Mandalorian Civil War / Legends The Mandalorian Civil War was a conflict that erupted prior to the Clone Wars , following a schism in the Mandalorian clans that stemmed from a fundamental difference in ideology over the Mandalorians ' place in the greater galaxy . Fought between " Mand ' alor " Jaster Mereel ' s True Mandalorians , who believed that the Mandalorians should act as honorable mercenaries , and Tor Vizsla ' s splinter group known as Death Watch , which advocated that the Mandalorians return to their savage roots as raiders and brigands , the war lasted over a decade with victories and losses on both sides . Jaster Mereel would fall on Korda Six as a result of a comrade ' s betrayal , while Jango Fett succeeded him as the new " Mand ' alor " and leader of the True Mandalorians until the devastating defeat at the Battle of Galidraan against the Jedi Order . There , a Death Watch scheme unfolded that brought a contingent of Jedi Knights led by Master Dooku to the planet under the false pretenses that the True Mandalorians were murdering civilians . When the Jedi attempted to take them into custody , fighting broke out that left eleven Jedi and every True Mandalorian on Galidraan dead , save for Jango Fett . History . Division . In the year 60 BBY , a charismatic Mandalorian warrior by the name of Jaster Mereel ascended to the role of " Mand ' alor " , leader of all the Mandalorian clans . In this role , he began to institute a cultural reform that many had been calling for since the Ithullan genocide nearly a century and a half earlier , eventually laying out a new guideline for Mandalorian behavior known as the Supercommando Codex . He asserted that the Mandalorians who wished to fight would simply be highly - paid soldiers , and should conduct themselves as honorable mercenaries . However , not all would agree with the Codex or Mereel ' s reforms . The New Mandalorians — a reformist political faction in existence following the aftermath of a devastating conflict with the Galactic Republic approximately 678 years earlier — operated under a separate government out of their capital city Sundari , and believed in pacifism and non - violence above all . More dangerously , though , were the followers of the barbaric Mandalorian soldier Tor Vizsla , who dreamed of a goal opposite of the New Mandalorians : a return to the ways of the ancient Mandalorians as raiders and conquerors , aiming to eventually wage a second war of conquest across the galaxy . Skilled but undisciplined , these soldiers rallied to Vizsla and formed a splinter group that came to call itself the Death Watch . The supercommandos loyal to Jaster Mereel recast themselves as the " True Mandalorians " and war soon broke out between the two factions . Early days of war . One of the war ' s earliest battles occurred on the Outer Rim agricultural world , Concord Dawn . In 58 BBY , fighting broke out between the Death Watch and the True Mandalorians not far from the farm belonging to the local Fett family . After a firefight that turned in favor of the Death Watch , Jaster Mereel and his men fled into the fields of the Fett farm . While the farm ' s owner offered the Mandalorians refuge , a vengeful Tor Vizsla tracked Mereel through the fields where he came upon the farmer ' s son , Jango Fett . Using the boy as leverage , Vizsla demanded the location of the True Mandalorians from his father , brutally beating the man when he refused to give up Mereel . When Vizsla threatened to kill the elder Fett in front of his son , Fett ' s wife attempted to save her husband , shooting and killing one of Vizsla ' s men with a blaster rifle . The Death Watch struck back and in the fighting , both of young Jango ' s parents were killed , although Mereel and his troops were able to intervene and save Jango ' s life before retreating back into the field of crops . Vizsla ordered the fields be burned , attempting to kill Mereel as he ran , but as the fire spread all around them , Jango showed the True Mandalorians to an irrigation tube that led them to safety . His family gone — his parents dead and his sister , Arla , taken captive — Jango chose to join the Mandalorians . The Death Watch moved into a nearby town following their perceived victory over the True Mandalorians , intent on a celebratory raid before moving on to Moonus Mandel . However , the True Mandalorians had regrouped in the town with the intent of staging a retaliatory strike . When Vizsla and his men arrived with their armored speeder , Mereel ' s second - in - command Montross opened fire from a second - story window while the other True Mandalorians struck from protected alleys . Death Watch soldiers fell to blasterfire , while others died when Jango placed a bomb on the underside of their speeder . While the True Mandalorians attempted to finish off their Death Watch foes , Jango confronted the man who ' d murdered his parents , shooting him and avenging his dead mother and father . Nearly all of the Death Watch soldiers were killed in the firefight , although Tor Vizsla managed to somehow escape . As the True Mandalorians prepared to leave the planet , Jango was taken in by Mereel , who raised the boy as he would his own son . Return of the Death Watch . Despite Vizsla ' s escape , the True Mandalorians believed the Death Watch threat to be over in the wake of the events on Concord Dawn . Years later in 52 BBY , the Death Watch would prove to still be very much active when they lured the True Mandalorians into a trap on the planet Korda Six . Hired by the Korda Defense Force , the True Mandalorians journeyed to Korda Six to extract a team of rookie security personnel pinned down under fire by a group of local hostiles , supposedly poorly armed and with no formal army . When they arrived on the planet in several " Meteor " - class drop ships , they found that the intelligence reports were grossly mistaken and were overwhelmed by superior Kordan forces even before the Death Watch revealed themselves . As Mereel gave the order to retreat , the Death Watch soldiers sprung their trap , attacking Jango Fett — now fourteen years old , and an adult in Mandalorian culture — and the squad under his command , while Jaster Mereel and Montross came under attack from Vizsla himself . Mereel was wounded in a grenade blast that Montross used his jetpack to avoid , but when the injured " Mand ' alor " called to him for an air lift , Montross turned his back on Mereel and left him to die on the battlefield , stating that he no longer wished to take orders from Mereel . Betrayed and abandoned , Mereel was helpless to defend himself and perished as Vizsla rained down laser cannon fire from his four - wheeled tank . With Mereel dead , Montross returned to the True Mandalorians ' landing zone and urged them to heed the " Mand ' alor " s final orders and pull out , producing the false claim that not only was Mereel was dead , but that Jango had fallen trying to save him . However , Fett returned to the landing zone carrying with him Jaster Mereel ' s body , exposing Montross as a liar and a traitor . When Montross insisted that Mereel would have wanted him to take command , the other Mandalorians denounced Montross at blaster point and declared that they would only follow Jango , Jaster Mereel ' s chosen heir . Montross was grudgingly allowed to leave , slipping off into exile , while Jango became the new " Mand ' alor " and leader of the True Mandalorians . War ' s end . In the years that followed the Battle of Korda Six and those leading up to 44 BBY , the True Mandalorians scored a significant victory that left the Death Watch severely crippled . But rather than concede defeat , Vizsla turned to the Governor of Galidraan for refuge and his assistance in rebuilding the Death Watch . As per Vizsla ' s plan , the governor contracted the True Mandalorians to put down a local insurrection . The True Mandalorians traveled to Galidraan where they dealt with the rebels , and upon completion of their task , Jango went to the governor ' s estate to collect their payment ; Jango had also become aware of the governor ' s involvement with the Death Watch and while there , demanded to know the whereabouts of Vizsla . At that moment , Vizsla revealed himself there in the castle and attacked Jango with a cadre of Death Watch soldiers , forcing him to flee through a large window . By that time , however , the governor had already contacted the Jedi Council with a request for aid , claiming that the Mandalorians were murdering " political activists " along with innocent women and children . In response to the governor ' s concerns over the lack of evidence , Vizsla assured him that his own men would supply the necessary body count . Jango rushed to make it back to the True Mandalorians ' base camp , desperately trying without success to comm his second - in - command , Myles , and warn him of the inbound Jedi ships he ' d spotted , but he arrived at the same time as a Jedi strike team lead by Jedi Master Dooku . The Jedi had taken Galidraan ' s governor at his word and ordered the True Mandalorians to surrender on charges of suspected murder , with Dooku ' s Padawan Komari Vosa adding that should they resist , they would be killed . Innocent of the charges and indignant toward the Jedi , Jango ordered his troops to open fire , even giving specific orders to target Vosa . Their blasters quickly proved ineffective against the Jedi ' s lightsabers and Jango called for the use of projectiles instead , and the provision of air cover via jetpacks . Myles attempted to provide air support for the group , but was killed in midair by one of the Jedi while Jango could only watch . During the battle , Jango personally killed six Jedi — including the one responsible for Myles ' death — with no weapon beyond his own hands , feet , and armored body . But his actions were not enough to turn the tide : eleven Jedi lay dead at the battle ' s end , but Silas & Jango were the only True Mandalorian soldier there to survive the battle . Jango was finally subdued by the Jedi and delivered into the custody of Galidraan ' s governor , only to be stripped of his armor and sold into slavery by the planet ' s ruler . After several years spent aboard a spice transport in bound servitude , Jango managed to escape , recover his Mandalorian armor from the Governor of Galidraan , and track Vizsla ' s ship to Corellia where he killed Vizsla after a lengthy fight , avenging the True Mandalorians and dealing the final blow of the war . Those Death Watch members that still remained scattered , disappearing from the galaxy at large until the Clone Wars where , now that the True Mandalorians were gone and Jango Fett dead , they turned their attention on the pacifistic New Mandalorians . Legacy and impact . The Mandalorian Civil War had been fought over ideology , how the Mandalorians would conduct themselves in the future , and poeticized by some as a battle for the very heart of the Mandalorians . Although the Death Watch succeeded in destroying their True Mandalorian foes , Jaster Mereel ' s Supercommando Codex would live on under his adopted son Jango ' s reign as " Mand ' alor " and for generations after . In spite of its philosophical and ideological importance , the war had been fought between two relatively small factions , in what was seen by some as little more than a common power struggle . Mandalore ' s full - time army had been swallowed by the conflict , along with several prominent clans , but it had barely touched Mandalorians living off - world , even those in the Mandalore sector . After the war , Jango Fett , scarred both by the loss of his True Mandalorian compatriots and his years as a slave , grew distant from the rest of his people and his role as " Mand ' alor " , turning instead toward the solitary life of a bounty hunter until his death at the First Battle of Geonosis .