Battle of Dathomir

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|name=Battle of Dathomir
|image=
|conflict=War of the Ring
|date=December 1st, 1982
|place=Dathomir
|result=*Confederacy of Independent Systems victory
**Destruction of the Nightsisters
**Jinx and Mother Talzin escape
|side1=Nightsisters
|side2=Confederacy of Independent Systems
|commanders1=*Mother Talzin
*Jinx
*Daka†
|commanders2=*Saruman the White 
*The Mouth of Sauron
|forces1=*Nightsister warriors
*Army of the Dead†
**Nightsister Zombies
*1 Armored Assault Tank †
|forces2=*1 Mordor general
*B1-series battle droids
*B2-series super battle droids
*5,600 Orcs
*20 Trolls
*BX-series droid commandos
*IG-100 MagnaGuards
*Armored Assault Tanks
**1 Defoliator Deployment Tank†
*Multi-Troop Transports
*Droid tri-fighters
*Hyena-class Droid Bombers
*Vulture-class starfighters
*5 C-9979 landing craft
*4 Munificent-class star frigates
*1 Providence-class carrier/destroyer
*2 Recusant-class light destroyers
*2 DH-Omni Support Vessels
|casual1=*Most Nightsisters
*The stolen AAT
|casual2=*Many battle droids
*The Defoliator Deployment Tank
*Several AATs
}}
The Battle of Dathomir was an engagement in 1982, the second year of the War of the Ring, that resulted in the annihilation of the Nightsisters of Dathomir. Seeking revenge for a previous assassination attempt concocted by his former agent Jinx and Mother Talzin of the Nightsisters, Saruman the White sanctioned an invasion of Dathomir to eliminate the entire clan of witches. The Mouth of Sauron led the Separatist Droid Army's assault, bringing a full fleet from the Confederate Navy to strike at Dathomir. After ordering a bombing run to dislodge the Nightsisters from their fortress, Mouth of Sauron landed with his battle droid and Orcs troops and dispatched them to besiege the witches' village. Undeterred, Jinx led her fellow warriors on an offensive against the droids, pushing through the jungles to Mouth of Sauron's position. After the elder witch Daka resurrected the fallen sisters of the Army of the Dead, Jinx took her undead reinforcements to obliterate a Defoliator Deployment Tank sent in by Mouth of Sauron, then headed directly for the droid landing site.
Arriving at the Separatist landing craft, Jinx challenged Mouth of Sauron to single lightsaber combat, naming total victory in the battle as the prize. Although nearly defeated in the ensuing duel, Mouth of Sauron had his battle droids attack Jinx and her army, with the Nightsister retreating from the battlefield after being injured by blaster fire. Meanwhile, Talzin used voodoo magic to set a plague upon Saruman, who was monitoring the battle from Sauron's tower of Barad-dur on Mount Doom, to pressure him into calling off his attack. With Saruman unable to defend himself from Talzin's magic, Mouth of Sauron was ordered to target Talzin instead of Jinx, and he personally led his troops to the Nightsister village's Hidden Cave. Talzin relinquished her magic before escaping, but Mouth of Sauron's murder of Daka terminated the spell sustaining the Army of the Dead. Without the aid of their zombie sisters, the remaining Nightsisters were outnumbered and massacred. Only Talzin Merrin and Jinx evaded slaughter, with the latter leaving the ravaged Dathomir to pursue a newly foretold destiny.
==Prelude==
During the War of the Ring, the Dark Witch Jinx proved herself as an assassin, serving at the side of Saruman the White—Head of State of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and, less publicly, the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Tyranus—in the Separatists' war with the Galactic Republic. When Saruman was ordered to kill Jinx in a demonstration of loyalty to his Sith Master, Darth Sauron, he abandoned his potential Sith apprentice at the Battle of Sullust, leaving her for dead. Returning to her homeworld of Dathomir, Jinx enlisted the aid of her people, the Nightsisters, to exact revenge on Saruman for his betrayal. The coven's leader, Mother Talzin, used her to recruit a Human judge, Claude Frollo, who—while secretly under the Nightsisters' control—was gifted to Saruman as a replacement assassin. Jinx then launched her strike, using Frollo in her bid to her kill her former Master.
Jinx's scheme for revenge did not go as planned: Frollo broke free of her spell and turned on both her and Saruman, while the Sith Lord nearly succeeded in executing her as he had originally intended. Forced into self-exile, Jinx escaped and spent some time reevaluating her life. She returned home to Dathomir in December 1982, the second year of the war, in search of sanctuary. Meeting with Talzin in the Nightsister fortress, Jinx conferred with the clan shaman on the subject of her future, as she was uncertain of what to do now that she was no longer Saruman's agent. When Talzin proposed that she leave behind the War of the Ring and the ways of the Sith, Jinx agreed to be baptized as a full Nightsister, beginning a new life with her people.
Having harbored a grudge against Jinx and Talzin since their attempt on his life, Saruman monitored his former apprentice's movements and learned of her return to Dathomir. Saruman summoned The Mouth of Sauron, the Supreme Commander of the Mordor Armies and a rival of Jinx during her service to the Confederacy, to Sauron's tower of Barad-dur on Mount Doom and ordered him to exterminate the Nightsister witches before they continued to plot against the Sith Lord. Saruman intended for Mouth of Sauron's confrontation with Jinx to be yet another test of his general's abilities. Heeding Saruman's orders, Mouth of Sauron immediately marshaled a massive detachment of the Separatist Droid Army—including droid starfighters, heavy tank artillery, and hundreds of battle droids, and Orcs—onto several C-9979 landing craft, then proceeded to Dathomir with his forces aboard a full fleet from the Confederate Navy.
==The battle==
===The invasion of Dathomir===
Mouth of Sauron commanded his fleet of four Munificent-class star frigates, two Recusant-class light destroyers, and a pair of DH-Omni Support Vessels from his flagship, a Providence-class carrier/destroyer. Upon exiting hyperspace in the Dathomir system, Mouth of Sauron ordered his crew of OOM security battle droids to launch the invasion, beginning with landing their troops on Dathomir. En route to the surface aboard one of the flotilla's six deployed C-9979 landing craft, Mouth of Sauron sent an advance squadron of Vulture droid starfighters and Hyena-class bombers to force the Nightsisters from their fortress, where the witches were currently holding a feast to celebrate the baptism of Jinx. Hearing the approach of the incoming starfighters from the skies, the Nightsisters took cover as the bombers attacked their home, scattering for cover from the bombing runs. While his droid squadron was strafing the fortress, Mouth of Sauron landed to the west in a forest clearing, establishing a perimeter and then deploying his battle group in attack formation. Armored Assault Tanks and lines of B1-Series battle droids and Orcs disembarked from the landing craft, while Multi-Troop Transports deployed squads of B2 super battle droids, all of them heading to assault the Nightsisters at their fortress. As the battle droids marched through the jungle, a squadron of Hyena-class bombers and droid tri-fighters continued to besiege the stronghold, targeting the supports of the village entrance.
One of the supports fell on the Nightsister Karis, and though Ventress levitated the beam away with the Force, she was unable to prevent her comrade from dying. In spite of her distress that she had brought Saruman's attention to Dathomir, Jinx was left with no time for regret, as the battle droids reached the fortress shortly thereafter. Using one of the fallen supports as cover from the droid blaster fire, the Nightsister warriors took up their trademark energy bows against the invaders, while Talzin used her magic to summon a protective bubble and unleash her brand of lightning upon the droids. Recognizing that they were vastly outnumbered, Jinx stated that they would need an army to withstand the enemy invasion. Talzin agreed to speak with the elder witch Old Daka to assemble the needed reinforcements. Leaving Talzin to raise their reserves, Jinx activated her lightsabers and took up command of her fellow warriors, spearheading an offensive to drive back the droids. Organizing a multilevel strike, Jinx had some of her comrades take to the trees to rain energy arrows upon the droids from above, while she led the ground push against the eastern front of the invading army, hundreds of droids strong.
Behind the Separatist forward lines of B1 and B2 battle droids came BX-series droid commandos, intended to strike down any survivors of the advance forces' firepower.Star Wars: The Clone Wars: What Is a Sith Warrior? The Nightsister archers were able to shoot down several droid commandos before the latter reached their vantage point in the trees, while other warriors on the ground cut through the B1, B2, and BX-series battle droids with daggers. The Nightsister Luce stole two droid commandos' E-5 blaster rifles after they destroyed her energy bow, gunning down her attackers in quick succession. Jinx held her own against the Separatist troops, making quick work of her droid adversaries with her lightsabers. Supervising his battle group's progress from one of the landing craft at the deployment site, Mouth of Sauron received reports that Jinx was leading the Nightsisters' assault and elected to send in a Defoliator Deployment Tank, which housed an experimental Defoliator cannon that would raze organic material to the ground without harming mechanics, such as his droid troops. Once it reached the battle zone with an escort of four Armored Assault Tanks, the Defoliator Deployment Tank launched several warheads, claiming the lives of a number of Nightsisters and forcing the rest to take cover from the burning carnage, with no cover left for the witches to escape the droids' blaster fire.
At that moment, the Nightsisters' reinforcements arrived in the form of the Army of the Dead. Sustained by Daka's Chant of Resurrection, the deceased sisters were reanimated as zombies, arriving to aid Jinx to push back the Separatists. The undead sisters mindlessly ripped through the Separatists' ranks, smashing through everything in their path. Their arrival gave Jinx the opportunity to press her attack against Mouth of Sauron and his droid army.
===Massacre of the Nightsisters===
Bolstered by the numbers of the Army of the Dead, Jinx resolved to use her reinforcements to clear a direct path to Mouth of Sauron's landing site. She and several other warriors commandeered an Armored Assault Tank whose droid pilot had fallen to the zombie ranks, using the tank's heavy laser cannon to destroy the Defoliator Deployment Tank. With the Undead Army clearing the way through the droids, Jinx and the Nightsisters reached the deployment site aboard their stolen tank, abandoning it to push toward the landing craft. Once Jinx arrived, Mouth of Sauron disembarked from his ship with several IG-100 MagnaGuard and Nazguls, ordering his battle group to hold position while Jinx issued similar orders to the Nightsisters. With their respective armies holding their distance, Jinx met Mouth of Sauron in the no-man's land and challenged him to single combat, dictating that the victor of their lightsaber duel would triumph over the loser's faction—victory for Mouth of Sauron would secure a Nightsister surrender, while Jinx's success would force the Separatist Droid Army to depart from Dathomir. The two longtime rivals began to duel, engaging in saberlock after saberlock as Jinx employed her dual lightsabers against Mouth of Sauron's two.
At one point, Mouth of Sauron kicked Jinx backward, but the Nightsister responded with a furious attack, relentlessly battering at her adversary's defenses until she landed a blow on the General and severed one of his mechanical claws. Yet despite being bested, Mouth of Sauron ordered his battle droids and orcs to kill Jinx, forcing her to direct her attention to deflecting enemy fire. As all-out fighting erupted on the battlefield between the Separatists and the Nightsisters, one laser shot slipped through Jinx's blades, hitting her in the shoulder and providing Mouth of Sauron an opportunity to exploit her momentary distraction. Before he could execute her, a horde of Nightsister zombies intervened, attacking the Mordor general while Jinx stumbled out of his range. Luce attempted to help her to safety but was fatally shot in the back by a battle droid, which Jinx Force-pushed away. After Luce died, Jinx—having seen so many comrades fall that day—retreated from the battleground and into the jungle, abandoning her coven. Meanwhile, Talzin joined Daka in the village's Hidden Cave, employing voodoo magic to inflict a plague on Saruman, who was holographically monitoring the battle from his tower on Barad-dur, in an effort to force him to cease his assault. Although Saruman refused to yield to her demands, he was unable to defend himself from Talzin's magic and thus contacted Mouth of Sauron via hologram to relay new orders, as Talzin was intent upon killing the Sith Lord.
Receiving Saruman's holotransmission, Mouth of Sauron was told to eliminate Talzin, his clue to finding her being that the witches' magic manifested itself as green mist. Relaying their new target of Talzin to his forces, Mouth of Sauron led the march to the Nightsister fortress, pressing through the warriors and zombies guarding the village. While the remaining Nightsisters mounted a defense of their home, Mouth of Sauron proceeded to the Hidden Cave with a squad of battle droids and orcs. He had one of his droid commandos blast through the cave's wall with an RPS-6 rocket launcher, exposing Talzin and Daka inside. After Mouth of Sauron killed Daka, the spell sustaining the Army of the Dead was severed, leaving the Nightsister warriors without their undead comrades. The few Nightsisters still defending the village were massacred by the battle droids, who carried out the onslaught without hesitation. Mouth of Sauron then turned on Talzin, who summoned her magic to teleport away from his lightsaber attack and the droids' blaster fire. Nevertheless, Mouth of Sauron knocked over the cauldron that had been maintaining her voodoo magic, subsequently ending Saruman's torture.
==Aftermath==
With the battle over and her fellow Nightsisters murdered, Jinx moved before being met by Talzin, appearing as a spirit. Jinx blamed herself for the destruction, and Talzin told her that, though the Nightsisters would always be linked to her, she now had her own path. Jinx begged Talzin not to leave her, but the Nightsister mother did just that. Thus, Jinx made her way off Dathomir. Talzin remained on the planet and kept in contact with Gollum and Claude Frollo. A young Merrin mourned the death of their sisters.Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Following the events of the battle, Jinx felt that her connection to the Force was scattered. In pursuit of the new life Talzin had foretold, Jinx travelled far into the Outer Rim, eventually ending up on the desert world of Tatooine. When Jinx arrived in a cantina on Tatooine, she realized no one in the building knew that her people had been slaughtered, with Jinx considering the Battle of Dathomir to be the effective end of her homeworld. After taking part in Safe cargo objective, she remembered Talzin's final words to her, though now without the same feeling of pain. Instead, she believed she had always had a path and that, after losing it for some time and becoming so many things throughout her life, she was herself, with the entire galaxy waiting for her. She proceeded to take up the life of a bounty hunter.
==Behind the scenes==
The Battle of Dathomir was created for the The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Ring television series and was featured in the episode "Massacre," which aired on February 24, 2012 as part of the series' fourth season. In December 2012, StarWars.com ranked the Battle of Dathomir as the third most memorable moment of the television series from 2012.
==Appearances==
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* 
* 
*Dark Disciple 
*Gollum—Son of Dathomir 1 
*Gollum—Son of Dathomir 3 
*Gollum—Son of Dathomir 4 
*Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 
* 
*Crimson Reign 2 
==Sources==
==Notes and references==
Category:War of the Rings battles