On 12/28/2019 at 11:03 AM, Vondy said:

I suspect, at this point, that the only people who might call him that are Cara and Greef.

No one else, aside from the people in the room when he received his signet, have even heard it.

And, with the exception Mandos he meets in the future, I doubt he'll make it known.

And Moff Gideon of course😉

Just now, VadersMarchKazoo said:

And Moff Gideon of course😉

I added that farther down....

On 12/28/2019 at 9:58 PM, DarkHorse said:

Death Troopers are good at killing storm troopers, Imperial scientists and unarmed civilians. They haven't been shown on screen to do any good against Rebel troops or 3 people holed up in a bar. Besides their name and cool armour, what have they got going for them?

I'd like to add that one of those 2 out of the 3 of those people 'holed up' were Guardians of the Whills...

On 12/28/2019 at 9:58 PM, DarkHorse said:

Death Troopers are good at killing storm troopers, Imperial scientists and unarmed civilians. They haven't been shown on screen to do any good against Rebel troops or 3 people holed up in a bar. Besides their name and cool armour, what have they got going for them?

You have never heard of The Inverse Law of Ninjitsu, have you?

Threat Per Mook = O(1/N) where N = number of Ninjas (or other "Elite Adversaries"), that is, the threat per mook decreases fast enough so total ninjutsu cannot grow, assuming arithmetic additivity of threat.To whit, on any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of ninjutsu available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one Ninja is a deadly threat, but an army of them are cannon fodder mooks straight out of central casting. In our context, elite warriors like Mandos and Death Troopers are Ninja. Death Troopers are obviously intended to be elite operators. We needn't be overly pedantic about "visual evidence."

This is closely interrelated with the Conservation of Ninjitsu. Drama thrives on conflict and a few putting up a fight against the many is a free conflict coupon. Why have the heroes curb stomp the villain if you can make him powerful enough to force them into teeth-clenched teamwork? Why let the villains curb stomp the hero in three three seconds flat if you can let him take down seven or eight of them before he collapses to demonstrate his baddonkery? No writer wants to waste that kind of dramatic tension!

TV shows aren't games that run on fixed coherent mechanics. They are stories told by writers seeking to ratchet up dramatic tension and, in Star Wars, live true to the Rule of Cool. In other words, our heroes are as Strong as They Need to Be while Death Troopers have Fixed Relative Strength and are frequently on the wrong end of The Worf Effect. Poor buggers.

On 12/31/2019 at 6:17 AM, VadersMarchKazoo said:

I'd like to add that one of those 2 out of the 3 of those people 'holed up' were Guardians of the Whills...

I was referring to Greef, the Mando and Cara. Of course a blind man with absolutely no supernatural abilities whatsoever (according to canon) and another guy with a gun and a first name were going to punk Death Troopers.

So, been thinking on Mando ...

I'm pretty sure that Cara Dune committed some war crimes after the civil war. More than likely something like executing imps that were prisoners.

Reasoning...

• From Alderan with a serious beef with the Empire. Evidenced by she basically took Mando's final offer because it meant she could kill more imps.
• There are "clerical issues" with her chain code. This goes hand in hand with her having an active bounty. I'm under the impression it's a legal bounty (puck and fob) from her dialogue in the spotchka episode, not a vendetta bounty from ex-imps.
• At the start of chapter 8, even when pinned down, she still had her cocky swagger. Once Gideon said her name, her character had legitimate panic of basically "THEY WILL KILL ME" if taken hostage. My hunch being Gids would do the same to her whatever her own personal war crimes were to the imps.

What's that mean at the end of the season? (the exchange between greef and cara) = Greef would use his honorable legit above the table connections as a Guild Master to exonerate the bounty hanging over Cara's head.

What do you think? Reading too much? Accurate?

14 minutes ago, thinkbomb said:

So, been thinking on Mando ...

I'm pretty sure that Cara Dune committed some war crimes after the civil war. More than likely something like executing imps that were prisoners.

Reasoning...

• From Alderan with a serious beef with the Empire. Evidenced by she basically took Mando's final offer because it meant she could kill more imps.
• There are "clerical issues" with her chain code. This goes hand in hand with her having an active bounty. I'm under the impression it's a legal bounty (puck and fob) from her dialogue in the spotchka episode, not a vendetta bounty from ex-imps.
• At the start of chapter 8, even when pinned down, she still had her cocky swagger. Once Gideon said her name, her character had legitimate panic of basically "THEY WILL KILL ME" if taken hostage. My hunch being Gids would do the same to her whatever her own personal war crimes were to the imps.

What's that mean at the end of the season? (the exchange between greef and cara) = Greef would use his honorable legit above the table connections as a Guild Master to exonerate the bounty hanging over Cara's head.

What do you think? Reading too much? Accurate?

It's a decent theory, I'd say.

17 minutes ago, thinkbomb said:

So, been thinking on Mando ...

I'm pretty sure that Cara Dune committed some war crimes after the civil war. More than likely something like executing imps that were prisoners.

Reasoning...

• From Alderan with a serious beef with the Empire. Evidenced by she basically took Mando's final offer because it meant she could kill more imps.
• There are "clerical issues" with her chain code. This goes hand in hand with her having an active bounty. I'm under the impression it's a legal bounty (puck and fob) from her dialogue in the spotchka episode, not a vendetta bounty from ex-imps.
• At the start of chapter 8, even when pinned down, she still had her cocky swagger. Once Gideon said her name, her character had legitimate panic of basically "THEY WILL KILL ME" if taken hostage. My hunch being Gids would do the same to her whatever her own personal war crimes were to the imps.

What's that mean at the end of the season? (the exchange between greef and cara) = Greef would use his honorable legit above the table connections as a Guild Master to exonerate the bounty hanging over Cara's head.

What do you think? Reading too much? Accurate?

Its a workable hypothesis. Anything we throw out there at this point is pure speculation. And, truth be told, the writer's themselves may not have settled on anything specific.

Happy 1 ABY!

(After Baby Yoda)

I think one of the best things about this show is that it's made my fiancée and one of my closest friends - both who've had no interest before - want to make Mando OCs! I call that an absolute win!

I was thinking about some of the overall themes. I think the creators have done a good job making the universe seem larger and maybe more inclusive. For example, fandom has been freaking out about IG-88 for years. We've basically fantasized about each of the bounty hunters on the bridge and idealized them. This show has said, look there are tons of IG's, let's not obsess about the one we've seen before. Similarly, there's sort of a Boba Fest obsession out there. This show has said, look, here're like 20 dudes (and gals) dressed just like Boba (and really doing way more than him), it's time to move past the OT. Sort of ironic too since at face value this show seems like OT red meat.

Similarly, I like how they decided that Mandalorian is a creed not a race. It sort of says "anyone can be a mandolorian" similar to how tLJ suggested that anyone can be a Jedi.

So what I'm saying is that these are ideas and themes that Rian Johnson put out there in tLJ but the Mr. Favreau and Feloni have done a great job with these ideas without leading to hurt feelings and controversy.

Just now, VadersMarchKazoo said:

Similarly, I like how they decided that Mandalorian is a creed not a race. It sort of says "anyone can be a mandolorian" similar to how tLJ suggested that anyone can be a Jedi.

That's pretty much always been the case. It wasn't anything new to this show.

1 minute ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

So what I'm saying is that these are ideas and themes that Rian Johnson put out there in tLJ but the Mr. Favreau and Feloni have done a great job with these ideas without leading to hurt feelings and controversy.

Kind of, but not really.

2 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

I was thinking about some of the overall themes. I think the creators have done a good job making the universe seem larger and maybe more inclusive. For example, fandom has been freaking out about IG-88 for years. We've basically fantasized about each of the bounty hunters on the bridge and idealized them. This show has said, look there are tons of IG's, let's not obsess about the one we've seen before. Similarly, there's sort of a Boba Fest obsession out there. This show has said, look, here're like 20 dudes (and gals) dressed just like Boba (and really doing way more than him), it's time to move past the OT. Sort of ironic too since at face value this show seems like OT red meat.

This is pretty much right, but to a certain extent it was them trying to get people interested by having Boba Fett-lite and IG-88-lite without the baggage that comes with them. And again, Mandalorians as a wider group have pretty much always existed. I don't think the show is anything about moving past the OT, it is just adding more to Star Wars. With TLJ, they literally said "let the past die. Kill it if you have to" all while character assassinating a beloved character from the OT.

8 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

That's pretty much always been the case. It wasn't anything new to this show.

In cannon? I'm not arguing but I haven't seen "Mando is a creed not a race" before this show (again in cannon). For example in both the Clone Wars and Rebels pretty much every Mando is of medium complexion and seems to have come from Mandalore or one of it's moons. I don't recall ever seeing an alien Mando. I certainly don't remember them inviting others into the creed.

Then there's the whole Jango Fett controversy. In the Clone Wars, Duchess Satine makes a point that he's not even Mandalorian and she "doesn't know how he managed to get the armor".

Anyways, maybe legends has more on this but I don't trust those as a source and I'm not sure what else you're referencing. Not arguing, just not clear.

18 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

. With TLJ, they literally said "let the past die. Kill it if you have to" all while character assassinating a beloved character from the OT.

And, then he made a series of symbolic apologies to the audience and said "I was wrong" in RoS.

Just now, VadersMarchKazoo said:

In cannon? I'm not arguing but I haven't seen "Mando is a creed not a race" before this show (again in cannon). For example in both the Clone Wars and Rebels pretty much every Mando is of medium complexion and seems to have come from Mandalore or one of it's moons. I don't recall ever seeing an alien Mando. I certainly don't remember them inviting others into the creed.

Anyways, maybe legends has more on this but I don't trust those as a source and I'm not sure what else you're referencing. Not arguing, just not clear.

No, not in canon. We didn't have much on the Mandos in canon before The Mandalorian. However, considering that the Mandos never take their helmets off, you don't know how many Pantoran, Umbaran, etc. Mandalorians there are, because there are many alien species that are near human and you wouldn't really be able to tell without their helmets off (again, pretty much a non sequitur though).

The reason I use Legends as a source on this is because it shows that that is the way Mandalorian culture is portrayed, and since the Clone Wars show came out while that stuff was still the mainstream, than it is reasonable to assume that the writers had that in mind.

My main point is that Filoni and Favreau went nowhere new with Mandalorian culture being a creed not a race (i.e. the concepts "Dar'Manda" and "Mando'kar," and of course the Resol'nare).

6 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

Then there's the whole Jango Fett controversy. In the Clone Wars, Duchess Satine makes a point that he's not even Mandalorian and she "doesn't know how he managed to get the armor".

Not sure what you're getting at here.

2 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

No, not in canon. We didn't have much on the Mandos in canon before The Mandalorian. However, considering that the Mandos never take their helmets off, you don't know how many Pantoran, Umbaran, etc. Mandalorians there are, because there are many alien species that are near human and you wouldn't really be able to tell without their helmets off (again, pretty much a non sequitur though).

The reason I use Legends as a source on this is because it shows that that is the way Mandalorian culture is portrayed, and since the Clone Wars show came out while that stuff was still the mainstream, than it is reasonable to assume that the writers had that in mind.

My main point is that Filoni and Favreau went nowhere new with Mandalorian culture being a creed not a race (i.e. the concepts "Dar'Manda" and "Mando'kar," and of course the Resol'nare).

Not sure what you're getting at here.

Cool. I see where you're coming from. I don't put much weight on anything until it is added to cannon. I look at the whole legends thing as apocryphal. They are a set of stories that float around the universe, many of which are conflicting, and then we find out which are the most true once they are told in cannon. I do agree that Filoni and others at Lucas Story Group seem to bring more and more legends into cannon as time passes. Good insight though, thanks.

As far as the Jango thing, I'm just pointing out that what it means to be Mandalorian may be getting clarified, and so would Boba and Jango's relationship too. Basically, if they lived by the 'creed' they are presumably in but if not, then they're just dudes with Mando armor.

A little bit more on why Mandalorians aren't a race:

As far as Human Mandalorians go, we see plenty of racial differences. Sabine's family looks more Asian, the spokesman for clan (I think it was Rook) at the assembly where Sabine gave Bo Katan the Darksaber was black, the members of clan Vizsla tend to be blond hair, blue eyes, and there was a spokeswoman for another clan who was also black, albeit a lighter shade.

The reasoning for this is fairly obvious: Mandalorians are structured in Clans, which are family units, albeit large ones. Most alien species are probably not going to be able to have fertile relations with Humans, so when aliens are adopted into the clan structure, they aren't particularly likely to be able to propagate their species within the Mandalorians, and therefore their bloodline will probably die out leaving no new aliens behind. The clans we see on screen are, we can presume, some of the biggest ones. There might be some clans that are almost entirely made up of aliens, but they would probably be significantly smaller for many of the reasons outlined above.

In Legends, the original Mandalorians, the Taung, began to die out, so they brought members of other species in to bolster their ranks and preserve their culture. For whatever reason, the Humans were the ones who made up the significant majority, and therefore were able to more effectively propagate themselves within the Mandalorian culture.

I'm kind of a Mando nerd, so I've done a lot of research and thinking on the subject.

2 minutes ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

As far as the Jango thing, I'm just pointing out that what it means to be Mandalorian may be getting clarified, and so would Boba and Jango's relationship too. Basically, if they lived by the 'creed' they are presumably in but if not, then they're just dudes with Mando armor.

Yeah, this is pretty much right.

I prefer to think of them as Mandalorians*, I liked their Legends story (only up to the Clone Wars, I don't care much about where Boba went from there in Legends).
As for Satine saying that they aren't Mandalorian, there are a variety of reasons for her to say that. She isn't even actually Mandalorian. She is a pacifist New Mandalorian, so she doesn't really have any leg to stand on in that debate anyway.

*With a caveat. I am referring in particular to their origin story, but I can certainly see an argument that they were, or became, Dar'Manda. That is, someone who has lost their Mandalorian heritage.

27 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

The reasoning for this is fairly obvious: Mandalorians are structured in Clans, which are family units, albeit large ones. Most alien species are probably not going to be able to have fertile relations with Humans, so when aliens are adopted into the clan structure, they aren't particularly likely to be able to propagate their species within the Mandalorians, and therefore their bloodline will probably die out leaving no new aliens behind. The clans we see on screen are, we can presume, some of the biggest ones. There might be some clans that are almost entirely made up of aliens, but they would probably be significantly smaller for many of the reasons outlined above.

Much of what you say is good but I'm going to poke at the weakest:)

I'm not buying this logic. If being a Mando is a creed, and if it were inviting to other species, they would certainly have the capacity to form plenty of self-sustaining populations of aliens within the order. I mean, I don't think you would want clans reproducing within themselves exclusively anyways. So I'm not buying it from a reproductive/population standpoint. I agree that lots of these folks are wearing helmets so we'll see and this may be in flux anyhow, but as far as what I've seen so far, they all look pretty human (good point about skin color, though, the humans are more diverse than I was thinking, presently).

You bring up a good point about Satine. If being Mandalorian is a creed, what about all of the non-creed taking people who live on Mandalore and Concord Dawn (including the Dutchess)? Who are they? Not Mandalorians? 🤔

1 minute ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

You bring up a good point about Satine. If being Mandalorian is a creed, what about all of the non-creed taking people on Mandalore and Concord Dawn (including the Dutchess)? Who are they? Not Mandalorians? 🤔

True Mandalorians would consider them to be Dar'Manda, so yes. Not Mandalorian. The New Mandalorians basically changed Mandalorian from a creed into a nationality.

1 minute ago, VadersMarchKazoo said:

I'm not buying this logic. If being a Mando is a creed, and if it were inviting to other species, they would certainly have the capacity to form plenty of self-sustaining populations of aliens within the order. I mean, I don't thing you would want clans reproducing within themselves exclusively anyways. So I'm not buying it from a reproductive/population standpoint. I agree that lots of these folks are wearing helmets so we'll see and this may be in flux anyhow, but as far as what I've seen so far, they all look pretty human (good point about skin color, though, the humans are more diverse than I was thinking, presently).

It's not so much an open invitation. It is by invitation, typically through adoption (note that in Legends, adults could also be adopted. There were a couple Jedi post Order 66 who were adopted by Kal Skirata).

I wasn't saying that the clans reproduced exclusively within the clan. There were plenty of cross-clan marriage, my point was that the relatively few aliens in the clans would not be likely to propagate themselves. Plus, with something as large as a Mandalorian clan, you are fairly likely to be at most tangentially connected to most other clan members so in-breeding isn't very likely to be a problem.

I actually stated that there could very well be some clans exclusively made up of aliens, but we simply haven't seen them. We've haven't seen all that many named clans, and most of the ones we've seen have probably been some of the biggest.

3 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

True Mandalorians would consider them to be Dar'Manda, so yes. Not Mandalorian. The New Mandalorians basically changed Mandalorian from a creed into a nationality.

It's not so much an open invitation. It is by invitation, typically through adoption (note that in Legends, adults could also be adopted. There were a couple Jedi post Order 66 who were adopted by Kal Skirata).

I wasn't saying that the clans reproduced exclusively within the clan. There were plenty of cross-clan marriage, my point was that the relatively few aliens in the clans would not be likely to propagate themselves. Plus, with something as large as a Mandalorian clan, you are fairly likely to be at most tangentially connected to most other clan members so in-breeding isn't very likely to be a problem.

I actually stated that there could very well be some clans exclusively made up of aliens, but we simply haven't seen them. We've haven't seen all that many named clans, and most of the ones we've seen have probably been some of the biggest.

You need cross clan marriage otherwise you end up inbred.

That's the one thing about the Mandalorian that I'm not too fond of. TCW and Rebels shows Mandos as being strictly a Nation.

However, I think it makes sense that after the Purge, there were so few "True Mandelorians" out there, that in order to preserve their culture, they adopted a new philosophy. So it went from being a nationality (or the galactic equivalent thereof) to a creed. That also explains why the traditions seem so different compared to those we've seen in Rebels and TCW, and they put such a large emphasis on taking care of the Foundlings.

14 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

It's not so much an open invitation. It is by invitation, typically through adoption (note that in Legends, adults could also be adopted. There were a couple Jedi post Order 66 who were adopted by Kal Skirata).

I think this is my point. What I'm getting at is that if being Mandalorian is inclusive and simply attracts the best warriors of the galaxy regardless of race/species then you would expect a diverse group of Mandalorians, especially after 4000 or more years of travel/exchange. However, this doesn't seem to be the case so I, at least at this point, there seems to be some exclusivity or legacy involved. As you suggest, maybe it's by invite. Anyways, interesting concept, more complicated than it seemed at face value and interesting to explore.

3 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

That's the one thing about the Mandalorian that I'm not too fond of. TCW and Rebels shows Mandos as being strictly a Nation.

However, I think it makes sense that after the Purge, there were so few "True Mandelorians" out there, that in order to preserve their culture, they adopted a new philosophy. So it went from being a nationality (or the galactic equivalent thereof) to a creed. That also explains why the traditions seem so different compared to those we've seen in Rebels and TCW, and they put such a large emphasis on taking care of the Foundlings.

Good point. The Mando's tribe seems to be a little different from what we've seen either by necessity or perhaps through miss- or re-interpretation through time.

3 minutes ago, kaosoe said:

That's the one thing about the Mandalorian that I'm not too fond of. TCW and Rebels shows Mandos as being strictly a Nation.

Well, when you become a remnant diaspora without a homeland you have to adapt or die.

On a side note: Who wants to see Mandalore the Ultimate/Great and the origins of the Dark Saber on the big screen?😲