Carasynthia Dune

Carasynthia "Cara" Dune was a human female Alderaanian who was a seasoned warrior and a marshal of the New Republic. She had previous military experience, having once been shock trooper in the Alliance to Restore the Republic during the Galactic Civil War, and was an intimidating brawler and a crack shot. She left the Alliance as it politically reformed into the New Republic and became a mercenary for hire. Dune was later hired by Greef Karga on Nevarro, before rising to become a marshal of the New Republic.
Dune was from Alderaan and was off-world when it was destroyed by the Galactic Empire using the DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station. She joined the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War and began hunting down warlords after the Battle of Endor. However, her duties changed and she began escorting delegates and suppressing riots, causing her to resign from the Alliance and go into early retirement.
By 9 ABY, Dune had put her days of military discipline behind her to operate as a mercenary and remained an accomplished fighter. After spending time on the planet Sorgan, she met the bounty hunter Din Djarin and his companion and worked with him for a short time before Djarin departed Sorgan. Eventually, Djarin returned to enlist Dune to help him combat an Imperial remnant on Nevarro. After their mission, Dune stayed on Nevarro to work with Djarin's former employer Greef Karga as marshal of Nevarro.
During a raid that destroyed the last Imperial base on the planet, she was assigned as a ranger of the New Republic. She used her credentials to release Migs Mayfeld from the Karthon Chop Fields, as his help was requested by Djarin. After they retrieved the coordinates for Gideon's light cruiser, she assisted Djarin to rescue Grogu from the ship, and captured Gideon. After turning in the Moff, she was recruited by New Republic Special Forces and left Nevarro.
==Biography==
===Galactic Civil War and early retirement===
Carasynthia Dune was a human woman who was a native of Alderaan, a planet in the galaxy's Core Worlds. In 0 BBY,Star Wars: Galactic Atlas while Dune was off-world, the entire planet was destroyed by the Galactic Empire using the DS-1 Death Star Mobile Battle Station in an act that was soon dubbed "The Disaster" by other off-world Alderaanians. The Disaster singlehandedly killed everyone Dune knew and cared about. 
She joined the Alliance to Restore the Republic and served as a shock trooper commando during the Galactic Civil War. She saw most of her action after the Battle of Endor of 4 ABY, which had taken the life of Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine and shattered the Empire into dozens of squabbling factionsStar Wars: Squadrons under different warlords. Dune spent her days hunting down those former Imperial officials-turned-warlords until they were seemingly eliminated. As the Alliance became more politically organized and transitioned into the New Republic, it focused more on peacekeeping tasks such as escorting delegates and suppressing riots. Dune had not signed up for that. As a result, she left the Alliance and reinvented herself as a mercenary, putting her days of military discipline behind her.
Around 9 ABY, establishes that The Mandalorian is set about five years after the events of Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, which Star Wars: Galactic Atlas dates to 4 ABY. Therefore, the events of "Chapter 4: Sanctuary," must have taken place around 9 ABY. during the New Republic Era, Cara Dune found her way on a backwater world called Sorgan, which she called an early retirement. She eventually encountered a Mandalorian bounty hunter recently associated with the Bounty Hunters' Guild named Din Djarin, who she engaged in a brief skirmish with after falsely believing he had come to fulfill a bounty on her. Their scuffle came to a draw after the two both pulled their blasters on each other and noticed the Mandalorian's child, an infant named Grogu, watching them, after which the Mandalorian invited her for soup. Dune explained who she was to Djarin and why she attacked him, stating she figured that he had a tracking fob on her. She then told him to leave Sorgan as she had arrived to the planet first.
===Defending the village===
When Djarin was convinced to help a tribe defend its village against Klatooinian raiders, he gave Dune the credits the farmers had paid earlier. Dune accompanied the bounty hunter to the village. The two later investigated the source of the attacks, and discovered the footprints of an AT-ST, something neither of them was capable of taking down and which led them to unsuccessfully attempt to persuade the villagers to leave. Dune cited the lack of available fighters, but after she was convinced that the farmers would stay and defend their village, they trained the villagers to fight off the invaders. She explained that the pond needed to be deeper in order to trap the AT-ST and trained a number of villagers in close-quarters combat. After completing their training, Dune and Djarin headed for the raiders' encampment in order to provoke them.
They infiltrated their tent after incapacitating the guards, drawing the other Klatooinians' attention. The two then fought them as they entered the tent, and quickly escaped after the detonator Djarin had placed was set to explode. After alerting the AT-ST, they ran towards the village while evading its attacks. Returning to the village, Dune, Djarin, and the farmers all fought off the invaders. Dune noticed that the AT-ST failed to step into the trap they had created, and demanded Djarin's pulse rifle in order to bait the walker. She stepped into the pond and proceeded to fire at the walker, luring it into the trap and giving the Mandalorian an opportunity to destroy it with a detonator. The village's defense was successful, forcing the remaining raiders to flee.
===Aftermath of the raid===
Dune and Djarin resided at the village for a few weeks. She questioned why the Mandalorian never took his helmet off publicly, to which he stated that he could never put it back on if it was removed in the presence of others. She suggested that he could settle in the village with fellow farmer Omera, but he stated that the previous attack would draw a lot of attention and that he would leave Grogu at the village and move on from the planet in order to keep him safe. While Djarin chatted with Omera, Dune patrolled the outskirts of the village and killed a bounty hunter that attempted to eliminate Grogu, and concluded that the Bounty Hunters' Guild was still hunting him down. Dune later parted ways with Djarin, hoping that their paths would cross again someday.
===A new mission===
Dune went back to her normal life, including engaging in a wresting contest in the Common House, until Djarin came back to ask her to help him take down the Imperial remnant that had taken over Greef Karga's city. She agreed, eager for another shot at the Empire, and was given a drum blaster. They were traveling to Nevarro, when they realized they needed a babysitter for Grogu while they went to Nevarro. As such, the group made a detour to Arvala-7 to convince Kuiil to come with them. He went as long as IG-11 and a few blurrgs could travel along as well.
As they traveled, Dune and Djarin engaged in arm wrestling. During the match, Grogu saw this happening and thought that Dune was trying to hurt Djarin, so Grogu began to Force choke Dune to protect Djarin, much to the horror of Dune, Djarin, and Kuiil.
They met up with Karga at a rendezvous point on Nevarro so they could discuss how they were going to take out the remnant. That night, they were sitting by a campfire when they got attacked by some native reptavians, severely injuring Karga, but he was healed by Grogu. The next day, they walked closer to the city when Karga killed the remaining two bounty hunters that were with them, and he explained that he had a change of heart from what happened the previous night. So they come up with a new plan, tricking the remnant into believing that Cara caught Djarin and Grogu, only for them to kill "the Client" and get rid of the remnant.
They almost convinced the remnant but Moff Gideon saw through their lie and shot down the Client and some stormtroopers. Djarin tries to get into contact with Kuiil, who was carrying Grogu back to the ship, only for scout troopers to overhear and head toward Kuiil. They eventually caught up to Kuiil, killing him, and taking Grogu back to Gideon.
===A new start===
Gideon surrounded the compound which Djarin, Dune, and Karga were held up in and set up an E-Web cannon. He gave them till sundown to surrender to him. When IG-11 killed the scout troopers and made a daring attack on the stormtroopers surrounding the compound, Djarin asked Dune to cover him while he went into combat. Despite their initial victory due to their surprise attack, IG-11, Djarin, Dune, and Karga were pushed back into the compound. While IG-11 looked for an escape route, Dune attempted to convince Djarin to remove his helmet due to the fact that he was injured when the E-Web was shot by Gideon. He refused since he was not allowed to take off his helmet in the presence of another living creature. Gideon then sent in a Incinerator trooper to force the group to surrender but Grogu killed him. Dune, carrying Grogu, escaped the compound through the sewers while IG-11 healed Djarin.
Dune, Karga, IG-11, and Djarin met up in the sewers and attempted to find the covert. They discover a pile of Mandalorian helmets and found that the Armorer was melting them down for the Beskar. The group was directed to an underground lava channel that led to the lava flats of Nevarro. They found a lava barge to float down the river that was jammed against the tunnel walls. Dune fixed the issue by repeatedly shooting at the bottom of the boat. As they got closer to the exit, Djarin saw a group of stormtroopers waiting for them. IG-11 then sacrificed himself so that the others would be protected.
The group was then attacked by Moff Gideon who was flying an Outland TIE fighter. Dune tried shooting at the fighter to no avail. Djarin defeated it by using a jetpack to get onto the fighter and planting bombs on it, causing it to crash to the ground. After the incidents, Karga offered for Dune to join the Bounty Hunters' Guild and become his personal enforcer. When Karga offered Djarin the chance to rejoin the guild, he declined, citing that he needed to find Grogu's species. Before he left, Dune advised Djarin to take care of the infant, though Karga then speculated that Grogu would end up taking care of the Mandalorian. Dune and Karga then watched their friend, using his jetpack, leave with Grogu. As they departed from Nevarro on the Razor Crest, Karga and Dune were walking back to the city. Unknown to her or her allies, however, Gideon had survived the crash.
===Rescuing Grogu===
Instead of allowing Nevarro to fall back into the hands of the bounty guild, Dune and Karga worked to clean up the planet. She became the city's marshal to help in this effort. She later took part in a skirmish on Nevarro after Djarin returned for repairs on the Razor Crest. During the operation, she, Karga, Djarin, and a Mythrol infiltrated and destroyed the last Imperial base on the planet, but learned Gideon had survived the first skirmish. After two New Republic pilots arrived to investigate, Offered by captain Carson Teva, Dune decided to join the government and was given a position as a New Republic marshal and ranger of the New Republic.The Mandalorian Season 2 Junior Novel
After Grogu was kidnapped by Gideon's dark troopers, Dune was met by Djarin on Nevarro, who requested that she use her status as a New Republic marshal to research information on a prisoner named Migs Mayfeld, who had worked with Djarin recently and betrayed him. After finding his file, Dune refused to help Djarin spring him from prison, stating that her new position meant she had rules to follow. However, after being told that Gideon had captured Grogu, Dune reacted in surprise. Dune decided to help Djarin and "pull some strings" to get Mayfeld temporarily released from the shipyards.
Dune subsequently traveled to the Karthon Chop Fields aboard Slave I and used her credentials to convince the security droids there to relinquish Mayfeld into her custody, offering the prisoner himself a reduction on his sentence if he helped them in their rescue. Mayfeld directed them to the remote forest planet of Morak, where an Imperial remnant was operating out of a refinery for rhydonium. Overlooking this, the group formulated a plan where Mayfeld and Djarin would hijack one of the fuel transports and infiltrate the base disguised as its drivers to retrieve the necessary intel, whilst Dune and Fennec Shand would provide sniper support and Boba Fett would then extract them. Both women followed the transport along its way and set up posts on a ridge overlooking the refinery, where they prepared to take out the anti-aircraft cannons so Fett could safely fly in. Mayfeld and Djarin successfully retrieved the coordinates for Gideon's light cruiser, but were forced to fight their way out and climb up the exterior of the base to the roof, with Dune and Shand sniping any Imperials that showed themselves. Both women then watched as Slave I extracted the two, but Mayfeld elected to leave a final parting gift and used an appropriated cycler rifle to detonate one of the rhydonium transports, causing a chain reaction of explosions that devastated the refinery. Both Dune and Shand, impressive markswomen in their own right, were impressed by this. In light of his help, Dune and Djarin both agreed to list Mayfeld as officially deceased so he wouldn't have to go back to prison, giving him a second chance at life.
With the information in hand, the group proceeded to attack an Imperial shuttle carrying Doctor Penn Pershing, a scientist affiliated with Gideon's remnant, disabling and boarding it before storming the cockpit. The co-pilot took Pershing hostage, ignoring Djarin's demands to let him go and even murdering his fellow pilot when the man tried to negotiate. Dune then entered the cockpit as well and ordered the man to release the doctor but the co-pilot refused, recognizing her as both a rebel dropper and a native of Alderaan, whose destruction he claimed to have witnessed aboard the Death Star. Dune remained calm and composed at first, even taunting the co-pilot over which Death Star since both were destroyed by the Alliance, but he responded by taunting her in turn over the billions killed when Alderaan was destroyed. Dune started to visibly break down but still offered the co-pilot one last chance to drop the blaster, only for him to continue taunting her by stating that "destroying [her] planet was a small price to pay to rid the galaxy of terrorism". This proved to be the final straw for Dune and she shot him in the face, killing him instantly and also lightly wounding Pershing, before leaving the cockpit to compose herself.
After briefly stopping off to recruit additional help in the form of Mandalorians Bo-Katan Kryze and Koska Reeves, the group proceeded to infiltrate and storm Gideon's cruiser. Whilst Dune, Shand, and the two Mandalorians went for the bridge and Gideon, Djarin would head to the detention bay and free Grogu, as well as jettison the cruiser's complement of dark troopers before they could be activated. During their fight through the cruiser Dune's heavy blaster jammed and she briefly resorted to using it as a club before a good whack against the bulkhead got it working again. Reaching the bridge, they slaughtered all the defending troopers and officers but found no trace of Gideon. Djarin soon joined them, bearing a trussed-up Gideon and the Darksaber, which Bo-Katan had wanted to retrieve from him but which belonged to Djarin per Mandalorian custom of defeating the wielder in combat. Dune wanted Gideon alive so he could face the New Republic Judiciary, but the point was complicated when the dark troopers reboarded the vessel and prepared to storm the bridge, with very little hope of repelling them. A single T-65B X-wing starfighter then arrived, which did not raise Dune's spirits as she reckoned one fighter was not going to make much of a difference, only to watch in awe as a Jedi wielding a green lightsaber exited the fighter and proceeded to cut his way through each and every dark trooper on the ship. The arrival of the Jedi caused Gideon to panic and try to murder Grogu with a concealed blaster, then trying to kill himself when that failed, only for Dune to knock him unconscious with the butt of her blaster. She then watched as Djarin shared a helmetless goodbye with Grogu before letting him leave with the Jedi Luke Skywalker and his astromech droid, R2-D2.
===Recruited===
Following the capture of Moff Gideon, Carasynthia Dune turned him in and he was sent to a New Republic War Tribunal. She subsequently left her position on Nevarro when she was recruited for the New Republic Special Forces by Teva. When Djarin visited that world again and assisted High Magistrate Greef Karga with pirates, Karga attempted to recruit Djarin to fill Dune's former position, but he declined.
==Personality and traits==
Carasynthia Dune was a woman with shoulder-length and partially braided black hair, brown eyes, and a light skin tone. She was 1.73 meters tall with a muscular build. The tattoo of the Rebel starbird under her left eye was called a tear, by which she was recognized as a survivor of Alderaan.
Not wanting to protect delegates or suppress riots, citing that it was not what she joined the rebellion for, Dune left the New Republic, moved past her days of military discipline, and reinvented herself as a mercenary. The destruction of her homeworld by the Empire left her with a virulent hatred of Imperials, to the extent that she immediately agreed to take part in a plan to kill the Client upon being informed that he was an Imperial, despite having repeatedly declined prior to learning that detail. She was also unwilling to be captured by Moff Gideon, fearing the punishment that the Imperial remnant would inflict upon her. When Karga offered her a place in the Bounty Hunters' Guild, she expressed clerical concerns about her chain code, though Karga revealed they would be of no worry if she became his enforcer.
Dune kept her emotions and personal feelings tightly under control, but the loss of her homeworld remained an open and sore wound. When confronted by Carson Teva on Nevarro over whether she lost family there, Cara bitterly told him she lost "everyone." When she rejoined military service as a marshal of the New Republic she was initially reluctant to do anything that would constitute an abuse of that position and power, she relented in the interest of saving Grogu and for another shot at the Empire.
==Skills and abilities==
A seasoned warrior who had served as a rebel shock trooper, Dune was a crack shot with a blaster and an intimidating brawler. Highly skilled in hand-to-hand combatant, she was able to fight Din Djarin, an accomplished fighter in his own right, to a standstill during their first encounter. Later, Dune fought a male Zabrak in a tavern on Sorgan, overpowering him and causing him to tap out the Laser Tether that connected the two fighters. Her height sometimes belied her true strength, which she demonstrated by holding Djarin in an arm wrestling contest, confidently stating that he could not beat her. During their first encounter, Dune was able to knock him to the ground with a single blow to his helmet.
==Behind the scenes==
Carasynthia Dune first appeared in Chapter 4 of Jon Favreau's 2019 Disney+ television series The Mandalorian, which aired on November 29, 2019. Her full name and origin were revealed in Chapter 8, which aired on December 27, 2019.
She was portrayed by former MMA fighter Gina Carano, who initially believed that she would be playing the role of a female Wookiee, and was surprised that her face would be seen within the series. Carano performed her own stunts while shooting. During one such stunt, Carano kicked a stunt performer hard enough to knock him back so far that director Bryce Dallas Howard believed it was a prank and that the performer was wearing a wire. Amy Sturdivant served as a stunt double.
On February 10, 2021, Lucasfilm announced that there were no plans for Carano to return as Dune. Dialogue in "Chapter 17: The Apostate" established that the character had a new position.
==Appearances==
===Non-canon appearances===
*Disney Magic Kingdoms
*LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 
*Rangers of the New Republic 
==Sources==
==Notes and references==
==External links==
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Category:Alderaanians
Category:Alliance Military members
Category:Females
Category:Humans
Category:Individuals with she/her pronouns
Category:Marshals
Category:Mercenaries
Category:New Republic Special Forces personnel
Category:Sharpshooters and snipers