Battle of Devaron

|width=
|prev=Mission to Rivendell's Jedi Temple
|conc=
|next=Battle of UkioThe War of the Ring: Act on Instinct
|name=Battle of Devaron
|image=
|conflict=War of the Ring
|date=September 10, 1981
|place=DevaronThe War of the Ring: Act on Instinct
|result=*Galactic Republic victory
*Republic outpost on Devaron destroyed
*Bolla Ropal murdered
*Mezmaron escapes with the stolen holocron and Kyber memory crystal
|side1=*Galactic Republic
*Jedi Order
|side2=*Confederacy of Independent Systems
**Trade Federation
|commanders1=*General Bolla Ropal†
*General Frodo Baggins
*Admiral Wullf Yularen
*Commander Eowyn
*Commander Tyzen Xebec
*Commander CC-4572
*Captain CT-7567
|commanders2=*Mezmaron
*Aurra Sing
*Nute Gunray
|forces1=*4 Jedi
*Clone tank gunners
*Clone troopers
*3 All Terrain Tactical Enforcers
*Low Altitude Assault Transports/infantry
*1 stolen Sheathipede-class transport shuttle
**Unidentified Sheathipede-class transport shuttle
*1 Venator-class Star Destroyer
**ResoluteCargo of Doom episode guide
|forces2=*2 bounty hunters
*B1-Series battle droids
*B2 super battle droids
*DSD1 dwarf spider droids
*C-9979 landing craft
*5 Munificent-class star frigates†
**Mezmaron's Munificent-class star frigate†
*Vulture Droids
*Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ships
|casual1=*Bolla Ropal
*Several clone troopers
*All ground forces
|casual2=*All Munificent-class star frigates
**Mezmaron's Munificent-class star frigate
*Many Battle droids
}}
The Battle of Devaron took place on and in orbit of the planet Devaron during the War of the Ring in 1981. Bounty hunter Mezmaron led a force of Confederate Munificent-class star frigates in a surprise attack on the Galactic Republic's Temple of Eedit on the Devaronian homeworld to take the Jedi Master Bolla Ropal hostage. While Sith Master Darth Sauron gave Mezmaron the assigned task of stealing a Jedi holocron, Ropal kept a Kyber memory crystal, which contained a list of every known Force-sensitive child in the galaxy, essentially the future of the Jedi Order.
In the ensuing battle, Ropal was taken hostage by Mezmaron, and the Republic outpost on Devaron was destroyed. As Mezmaron attempted to make a jump to hyperspace out of the system, a task force led by Frodo Baggins and Wullf Yularen in the Resolute arrived and intercepted Mezmaron's frigate. Since they hadn't brought the necessary boarding craft along with them to board his ship, AT-TEs were used as makeshift boarding craft, since they were pressurized and had magnetic feet, a tactic suggested to Yularen by Baggins.
During a botched attempt to force Ropal to activate the holocron, Ropal was accidentally tortured to death. Mezmaron thought of it as only a minor setback to his mission and was determined to get Frodo Baggins to activate the holocron for him. He manipulated the battle on board his frigate to separate Frodo's Padawan Eowyn from him and used her as bait to lure Baggins in. Left with no other options that would end in his favor, Frodo was forced to open the holocron for Mezmaron, who then attempted to flee the ship. The ship was set to self-destruct, and as the Jedi task force prepared to leave, Mezmaron confronted two clone troopers while making his escape. To the Republic forces, he appeared to be killed in the ensuing struggle, but in reality, Mezmaron had switched his clothing with the armor of the clone trooper Denal after killing him. Under the guise of Denal, Mezmaron managed to leave the doomed frigate on the same shuttle as the Republic survivors.
Upon return to the Resolute, Mezmaron's cover was blown by Eowyn, and despite attempts by Frodo and Yularen to block his exit, Mezmaron escaped in a stolen V-19 Torrent starfighter with the active holocron.
==Prelude==
Following the success of Mezmaron's assignment to rescue Ziro the Hutt from Republic imprisonment, Darth Sauron began to rely on Mezmaron for his own personal use. One of these missions was to infiltrate the Jedi Temple on Rivendell and extract a Jedi holocron from the library. Mezmaron hired Clawdite bounty hunter Cato Parasitti to assist him, Parasitti being a valuable asset to the mission with her natural Clawdite shapeshifting abilities.
In order to complete the holocron, the Kyber memory crystal held by Bolla Ropal would have to be retrieved as well, and following the heist at the Temple, a Trade Federation fleet was sent to escort Mezmaron to Devaron, where the Jedi Master was assisting the Devaronian ministers in making the land more fertile. Since Mezmaron had abandoned Parasitti at the Temple, he brought his occasional partner Aurra Sing along to assist him, placing her in command of Nashtah Team.
==The battle==
===Invasion===
The Separatist fleet under the command of Mezmaron had taken the Republic forces stationed on the planet off guard. While Aurra Sing had the opportunity to apprehend Ropal upon landing, Mezmaron ordered her to hold back, as he wanted to capture him himself. In the ensuing crossfire, Nashtah Team destroyed a gunship that was carrying Padawan Tyzen Xebec, who had narrowly escaped death by the explosion. Ropal was captured during the battle.
===Space battle===
During Mezmaron's heist in the Temple, the captured Cato Parassiti revealed to the Jedi that Mezmaron's next target would be Ropal on Devaron, so a rescue team led by Frodo Baggins and Wullf Yularen was sent to retrieve Ropal. However, by the time the rescue team had gotten to Devaron, Mezmaron was already fleeing the battle with Ropal in his Munificent-class frigate. The team was prepared to deploy onto the planet, and therefor didn't bring the necessary boarding craft to conduct a boarding operation.
As the Republic fleet opened fire on Mezmaron's frigate, Mezmaron was forced to speed up the interrogation process to get Ropal to activate the holocron. Ropal refused, and was accidentally tortured to death.
At General Baggins's advice, the ship's payload of walkers were used as makeshift boarding craft, as they were pressurized and had magnetized feet, after bringing down Mezmaron's escort and destroying the ship's hyperdrive. While Admiral Wullf Yularen was hesitant, Eowyn and Captain Rex liked his idea. Walkers 773 and ATAT300 were activated, manned by Carnivore Battalion and Execute Battalion, respectively, as well as an unidentified third walker. The three walkers were dropped onto the hull of the Separatist frigate, which threw the droids heavily off guard, as they have never seen this tactic before. The Jedi crossed the ships hull and used the astromech droid R2-D2 to open an airlock to gain access to the frigate.
Viceroy Nute Gunray was angered at Mezmaron's disregard for his fleet, which Gunray donated to him at the request of Lord Sauron. Mezmaron assured Gunray he would be compensated for it, most likely by Sauron if Mezmaron succeeded his mission of stealing the Kyber memory crystal. Gunray asked Mezmaron to transmit the information on the holocron to him, but Mezmaron would need a Jedi to open it, and Mezmaron pointed out to Gunray there were two about to board the ship, one more than necessary. Mezmaron ordered for the ship's memory banks to be wiped and its self-destruct sequence to be activated, as well as the ship's functions to be transferred to his wrist link, before fleeing the bridge in a chute, just before the Jedi and clones stormed the bridge and destroyed its crew.
===Confronting the bounty hunter===
After clearing the main bridge, the Jedi found a hologram recording of Mezmaron's conversation with Gunray, which confirmed that he was in possession of the kyber crystal. To prevent Mezmaron from escaping the ship, Rex and his squad destroyed the ship's supply of escape pods. Yularen witnessed an explosion in the ship's aft section, but Frodo still pressed on to find Ropal.
The Jedi and clones searched the ship for Ropal, and Eowyn found his body in a prison cell. Frodo ordered a few clones to bring Ropal's body to the Resolute. They had no other options than to find Mezmaron and retrieve the crystal. Mezmaron had deactivated the ship's lights using his wrist-com, and so the clones were forced to use night vision.
Mezmaron was spotted by R2-D2's scanners, and the Jedi pursued. He led them to the ship's gunnery deck, where he reactivated the lights to reveal an army of droids awaiting. The droids opened fire, and in the midst of the firefight, Mezmaron used his wrist-com to deactivate the ship's artificial gravity wells, turning the ship into a zero gravity environment. The clones were trained for this type of situation, and were equipped with magnetic boots, as were the droids. To make matters worse, the gunnery deck was full of ammunition canisters, which meant stray fire could cause the entire gunnery deck to explode.
Mezmaron and Frodo started a fierce battle. Later on Frodo kicked Mezmaron in the face, which caused him to float away in a spinning motion, causing the holocron to fall out of Mezmaron's duster. Just as Frodo was about to grab it, R2-D2 reactivated the gravity, sending him, Mezmaron, and the holocron falling to the floor. As Frodo was dazed, Mezmaron snatched the holocron and fled. Frodo pursued, but Mezmaron distracted him by causing a clone attached to the ceiling with his magnetized boots to fall. While Frodo was distracted saving the clone, Eowyn gave chase. Mezmaron used his wrist-com to close the blast door, separating Eowyn from her master. When Frodo attempted to cut through the door, a droid accidentally shot an ammo canister, causing the ceiling to collapse, trapping Frodo in the rubble.
As Mezmaron reached a dead end in the hallway, he took a shot at Eowyn, which she easily deflected back to his left arm. Mezmaron managed to disarm Eowyn, but she still managed to flip the bounty hunter onto the floor. She thought she had beaten him, but the bounty hunter grabbed her ankle and delivered a massive stun charge through her body, knocking her unconscious. Frodo sensed this, and in his rage broke through the rubble that surrounded him. He then ordered Rex and his squad to return to the hangar bay and find a transport. Frodo activated his comlink and tried to contact Eowyn, who unfortunately was still out cold. When Frodo received the order from Admiral Yuralen to abandon the mission because the ship was about to explode, he in return ordered Yularen to move the Resolute a safe distance from the ship and moved on to save his Padawan.
Eowyn was placed in self-tightening stun cuffs. Mezmaron took her Padawan braid as a trophy for his success over her, and placed her in between an airlock and a force field. With the press of a button on his wrist, the airlock can open, sucking Eowyn out into the vacuum of space. He further lured Frodo to them by applying a stun charge to Eowyn, and Frodo arrived after cutting down three battle droids. Mezmaron promised he would kill Eowyn if Frodo refused to open the holocron. Left with no other options that were in his favor, Frodo put his lightsaber down and agreed to activate the holocron.
===Escape from the frigate===
Around the same time Rex and his squad found a shuttle in the hangar bay that could be used as their escape from the ship. In the firefight destroying the remaining droids, a fuel leak leading to a group of ammo canisters was lit, and Yularen detected that the ship's main reactor was going to collapse any minute. Rex ordered soldiers Denal and Koho to break off from the main squad and find Frodo.
With Mezmaron momentarily distracted by the holocron, Frodo used this opportunity to retrieve both his and Eowyn's lightsabers and cut down the battle droids flanking Mezmaron. Mezmaron opened the airlock, and Frodo quickly tossed a chunk of a battle droid at the force field controls, deactivating them. The entire airlock vestibule was compromised, and Mezmaron escaped using his rocket boots, before the emergency blast door sealed itself shut. Frodo managed to close the airlock and cut Eowyn out of her stun cuffs. While Frodo wanted to pursue Mezmaron in retaliation, Eowyn urged him to have patience, and he agreed.
Mezmaron reported to Gunray that he was successful in activating the holocron, and assured the Viceroy that he had his own means of escape. He was then confronted by troopers Denal and Koho in the hallway leading to the hangar bay. Mezmaron quickly killed the two clones, and proceeded to switch his clothes with Denal's clone trooper armor. To make it seem like he was dead, Mezmaron took Denal's body, now wearing the bounty hunter's clothes, and shot it off a balcony in clear view of the surviving Republic forces. Mezmaron, under the guise of Denal, regrouped with the other Republic forces at the shuttle, delivering the news that he failed to retrieve the holocron. They fell for his ploy. Just as the shuttle carrying the survivors fled, the fuel leak exploded, and, combined with the explosion in the main reactor, compromised the entire frigate.
===Mezmaron's escape===
Upon arrival at the Star Destroyer, Admiral Yularen was disappointed in the outcome of the battle, crediting the outcome as Frodo's version of success. Mezmaron attempted to leave while everyone else was distracted.
However, traces of blood were found on the floor of the shuttle. Rex pointed out that it did not belong to any of his men. Eowyn intercepted Mezmaron, and quickly discovered that he wasn't Denal after inspecting the blaster shot on his arm. Mezmaron then proceeded to knee Eowyn in the stomach and flee to a V-19 Torrent starfighter while incapacitating the two clones guarding it-one with his backpack and the other with a punch, prompting Yularen to order all of the hyperspace rings to be locked down.
As Mezmaron took off, Frodo attempted to pull him out of the cockpit, but only managed to knock the bounty hunter's helmet off. The rings weren't locked down in time, and Mezmaron escaped into hyperspace.
==Aftermath==
After Mezmaron successfully escaped with the holocron, he retreated to his personal safehouse, Black Stall Station. There, Darth Sauron gave Mezmaron a new assignment: to kidnap four of the children listed in the holocron and bring them to his lab on the volcanic world Mustafar and turn them into Sith by brain washing them to be loyal to Sauron until death.
==Behind the scenes==
The torture scene, which was all on screen, was a bit controversial at the time of the episode Cargo of Doom release. Director Dave Filoni said that the design team never once considered toning it down, as the scene was depicted as how it should've been depicted. The scene was meant to display the character Mezmaron's ruthlessness. Another point of interest during the scene was the depiction of the battle droids, whose voices are almost monotonous and almost morbid.Cargo of Doom commentary
==Appearances==
* 
*The War of the Ring: Act on Instinct 
*
*
==Sources==
*Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Complete Season Two
* 
*Star Wars: The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded
*
*
==Notes and references==
Category:War of the Rings battles