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Mandalorian Guard

< Mandalorian Guard
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Warning: The following parameters in the infobox are unrecognized: members


"Mandalore's police and emergency services are part of the Mandalorian Guard and attract Mando'ade who want to protect their people."
―Tor Vizsla[src]

The Mandalorian Guard was an organization that encompassed the combined law enforcement and public safety services of the Outer Rim world of Mandalore. Also known as the Mandalorian police, the officers of the Mandalorian Guard were responsible for upholding the law, maintaining public welfare, and protecting their fellow Mandalorians. Within New Mandalorian territory, the Mandalorian Guard answered to the pacifist government's Prime Minister, dispatching organized patrols of grey-armored officers to provide the people a sense of order and security, while locally based constables served to enforce the law elsewhere on Mandalore.

Description

"The Mandalorian Guard includes law enforcement and public-safety units."
―Tor Vizsla[src]
MandoSecretService-SWE

Officers of the Mandalorian Guard

The Mandalorian Guard was an agency that oversaw the combined duties of law enforcement, public safety, and emergency services for the planet Mandalore,[4] the Mandalorians' cultural homeworld located in the galaxy's Outer Rim Territories.[8] Highly trained and well organized, the Guard[4] was an elite police force[9] whose members were drawn from a multitude of clans, united by a shared desire to protect the Mandalorian people.[4] The New Mandalorian government monitored the Guard for potential threats to their society, even as a portion of the Mandalorian Guard served the pacifist sect and conducted themselves in accordance to their peaceful ideals.[4] The Guard's New Mandalorian police units answered to the office of the New Mandalorian Prime Minister.[10]

Ranks that saw use in the Mandalorian Guard included sergeant, captain,[1] and constable.[5] Guardsmen were traditionally trained in the use of blasters, flamethrowers, and other heavy weapons; those who served within the pacifistic society of the New Mandalorians preferred to make use of stun batons and shields as their primary tools, falling back upon more lethal weaponry only as a last resort. Members of the Guard were also trained to be able to work together as a unit,[4] and were capable of piloting vehicles such as speeders[1] and shuttles.[6] Among the Mandalorian Guard's elite units were the Mandalorian Secret Service[4]—who served the New Mandalorian Prime Minister[3] and received additional training with jetpacks[4]—as well as the Mandalorian Royal Guard, a detachment charged with protecting the leader of the New Mandalorians and their council of ministers. The Mandalorian Patrol was a division of the Guard that acted as a Planetary Security Force for both Mandalore and the surrounding sector of space, intercepting suspicious vessels with potentially deadly force.[4]

Equipment

"Most Guardsmen wear body armor and use stun batons and shields."
―Tor Vizsla

Mandalorian Guardsmen typically wore suits of Mandalorian armor in the course of their duties.[4] Due to the New Mandalorians' desire to distance their society from that of the Mandalorian warrior clans,[11] members of the Guard operating in their territory deviated from contemporary norms as they were more lightly armored, and their plates were of a unique configuration, all colored in a uniform grey. New Mandalorian police helmets also forwent the traditional full-faced design baring a T-shaped visor, for one that left the wearer's mouth exposed,[4] and featured an articulated face guard over the eyes and nose that could be raised and lowered with the touch of a button.[6] Mandalorian constables in other parts of Mandalore[5] wore the standard Mandalorian armor of the era, decorated to the wearer's preference.[12]

File:Buirk'alorClassAirspeeder-Corruption.png

Two of the Mandalorian Guard's Buirk'alor-class airspeeders

Members of the Mandalorian Guard were trained to use a variety of weapons. The most common was the stun baton, favored by those Guardsmen who operated among the New Mandalorians[4] as it's non-lethal nature fit their role as maintainers of security.[10] Many Guardsmen also carried large, handheld shields that could halt blasterfire,[1] and Mandalorian manacles were a regular component of Mandalorian police equipment; forged from nearly impervious beskar iron, the manacles were used to bind a captive's limbs.[5] Though the pacifistic New Mandalorians asked restraint of the Guard,[4] several members carried blasters, including WESTAR-35 blaster pistols, in order to meet the needs of the job. Flamethrowers,[1] such as the BT X-42,[11] and other heavy weapons were also available to Guardsmen should the need for them arise.[4]

The Mandalorian Guard utilized[1] a number of vessels built by MandalMotors,[13] a Mandalorian company headquartered in Mandalore's capital city of Keldabe.[12] Mandalore's police force used Buirk'alor-class airspeeders[13]—displaying the word "POLICE" in Mando'a lettering at the nose[1]—to patrol the skylanes of New Mandalorian cities, capitalizing on the speeders' powerful engines to quickly respond to emergencies.[13] The Guard also made use[4] of Balutar-class swoops, fast and nimble speeder bikes whose patrol models carried twin cannons, and had access to Aka'jor-class shuttles[13] for missions that required travel beyond the capability of an airspeeder, including transit between Mandalore and it's orbiting moon, Concordia.[6]

History

"...we must be mindful that the New Mandalorian government closely monitors the Mandalorian Guard, particularly its elite units."
―Tor Vizsla[src]

The Mandalorian Guard was established as a police and emergency services organization on the planet Mandalore. Over time, the Guard earned a reputation for attracting Mandalorians into its ranks who wished to aid and protect their people. Following the rise of the pacifist New Mandalorian faction in the aftermath of the Mandalorian Excision, elements of the Mandalorian Guard chose to offer their loyalty and service to the peaceful sect.[4] Despite the New Mandalorians' attempts to forgo violence, the Mandalorian police force remained an active part of their society in order to ensure the welfare of the public and to maintain security.[10]

MandalorianGuardsmen

The Mandalorian Guard in action

In the aftermath of the Great Clan Wars, during which the Death Watch[4]—a radical and violent Mandalorian splinter group[5]—tried and failed to bring about the destruction of the peaceful New Mandalorians, the pacifist faction's newest leader, Duchess Satine Kryze, used her influence to reorganize the Mandalorian Guard. Over the years, individual units of the Guard had become power bases for singular clans, and Kryze moved to break up these clan concentrations via engineered promotions and a reform of the chain of command that saw units of the Guard composed of members from multiple clans. However, tensions developed between the Guard and the New Mandalorian Duchess as veteran Guardsmen grew resentful of less-qualified members being promoted in place of their more deserving peers for no reason other than their clan ties. While recovering from their losses suffered over the course of the Great Clan Wars, Death Watch attempted to recruit several of these dissatisfied Guardsmen to their cause, though they remained cautious of the New Mandalorian government's efforts to monitor the Guard. The Mandalorian Patrol, the Guard's Planetary Security Force, was also known to have Death Watch sympathizers among its membership at this time, focusing their attention more on criminal activity[4] than the Mandalorian radicals.[5]

During this time, childhood friends Fenn Shysa and Tobbi Dala grew up off the coast of Mandalore's largest continent, eventually joining the Mandalorian police force as constables of the local province. After finishing a day's work, the two Mandalorian lawmen would enjoy a few mugs of Mandallian Narcolethe together.[5]

In 21 BBY,[14] amidst the galaxy-spanning Clone Wars, the New Mandalorian capital city of Sundari came under the attack of a terrorist bomber associated with the violent Death Watch. When the culprit chose to take his own life following a chase through the city with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, Duchess Satine Kryze elected to return the body of the deceased man to his family on Mandalore's moon, Concordia. A squad of Mandalorian police officers accompanied Concordia's Governor Pre Vizsla in greeting the Duchess' shuttle upon her arrival at the spaceport hangar. While on Concordia, Kryze discovered the Death Watch was being led by Governor Vizsla with the support of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, only escaping a nearly fatal encounter with the Mandalorian radicals due to the efforts of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Later, having returned to Mandalore, Kryze was escorted from the Sundari Royal Palace to the city's docks by the Mandalorian Guard, where her personal starship the Coronet was waiting to take her to Coruscant.[7] As the Duchess stood before the Galactic Republic senate to denounce the threat of Death Watch, insisting that they did not speak for the whole of Mandalore, a Mandalorian Guardsman was sent to scout the Death Watch's hideout on Concordia. There, he witnessed a massing of Death Watch soldiers equipped with Kom'rk-class fighters and AAT tanks, and the scout reported his findings back to the New Mandalorian Prime Minister, Almec. The Death Watch army was ultimately forced to stand down when the Confederacy withdrew its support for their campaign.[6]

Stopinthenameofthelaw-Corruption

A Mandalorian police captain, flanked by Duchess Satine Kryze, Padmé Amidala, and the Royal Guard

Later that year,[15] with Republic trade routes to Mandalore closed, the New Mandalorian people were forced to invest heavily in black market dealings in order to attain supplies. Corruption and greed spread through both the New Mandalorian government and the Mandalorian Guard, and several Guardsmen working with the New Mandalorian customs department allowed a group of Moogan smugglers to operate out of a dock warehouse, importing shipments of tea they then diluted with toxic levels of slabin to maximize profits. A number of New Mandalorian children fell ill as a result of drinking the poisoned tea, leading to an investigation into the source of the illness by Duchess Kryze and the Mandalorian Royal Guard. Tracking the smugglers to their base, a group of Mandalorian police and Royal Guardsmen led by Kryze confronted the corrupt Guardsmen protecting the warehouse, engaging the rogue officers and the smugglers inside in a firefight that ended with several smugglers dead and the others taken into custody. During the shootout, two members of the Mandalorian police were wounded by blasterfire, including the police captain. Kryze subsequently ordered the warehouse and its contents burned, and in spite of the Guard captain's concerns over the loss of valuable forensic evidence, the Mandalorian police obeyed the Duchess' orders and proceeded to burn down the warehouse with several flamethrowers retrieved from their airspeeders.[1]

The Mandalorian Guard were among those hit hardest by the forces of the Shadow Collective during their attack on the New Mandalorian people. Pyke Syndicate thugs and Black Sun foot soldiers landed at the Sundari docks and ambushed members of the Guard. The criminal contingent overpowered the police, violently subduing and imprisoning the New Mandalorians in shipping containers.[2] In Peace Park, Black Sun soldiers and Pyke gunmen opened fire on the crowd, killing police and civilians alike in an indiscriminatory manner.[16] And at the Mandalore Banking Center,[17] the Pykes led a team to rob the facility,[16] using the combat prowess of their Sith Lord ally Savage Opress to carve through the defending members of the Guard and enter the bank. Within short order, the Shadow Collective's operatives had overwhelmed New Mandalorian Guard forces across Mandalore, shaking the people's faith in Duchess Kryze's ability to keep them safe. Relief from the criminal onslaught came only with the arrival of the Death Watch, who struck back at the gangsters holding the docks of Sundari, securing the area and freeing the Guardsmen the gangsters had taken hostage, while other Death Watch troops subdued the Shadow Collectives forces throughout the city. Death Watch leader Pre Vizsla personally defeated the Sith Savage Opress, turning him over to police custody. For their actions against the Shadow Collective, the Mandalorian Guard and the people of Sundari were vocal in their praise of Death Watch. With the people's backing, Vizsla deposed Duchess Kryze and installed himself as the New Mandalorians' leader.[18]

File:FennShysa-Hasbro.jpg

Mandalorian constable Fenn Shysa

When the former Advanced Recon Commando known as Spar defected from the Republic's Grand Army, he came to Mandalore following the death of the clone army's progenitor, the Mandalorian bounty hunter Jango Fett.[5] With the support of Fenn Shysa, by now a minor clan chieftain[12] and a respected Mandalorian constable, Spar became the new Mand'alor—"Mandalore the Resurrector"—and began recruiting Mandalorian soldiers for a new group of supercommandos known as the Mandalorian Protectors. In pursuit of his goal, Spar turned to Shysa's comrades in the Mandalorian police force, drawing close to two hundred willing recruits from their ranks to form the backbone of the Protector army.[5] The Mandalorian Protectors entered the Clone Wars on the side of the Confederacy, becoming a renowned shock force capable of doing in one day what the Separatist droid army couldn't accomplish in a month, but their role in the war ultimately came to an end after succumbing to a devastating Republic ambush on Norval II.[9]

As the Clone Wars drew to a close in 19 BBY, the victorious Galactic Republic was transformed into the Galactic Empire, and the new government set its sights on occupying Mandalore[19] just as its predecessor had during the Clone Wars.[6] Though the Empire's initial relations with Mandalore were cordial,[19] the Imperial presence soon became a tyrannical occupation, enslaving[9] and strip-mining Mandalore.[20] To resist the Imperial occupation, a new iteration of the Mandalorian Protectors rose under Mand'alor Fenn Shysa, who again called upon elements of the elite Mandalorian police to aid in his guerrilla war with the Empire. Though it took time, in the end the Protectors were able to overcome the Imperials' hold on Mandalore, defeating the Empire's forces in the City of Bone, before driving them fully from Mandalorian space.[9]

Behind the scenes

Mandalorian police were first mentioned in the Star Wars Insider article The History of the Mandalorians, written by Abel G. Peña and published in January of 2005 as part of the magazine's eightieth issue.[5] Four years later, in 2009, the Galaxy at War sourcebook again mentioned units of Mandalorian police and their impact on the foundation of both iterations of the Mandalorian Protectors.[9] On January 29, 2010, the Mandalorian Guard appeared in full with the debut of "The Mandalore Plot," the twelfth episode of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series' second season.[7] The Guard would go on to reappear in several subsequent episodes of the series, including "Duchess of Mandalore,"[6] "Corruption,"[1] "The Academy,"[3] and "Shades of Reason."[18]

The Encyclopedia, hosted on StarWars.com from September 13, 2011 to July 1, 2014, provided an informational entry for the Mandalorian Guard. While other sources suggested that the Mandalorian Guard and the Mandalorian Royal Guard were distinct, separate units, the Encyclopedia entry referenced both organizations as though they were interchangeable, even linking the Mandalorian Guard entry to the Wookieepedia article for the Royal Guard instead of this one.[10] The Guard's entry in the canonical Databank, which replaced the Encyclopedia on StarWars.com, continues to refer to both groups in an interchangeable manner.[21] The 2013 release of The Bounty Hunter Code: From the Files of Boba Fett, a reference book co-authored by Jason Fry, Daniel Wallace, and Ryder Windham, outlined further information on the Mandalorian Guard, including new context that denotes the Royal Guard as an elite unit of the Mandalorian Guard.[4]

Appearances

Sources

Notes and references

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 TCW mini logo Star Wars: The Clone Wars — "Corruption"
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 TCW mini logo Star Wars: The Clone Wars — "Shades of Reason"
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 TCW mini logo Star Wars: The Clone Wars — "The Academy"
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21 4.22 4.23 The Bounty Hunter Code: From the Files of Boba Fett
  5. ↑ 5.00 5.01 5.02 5.03 5.04 5.05 5.06 5.07 5.08 5.09 5.10 SWInsider "The History of the Mandalorians" — Star Wars Insider 80
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 TCW mini logo Star Wars: The Clone Wars — "Duchess of Mandalore"
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 TCW mini logo Star Wars: The Clone Wars — "The Mandalore Plot"
  8. ↑ The Essential Atlas
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Galaxy at War
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 StarWars Mandalorian Guard in the Encyclopedia (content now obsolete; backup link)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Star Wars: The Clone Wars: New Battlefronts: The Visual Guide
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "O66" defined multiple times with different content
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Incredible Vehicles
  14. ↑ The Official Star Wars Fact File Part 21 (21 BBY 5–6, The Plot for Mandalore)
  15. ↑ The Official Star Wars Fact File Part 48 (21 BBY 13–14, Corruption on Mandalore)
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 The Clone Wars: Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy
  17. ↑ StarWars "Shades of Reason" - The Clone Wars Episode Guide on StarWars.com (backup link)
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named SoR
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Imperial Commando: 501st
  20. ↑ Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice
  21. ↑ StarWars-DatabankII Mandalorian Guard in the Databank (backup link)

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