#a thirteen year age difference between siblings isn't impossible though and it would also explain why bo was so strongly death watch

[bookatans]

This is probably going to be a very long post but the more I think about the rise (and subsequent fall) of the New Mandalorians, the more that I get wrapped up in not only the colonialism committed by Satine and the movement, how it began in such a horrifyingly understated way, but also how it paved the way for Mandalore to be destroyed thanks to the almost-complete erasure of their culture.

First of all, Canon verse deciding to remove the True Mandalorians (and placing the "Old" Mandalorians in a similar, though less prominent position) feels particularly underhanded and paints everything in a black and white manner. Satine: a sympathetic character who is the only one standing against Death Watch, the last shred of peace left for Mandalorians to cling to. Which. Last standing? Yes, definitely. But not the only one.

A war where Death Watch and the New Mandalorians were the major players, only to have Death Watch defeated – even with the assistance of the Jedi keeping Satine alive – makes little sense from a technical standpoint. Is it impossible? Probably not. All sorts of things can happen in history, pure dumb luck makes every difference, but it's unlikely. A party which seeks peace is not going to survive against another ultra violent, volatile party that's pissed off at you because you want to erase the culture that they so deeply value.

Which, yeah I don't buy it. Even with the Republic stepping in later on, it's fishy. But for the sake of my sanity, I'm mostly focusing on Legends, because the more you try to create a coherent timeline (seriously, how is Clone Batch Math easier than this?) for the Mandalorian Civil Wars, the harder it is not to give up entirely.

Anyways. Satine did not survive years of conflict due to mere smarts and perseverance, and did not end the war by being charismatic and having good people skills. She was the LEAST THREATENING PARTY in a three-party war, hunkering down with her Jedi protectors and playing politician while the actual warriors in the conflict weakened one another and – for the True Mandalorians – were wiped out.

True Mandalorians. Death Watch. New Mandalorians.

So, okay. The approximate dates of the beginning and end of the Mandalorian Civil Wars don't necessarily make sense with Satine’s age. She'd have been slightly younger, and Canon seems to have a tendency to just wave their hand in the general direction of a time period and deflect onto another topic.

Which, you know what? Fine. I can work with that without having to think too hard about the dates. It kills me not to delve into it further, but. No. It's not like Disney's gonna pay me to fix their broken timeline.

(But if I had to, I'd shift Jaster's death to 47BBY instead of 52BBY, and push the Battle of Galidraan a year back to 43BBY, and—)

Here's what's important to remember, though:

- There are two Mandalorian Civil Wars. The first being True Mandalorians vs Death Watch. The second being the much shorter, and quickly solved Death Watch vs the New Mandalorians.

- The massacre of the True Mandalorians happened shortly before the beginning of the second civil war.

- The True Mandalorians had already been dealing with Death Watch for years, and they were winning. Death Watch wasn't just on the run, they were weak, they had to resort to TRICKING THE JEDI into killing the True Mandalorians for them.

Who wasn't weak? The New Mandalorians, the people that actively choose to turn their back on a culture that had survived for centuries. And yes, Death Watch remained even after the True Mandalorians fell. Tor Vizsla targeted Satine and the New Mandalorians viciously after that, there was even more destruction, but it wasn't with the severity with which he'd prosecuted the True Mandalorians.

Here's what happened next: Jango Fett escaped his enslavement. He hunted down Tor Vizsla, and he killed him. Whatever strength Death Watch had regained in those few years didn't matter, because the second their leader was gone they were certainly left unorganized and at a disadvantage.

Giving the New Mandalorians the opening they needed to cement in people's minds to their beliefs and convince the House and Clan leaders that abandoning their old ways was the solution. After all, how much more of Mandalore was left to destroy? How many more had to be lost?

With the public's approval and the Republic’s help, Satine Kryze and the New Mandalorians scavenged the corpse of Mandalore, and they took what they deemed fit, left the rest to rot and – given time – be erased completely.

What's worse is that Satine's activism and speeches made it sound like that made sense (because, to Satine, it did make sense); abandon what Mandalore once was because that's the reason we've been destroyed, isn't it? (Not entirely untrue.) And these people, whose world had been ravaged, who's clans and families had wrecked everything with in-fighting, were tired and desperate enough that they listened.

Actually, here's what's really worse — Satine got LUCKY! The first time! It should not have ended like that. But because she got lucky, because it worked once, she tried to do the exact same thing when the entire galaxy went to war. And she ignored the suffering of people whom she should have known empathy towards, who were going through the very same torment she experienced as a child. Because her position of superiority where peace is the only answer was so ingrained in her beliefs, because she was ARROGANT.

And because peace was the only answer, because she'd disavowed any sense of warrior culture from her people, Satine had as much a hand in dooming Mandalore as everyone who went in with the worst intentions. Does it matter that it was doomed regardless, because Maul was the great evil that came to destroy them? No. Maul was just the most convenient means to an end the resurrected Death Watch could find, but if not him it would have been anyone — anything – else.

I do feel for her. She had to experience her father's death so young and step into a role he'd left behind, didn't get a proper chance to grieve because she had to be strong for everyone else who was grieving. She gave up the possibility of love for duty. Satine was a good leader, I won't argue that, and she was the last stand between Mandalore and total annihilation, but she was also deeply flawed.