Lit Why people admire this much the Mandos (in universe)

(Remake of a post on the temp boards)

The fact that Mandos are supposedly fearsome is a bit odd, considering that they have a remarkable track record : they lost, and badly, every single war they have been into. (You would suppose that for a warrior race that focus all it's energies on war, they would win one at some point....)

But, it's not really surprising. After all, the first Mando of the SW universe, Boba, managed to look awesome and badass, while, as Cracked pointed out, he fired once during the OT. He managed to trap Luke for 4 seconds before being owned by a blind guy.

Actually, it's basically on the level of B1 battledroid efficiency.

 

They trashed the galaxy a couple thousand years ago and never stopped bragging about it.

I just settle for them being pretty good at unit-to-unit ground combat but morons when it comes to actual military campaigns.

 

It's not unlike many people having deep admiration for the German armed forces, despite (all moral objections ignored) a little detail.

That Germany lost. And badly. Twice.

 

Despite their track record as a galactic power, one on one they are still really scary warriors. Combine this with their isolationism (and their cool looking armors, of course) and it's no wonder people find them intimidating and awe-inspiring.

 

Not to mention that they tend to be encountered as tough-as-nails bounty hunters in the modern galaxy, and Boba Fett's reputation alone likely further spurs the image. They might be looked down upon as scum, but one is unlikely to voice such derogatory remarks to a Mandalorian's face. Some cultures likely still have cultural memories of Mandalorian crusades against their species as well- the Cathar come to mind. Combine that with their tendency to side with the Sith in conflicts- who are in turn normally viewed as a highly destructive, even apocalyptic force within the galaxy- and they further come across as an unholy terror.

They may lose their wars, but they sure as hell give out one monster of a beating before they go down. And go down they do.

 

I see what you did there.

 

If thatwas all we knew about Boba, and Mandalorians, I wouldn't think much of them at all. But we have a lot more knowledge beyond that.

 

From an in-universe perspective the Mandolorians are the only major culture or government that has, post-Republic founding, managed to successfully seize a large portion of the galaxy for itself without having the words 'Jedi' or 'Sith' in there somewhere. Then, despite eventually getting their butts kicked by the Jedi a couple of times, they're still around, which isn't exactly something most other groups in a similar situation can say.

In the Dark Times/Rebellion/New Republic periods, Boba Fett's personal fame certainly contributes heavily to Mandolorian reputation, so does the at least pseudo-Mandolorian culture and equipment sported by the Clone armies.

So there's a lot of reasons why the Mandolorian get a bunch of in-universe respect. Of course, sometimes this is overblown. They are most certainly not the only highly elite warrior culture in the Star Wars galaxy, just the one with the best-looking helmets.

 

What knowledge do we have about them that show them as fierce warriors capable of sucessfull independant operations, outside Traviss books ? In all the other books/games/movies they are either thugs or manipulated by Siths.

 

Hmm, on the new maps (like Guide to Warfare), Taris is extremely close of Mandalore, and it was the high water mark of the Mandalorian conquest of the Galaxy...

 

In the Atlas, the map of the Jedi Civil War show this gigantic yellow territory that corresponds to Revan's Empire at it's peak. The overwhelming majority of that territory was seized from the Mandolorians by his troops a few years earlier.

 

The KoTOR comics maybe.

 

Plus, outside of the big wars, they are mercenaries, so they have plenty of time and opportunities to make their reputation with a thousand smaller victories. Not to mention while they are considered badasses, they are hardly the only ones - it is mentioned they have serious rivalries with the Sun Guard and Nova Guard at least (presumably the Nebula Guard and Black Hole Guard as well )

 

Really I think Vergere put it best-

"Warmaster, we think too often in terms of dualism: Jedi or Sith, light or dark, right or wrong. But there are three sides to this blade, not two, opposed and similar at the same time. The third edge is the Mandalorian. All three sides care nothing for caste or species, only adherence to a code that unites. The Mandalorians remain the most formidable enemy of the Jedi: but the Sith are not always their allies. The Mandalorians even worshiped war itself, then simply turned their backs on their god. You might begin to understand them one day."

The Mandalorians are one of the few groups that's ever competed with the Jedi and Sith on the galactic scale, perhaps they don't win, but just the fact they compete at all says a lot, as does the fact that despite their losses they're still around in the Legacy era. And when you look at the galaxy as a whole, it's not as if there are that many different people who can take on a Mandalorian and live.

 

The yellow blob is the territory they took before the war broke out in full swing. The yellow and orange lines show they paths of invasion and how far they got (that's one hell of a dent they put in the Republic). Remember the Republic wasn't the whole galaxy at this point and it was only Revan leading the defense and then the counterattack that stopped them.

 

She was having a laugh at the Warmasters expense on that day, no other way to explain that one.

Thing is those were not even Republic worlds but independent or are at best associated worlds, against which they could just simply bring superior numbers, once the Republic committed to the actual war it was over very quickly.

 

The blob yes. Those were non-Republic worlds which they took at their leisure. I should have expressed myself better. The arrows showing their line of advance and conquest (against the Republic) do show they penetrated pretty deep into the Republic. Yes during the Sith War they actually reached Coruscant but that was a blitzkrieg hit and run strike, not an attempt to take and hold territory. Which ended up feeling very weird to most of the Mandalorians but nobody's perfect.

 

Both in KOTOR comics and TOR novels, there is no indication that the Mandalorian conquest went much deeper than Taris. The arrows seems to indicate raids (maybe culminating in the pillage of the planet) but in no way an occupation.

Also, ''Revan'' flat outs states that the Mandalorians were manipulated by the Sith.

 

Revan wasn't being hailed as a hero because he led an army in a quick victory but because he saved the Republic from the brink. The TOR Encyclopedia, The Essential Atlas and Warfare all say that the Republuc was on it's last legs and failing badly until Revan stepped in. All the sources about him state that he had to resort to ruthless calculus (leave 10.000 to die here and save 500.000 there) and uncompromising tactics to win. That's a clear indicator of how savage the fighting was. Meetra Surik didn't used the Mass Shadow Generator because the battle was going just fine. It was clearly on a knife edge (and after the nightmare that was Dxun). And we knew the Mandos were occupying territory just from looking at Taris - and we also see how much they hated doing that sort of thing (and Taris wasn't the exception, if planetary conquest was not their aim then Taris would have been nuked from orbit and saved them the bother)..

Yes Mandalore the Ultimate invaded at the urging of the Sith - we know that from KotOR 2. No one is saying otherwise. That doesn't diminish the fact that his armies bled the Republic severely.

Another thing to remember is this. The Mandalorians didn't care about the endgame, wins or lose they wanted a good fight. They took their time and conquered worlds outside the Republic in order to build up a fleet, troops, all the various things on needs to keep up a war effort and when they were ready they went for it. The war itself was reason enough for them, because they live for it. The only thing about the war that stuck in their throat was that Revan hid the mask.


Edit: Upthread you compared to people's admiration of the German army despite the fact that they lost. Yes they did but look at the ammount of territory they took and how fast and then look at how long it took the Allies to take it back. Plus the Germans were fighting how many countries? That the reason some people admire their army. It put up a monster of a fight against insane odds. They lost but damn they didn't go down easy.

 

^Basically all of this sums up what I was going to say. You can't look at the final outcome of a war and proclaim the losers to have not been anything special because they lost, when there's evidence to say they were quite successful during the war and nearly won.

 

I don't see any appeal, myself.

• Not really that impressed with the armor, which seems to be their biggest selling point.
• I don't even find their war mongering appealing in a "lol eeeeevil" way. I don't find their nuking of planets interesting or appealing (though strangely I like it when the Empire and the Vong do it, probably because I like them). I feel like "they're good at war" has been presented as a reason for me to like them, without presenting a good reason why, eg style.
• I haven't found anything about their various cultures particularly interesting or entertaining.
• There's not a single Mando I'd call myself a particular fan of, I think having one might go a long way toward piquing my interest in them.
• I found most of the stuff KT did with them lame, especially the language.
• I just find them incredibly dull.

In a lot of the Mando stuff I've been exposed to I feel like the writer just assumes they're interesting from the start and doesn't really provide good reasons to be interested. It's like they expect everyone to just be in love with Boba Fett and the armor and that's enough.

I feel like they're a poor knockoff of Klingons.

 

Conflating WW1 and WW2 is not a good idea.

The admiration for the German soldier generally stems more from WW2 and the fact it took 2 ascending superpowers combined to defeat Germany, plus a large number of other nations. That it took over a year of assaults from east and west to finally defeat Nazi Germany, with the entire country pretty much destroyed by bombing, says it all. In military terms, that's a hell of an effective fighting force.

 

My point is just that if your whole goal at life is war, and you always lose them, you might consider trying something else at one point.

«Excuse me, Mandalore, but while I respect your plan for ''Galactic Conquest of the Republic for the Sith'', I just want to point out that we tried it seven times and got our asses whomped all seven times. Maybe we should try bake sales»