Ursa Wren

Countess Ursa Wren is a minor character in Season 7 of the 2008-2020 animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a supporting character in the 2014-2018 animated television series Star Wars Rebels and a posthumous character in the 2023 Disney+ limited series .
Ursa was a human female Mandalorian warrior who lived during the Fall of the Republic and the Imperial Era. She was the countess and leader of Clan Wren, a powerful Mandalorian family that maintained an ancestral base on the world Krownest. She was the wife of Alrich Wren and the mother of Sabine and Tristan Wren.
During the Clone Wars, Ursa was a member of Death Watch, a Mandalorian terrorist splinter organization that eventually usurped control of Mandalore from the pacifistic Duchess Satine Kryze. Ursa later became a member of the Death Watch loyalists who opposed Darth Maul after he rose to power on Mandalore and rallied a majority of Death Watch behind him.
In the final days of the Clone Wars, Wren participated in the joint assault on the Mandalorian capital Sundari carried out by the Death Watch loyalists and the Republic forces under the command of former Jedi Ahsoka Tano. In the chaos, Maul was captured and the loyalists took control of Mandalore.
This victory was short lived however, as the Republic was soon transformed into the Galactic Empire by the Sith lord Darth Sidious, who became the Galactic Emperor. To save Clan Wren, Ursa allied with the Empire once they occupied Mandalore.
Nearly two decades later, Ursa killed Imperial Viceroy Gar Saxon to save her daughter Sabine's life. This led to a civil war between Clan Wren and its supporters against the Imperial-backed Clan Saxon. Eventually, Bo-Katan Kryze, the former leader of the Death Watch loyalists, rallied many of the great clans of Mandalore to rebel against the Empire's occupation, including Clan Wren.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Usra Wren grew up on the snowy Outer Rim world Krownest, which acted as the ancestral home of Clan Wren, a powerful and legendary Mandalorian family which Ursa belonged to. At some point Ursa joined Death Watch, a Mandalorian terrorist organization that was devoted to toppling the pacifistic New Mandalorian government and restoring the warrior culture of Mandalore. Their leader was Pre Vizsla, a member of Clan Vizsla that wielded the Darksaber, a unique and ancient black-bladed lightsaber that signified leadership to House Vizsla and was respected as a symbol of power by all Mandalorians. Ursa was a member of the Nite Owls, an elite all-female fighting force within Death Watch that was led by Lady Bo-Katan Kryze.
Ursa eventually met and married a man named Alrich, who took her family name due to its infamy. As opposed to Ursa, Alrich was an artist rather then a warrior despite being Mandalorian. Roughly one year into the Clone Wars (the galaxy-spanning conflict between the Galactic Republic and the secessionist Confederacy of Independent Systems), Ursa and Alrich had a daughter they named Sabine. They also later had a son named Tristan, although the exact point of his birth is unknown.
In the final year of the Clone Wars, Death Watch allied themselves with the Sith Lord Darth Maul and his brother Savage Opress. With Maul's help, Death Watch was able to wrestle control of Mandalore from the New Mandalorian government of Duchess Satine Kryze. Vizsla, now the rightful ruler of Mandalore, betrayed Maul and his brother as he did not wish to be subservient to the rogue Sith Lord.
In response, Maul challenged Vizsla in the throne room for the right to rule Mandalore. Honor bound, Vizsla accepted Maul's challenge, and the two began a fierce lightsaber duel which Ursa observed. Eventually, Maul was able to best and decapitate Vizsla, claiming the Darksaber and Mandalore as his own. Although the Mandalorians were duty bound to follow Maul as their new leader, some Mandalorians in the room including Ursa firmly believed that an outsider should not sit on the throne of Mandalore.
The first to voice objections was Bo-Katan, who exclaimed that Maul will never rule Mandalore. In response, he ordered the Mandalorians present who served him to execute the "traitors". A firefight subsequently broke out in the throne room, eventually provoking Bo-Katan, Ursa and the other "Death Watch loyalists" to flee the palace. The conflict soon erupted into a civil war on Mandalore between Maul's forces and the Mandalorian rebels.
She later helped Bo-Katan Kryze and Ahsoka Tano overthrow Maul during the Siege of Mandalore.
When her daughter Sabine spoke out against the Empire for using weapons she helped create on fellow Mandalorians, Sabine's family, including her mother, chose to follow the Empire instead of her. Deeply hurt by this, Sabine fled Mandalore, and Ursa was forced to deal with the disdain of the other clans for what they perceived as her daughter's betrayal. Ursa's husband was forced to stay on Mandalore as a captive of Gar Saxon, while Ursa's son Tristan joined the Imperial Super Commandos as a means of improving their family's standing. Saxon would later tell Sabine that Ursa had sided with him, though Sabine retorted that she "doubt[ed] [Saxon] gave her much choice."
===Reunion===
Ursa was unpleasantly surprised when Sabine and her Rebellion comrades Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger arrived on Krownest, and ordered Sabine imprisoned; she was then stunned when Sabine revealed her possession of the Darksaber. After confiscating the lightsabers of the two Jedi, Ursa granted them an audience, in which she expressed her belief that the presence of the Rebels would bring greater trouble to Clan Wren. She later took Sabine aside for a private conversation, and after learning that she had not won the Darksaber from Maul expressed her belief that no one would follow Sabine's lead. She then revealed what had become of Sabine's father, and that she had felt Sabine safer on the run; Sabine then expressed her determination to stand against the Empire.
Ursa later responded to a transmission from Sundari and spoke with Gar Saxon, and offered him the two Jedi in exchange for Sabine's safety. However, after Saxon arrived, he announced his intentions to wipe out Clan Wren along with the Jedi, but was fortunately thwarted due to the intervention of Fenn Rau, who had accompanied Sabine to the planet but remained in hiding. With the aid of the rearmed Jedi Clan Wren fought against Saxon's commandos, though Ursa later prevented Ezra from going to Sabine's aid as she faced Saxon. Sabine defeated Saxon but was nearly killed by him, but Ursa shot the Imperial Viceroy to save her daughter's life. Now reconciled, the family prepared to face the chaos that would result from Saxon's demise, with Ursa declining to aid the Rebellion directly and Sabine and Rau electing to stay with Clan Wren to help Mandalore throw off Imperial rule.
==Trivia==
*She is voiced by Sharmila Devar.
*According to the Rebels Recon featurette for The Protector of Concord Dawn, Ursa was present when Darth Maul killed Pre Vizsla - one of the Death Watch members who didn't remove her helmet. Ursa's armor shares its design-though not coloration-with that of Rook Kast, a subordinate of Gar Saxon's in the Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir comics, and some fans believed that Ursa might indeed be Kast until her name was revealed.
*Ursa means "bear" in Latin - perhaps a reference to her role as a "mama bear" defending her daughter Sabine.
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