of Slave I. Alpha-Ø2's escape made him the first deserter from the Grand Army.

Upon leaving Kamino, Alpha-Ø2 decided to take the name "Spar" as his own. Spar took to working odd jobs around the galaxy, particularly in the Outer Rim Territories, as he attempted to sort through his mental state. The man mostly took work as a bounty hunter, specializing in live captures. When Jango Fett was killed in the opening battle of the Clone Wars, Spar realized his purpose was to rebuild the Mandalorian Supercommandos. Spar came to the planet Mandalore, where he called for aid from the local police to form his new Mandalorian Protectors. 200 police came to him, among them two constables of Mandalore named Fenn Shysa and Tobbi Dala, as well as twelve former members of the splinter Mandalorian faction, the Death Watch. The rumor spread across Mandalore that Spar was the son of Jango Fett who had come to rebuild the Mandalorians. He was opposed in this by Duchess Satine, leader of the pacifist New Mandalorians, who wished Mandalore to remain neutral in the Clone Wars. Spar won out over her faction, however, and became Mandalore, leader of the Mandalorians. He took the title "Mandalore the Resurrector" as a sign that the old traditions of the Mandalorians would hold dominant. Rumors existed that Shysa was the true power behind Spar, but most knew Shysa as Spar's most loyal follower.

Mandalore
Spar, bearing a desire for order and a hatred of the Jedi Order for their part in killing the Mandalorians at the Battle of Galidraan, joined the Protectors to the cause of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The Mandalore put the Pursuer-class enforcement ship into use among his unit. Remembering how Mandallian Giants had been used by the Mandalorians on the front lines of the New Sith Wars, as well as Fenn Shysa's encounter with the droid C-3PX, Spar also had the droid foundries of the Separatists produce a limited run of one thousand BL-series Battle Legionnaire droids. Spar and his Protectors fought the Jedi and Republic around the galaxy, including at New Holstice, Null, and Zaadja. Supercommando squads engaged in covert missions on behalf of the Separatists. Near the climax of the war, the Protectors helped the government of Mandalore capture the facilities of MandalMotors in the city Keldabe for Separatist use. When a prominent Separatist commander was killed, the Mandalorians and their Battle Legionnaire droids retaliated at New Bornalex and Kamino. The Republic sent assassins after Spar, but they failed to kill him.

Near the end of the war, Darth Sidious instructed the Mandalorian government to dispatch Spar and his supercommandos to Norval II to capture Senator Padmé Amidala. Sidious betrayed them, however, and the mission sent them into a Republic ambush. All but three of the Protectors were killed&mdash;Spar, Shysa, and Dala were the only survivors. The shell-shocked Spar left his post of Mandalore. He remained on the planet Mandalore for the time being, and Shysa made repeated unsuccessful attempts to get the Mandalore to resume his post.

After the Protectors
In the last half-year of the war, Spar met the clone deserter Fi in the city of Enceri; in the following days, the two met again in the Oyu'baat tapcafe in Keldabe, where Spar was joined by Shysa and Sull, another ARC trooper deserter. Hoping a Fett could hold together the people of Mandalore, Shysa tried to convince Spar once again to return to his role. Spar allowed that it could be floated that he was considering a return, but did not commit; he ultimately would refuse the position. The meeting was ended with an altercation between Sull and ex-Jedi Bardan Jusik, which Spar attempted to break up. However, Spar still bore resentment for Jusik as a Jedi, and the two ARC troopers confronted Jusik and Fi as they were preparing to leave for Coruscant. Jusik put himself at their mercy, and after learning that he bore no more allegiance to the Jedi, Spar backed down and Sull followed. Having heard rumors that Jusik's friend Kal Skirata was in pursuit of a cure for the clones' rapid aging and shortened lifespan, Spar verified the story with Jusik. Jusik confirmed it, and Spar and Sull joined the other two to head to Coruscant.

Spar reunited with Gilimar and met with Skirata a month later on Coruscant. The ex-Mandalore agreed to join with Skirata in exchange for a share of whatever treatment they found. Skirata informed them of Ovolot Qail Uthan, a Separatist scientist who had worked on the clone genome and could help them, who was in the Republic's custody. He also wanted to free his daughter Ruusaan, imprisoned in the Republic Detention Center in Pols Anaxes, and it was to this mission that Spar was assigned, alongside Sull, Fi, and Jusik. After almost two months of preparation, the trio infiltrated the center on Anaxes disguised in clone trooper armor, with Jusik as their supposed prisoner. They claimed to the camp commander that Jusik was there to identify Ruusaan, presenting false credentials to move her to Coruscant. Upon removing Ruusaan from her cell, the girl proved recalcitrant; Spar had to restrain her until Jusik administered a Force Stun. They were able to get her to their spacecraft and escape the planet, then rendezvoused with Skirata's adopted son Ordo on Coruscant, right in the middle of the Battle of Coruscant. Jusik was able to get Spar off Coruscant in his Aggressor assault fighter, along with Sull, Ruusaan Skirata, ARC trooper Mereel, Uthan, and Jango Fett's sister Arla&mdash;the latter two of whom had been sprung from custody on Coruscant in the days prior.

With Spar refusing to return, Fenn Shysa succeeded him as Mandalore. Spar came to Skirata's stronghold at Kyrimorut a few months later to be immunized by Uthan against the FG36 virus, a bioweapon designed by Uthan and now in use by the new Galactic Empire. While there, he learned of Uthan's progress on her cure for rapid aging and volunteered for trials of anything she developed. Spar eventually disappeared into the Extrictarium Nebula. There he succumbed to clone madness as his mind attempted to sort out the two sets of memories within it. Years later, Ailyn Vel found him within the nebula. By this point, Spar was unsure whether he was experiencing reality or hallucinating. Believing Spar to be her father, Boba Fett, Vel shot the man dead.

Legacy
"Our chief officer, who'd become disenchanted with fightin' fer other people, set off on his own an' ended up the canniest bounty hunter in the known worlds. That, o' course, was Boba Fett."

- Fenn Shysa, mistakenly speaking of Spar

Ailyn Vel took Spar's Mandalorian armor and ARC trooper kama, using it to masquerade as Boba Fett in her job as a bounty hunter. She was not the only one who mistook him as such, though. Because the Protectors had known him as the son of Jango Fett, decades later Fenn Shysa would mistakenly identify his commander in the Clone Wars as Boba Fett.

Personality and traits
As a clone on Kamino, Alpha-Ø2 showed independence far beyond the norm for his fellow soldiers, and the uniform anonymity enforced in the Kaminoan facilities rankled his free-thinking personality. Spar saw during his training what was coming for the clone army, and it was in part this that drove him to escape. Fi, a deserter from the Grand Army, did not believe that Spar felt guilt over his own desertion; however, he suspected the ARC trooper had some regret in his past.

Spar was a perceptive and knowledgeable individual who kept track of information that passed through Mandalore. he was adept in stealth combat tactics, and able to throw off enemies trying to track his location. His training and the skills he inherited from Fett gave him an edge in survival in the wider galaxy.

Spar despised Fett for selling his genes to create the Grand Army. He held a continuing grudge against the Jedi, taking satisfaction in their death at the hands of the clone army during Order 66.

Behind the scenes
Spar was first created in the role-playing game sourcebook Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds&mdash;by Daniel Wallace, Jason Fry, [Craig Robert Carey]], Jeff Quick, and Jeffrey Quinn&mdash;as a non-player character for use in adventures. Spar's character description was brief, only telling up to his escape and ending with a note that Jango Fett might hunt down the rogue clone in the future. It was Abel G. Peña who retconned Spar in the 2005 Star Wars Insider article The History of the Mandalorians to explain a decades-old reference that, with the release of the prequel trilogy, was now a continuity error.

The Marvel Star Wars comic Star Wars 68: The Search Begins, published in 1983, told how the Mandalorians had fought in the Clone Wars. According to a story told by Fenn Shysa in the comic, Shysa and his friend Tobbi Dala had fought under Boba Fett, serving the Emperor to fight the Jedi. There they had been ordered to capture Princess Leia. Most of these references would become a problem with later revelations about the Clone Wars: Boba Fett was only ten to thirteen years old during them, Leia was only born after their end, and the Emperor, Palpatine, had only been the Supreme Chancellor at the time. The latter two were solved by having the Mandalorians serve Palpatine in his persona of Darth Sidious and having them capture Leia's mother, Padmé Amidala, instead. To solve the issue of Boba Fett's appearance, Peña had had the idea of Alpha-Ø2 in mind for some time. When Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds was released, Peña realized that Spar could be fit into the role he had planned. His retcon made Spar the leader of the Mandalorians in the time of the Clone Wars, and due to a rumor that he was the "son of Jango Fett", characters such as Shysa would think it had been Boba leading them. Peña also created Spar's clone name, Alpha-Ø2. The use of the Ø was an instance of image association, a visual sign that set Spar apart and signaled he was defective in some way. Due to a layout error in the printing of the article, Spar's image was mistakenly placed over a heading of Jango and Boba Fett. The large scar visible on Spar's face originated in an earlier draft of the article's description of Spar. The article did not give a timeframe for Spar's death; Peña estimates that it occurred between 7 and 11 ABY.

However, new errors would arrive with the release of the novel Revelation by Karen Traviss. While the earlier works had established Fenn Shysa as a follower of Spar who was mistaken about his identity, Revelation stated that Shysa was the leader behind Spar, using Spar as a figurehead Mandalore and claiming he was Boba. Traviss' next novel, Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel, would radically alter Spar's story further. In the novel, Spar is said to have refused Shysa's request to be Mandalore. He never becomes Mandalore, and never joins the Separatists; the novel ends with Shysa becoming what is said to be the first Mandalore since Jango Fett. This new version of events, however, has been an anomaly; later sources such as The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, The Essential Atlas, and Galaxy at War confirm that Spar was Mandalore, with the latter source specifically addressing the Shysa aspect as a rumor. Other errors have since occurred; the sequel to Order 66, Imperial Commando: 501st, states Spar received inoculations for Separatist viruses, a statement made difficult by the fact that Spar deserted the Grand Army of the Republic before the Separatists ever went to war against the Republic.

Appearances

 * Republic Commando: True Colors
 * Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel
 * Imperial Commando: 501st
 * Star Wars 68: The Search Begins
 * Bloodlines
 * Revelation

Notes and references
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