The Visual Evolution of Mandalorian Armor Design

The earliest Mandalorian armors, first seen thousands and thousands of years before the events of the Skywalker saga in stories like the Knights of the Old Republic comics (themselves a prequel to the classic Bioware/Obsidian RPG series), were worn by the Crusaders. These roaming armies first conquered their own world before being lead by the Mandalores—the title inherited by the unifying leader of the Mandalorian clans—before the Mandalorian crusades first encountered the ancient Sith.

Airtight suits forged with the famous Mandalorian iron beskar, and capable of being worn in environments with no atmosphere, Crusader armor was highly individualistic, with different aesthetics and technological changes made by each Mandalorian warrior. A common connection across Crusader aesthetics, however, was the layering of organic components—fabrics, ceremonial bindings, animal bones, and spiked hides—over the base suit.

After Mandalore the Indomitable lost a duel of honor to the Sith Lord Ulic Qel- Droma, the Crusaders were drafted into the Great Sith War. But not all of them were exactly satisfied with being led by a non-Mandalorian, and when the war came to an end roughly 4,000 years before Star Wars: A New Hope, with the Mandalorians routed at the planet Onderon, a new faction of Crusaders, calling themselves the Neo-Crusaders, arose, crowning a new Mandalore to strike back against the Republic and Jedi.

Unlike the Crusaders before them, Neo-Crusader armor was highly standardized, to give a cohesive look to the various species that would be adopted into Mandalorian culture beyond the original tribal factions. Gone were the organic accoutrements, leaving a sleek shaped to the plated armor. The Neo-Crusader armor was also color-coded, allowing Mandalorians to denote rank: gold for Field Marshals, silver for front line veterans, scarlet for Rally Masters (a mid-commander rank), and blue for all other Neo-Crusader ranks.

At least some of the Neo-Crusader iconography made it into the background of the current iteration of Star Wars canon, thanks to the Clone Wars animated series. Depicted in ancient artwork in the version of Mandalore first visited in the series’ sophomore season, while these Neo-Crusaders wore rounded, plain helmets like the Neo-Crusaders first seen in the Knights of the Old Republic games, they were also depicted as covering their armor with large robes covering from the neck down, and wielding bladed weapons against the Jedi.

Although Neo-Crusader armor was largely standardized, there were some variants of it that leaned more towards the traditional aesthetic of what we knew as Mandalorian Armor. As seen in the Knights of the Old Republic comic series, Shock Troopers were denoted by heavily plated armor, supported by exterior tubing and other elements, that would not only allow a Mandalorian greater protection from heavy weapons fire, but also fully operate in the vacuum of space for extended periods of time.

Mandalorian visual design takes a relatively huge leap in time now, all the way to being contemporary with the mainline Star Wars movies, and the prequels in particular. At this point in their history it’s revealed that, after a period of extended civil war, Mandalorian society has been transformed by the New Mandalorians, a faction who eschewed their warrior past to establish a pacifistic, isolationist ideology helmed by a parliamentary monarchy. Lead by one of the noble Mandalorian houses, Kryze, the New Mandalorian movement still carried some traditions of Mandalorian armor, but in a radically different aesthetic style. With no standing army, New Mandalorian armor split into two usages: the grey, lightly armored tunics worn by the peacekeeper force known as the Mandalorian Guard, and the more elaborately armored Royal Guard that protected the Duchess, Satine Kryze.

Beyond most typical Mandalorian visual language that the New Mandalorians broke off from with the designs is perhaps the most key break of all: both the Mandalorian Guard and the Royal Guard ditched the classic “T-Visor” helmet plate that had been a key signifier of Mandalorian armor design for generations... and would continue to be after them.

Concurrently with the armors seen being worn by the New Mandalorians were the armors worn by the terrorist faction known as the Death Watch, a splinter faction who still believed in the traditional warrior culture of Mandalore’s past. These designs are much more closely aligned with the Mandalorian armor we saw worn by Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and then by his father in the prequel’s middle chapter, Attack of the Clones.

Death Watch iterations on this aesthetic are visually identical to the designs worn by Jango and then eventually inherited by Boba, but in place of the clean look of Jango’s armor—which Boba would then paint over in his own color scheme—the Death Watch unified their look with darker metallics and blue accents.

As the Clone War came to an end, Mandalore was brought into turmoil by a coup spearheaded by elements of the Death Watch faction working with former Sith apprentice Maul and his criminal syndicate, the Shadow Collective. Mandalorians who proved their loyalty to Maul were formed into groups of “Super Commandos,” and while their armor stayed largely similar to that template worn by Death Watch in years prior, its color palette was replaced with designs emulating Maul’s own black-and-red skin striping and accompanying tattoos. Some would go even further and modify their helmet with organic spikes—not as a nod to the Crusaders of long ago, but the bone protrusions on a Zabrak’s head, to emulate their new master.

The New Mandalorians petitioned the Republic for aid in liberating their world from Maul’s coup—and the death of Duchess Satine—in the Clone War’s final hours. Although the Republic was successful, the execution of Order 66 and the perceived betrayal of the Jedi Order lead to its rapid transformation into the Galactic Empire, and Mandalore quickly became occupied Imperial territory. The Imperial regime and Mandalorian collaborators that helped maintain its control would take a page from the Death Watch and the Shadow Collective and maintain the Super Commandos as a fighting force—this time with new, specialized armor. Inspired by real-life alternate concept art for Boba Fett from Empire Strikes Back, Imperial Super Commando design more closely emulated the armor of the Clone Army, with sharp angular chest pieces and a predominantly white color scheme and smaller jetpacks. Their helmets largely remained the same, except for the addition of two small sets of antennae on either side of the helmet.

Little is known what happened to Mandalore after it was re-liberated by a combination of forces from the nascent Rebel Alliance: former Death Watch members led by Duchess Satine’s sister, Bo-Katan Kryze; rebellious Mandalorian houses that had remained on the world; and the Mandalorian Protectorate based on the moon of Concord Dawn. What is known is that at some point, the Galactic Empire struck back at Mandalore, initiating a period of occupation and apparent genocide known among surving Mandalorians as the Great Purge.

Knowledge of just how devastating the Great Purge was is of varying degrees among surviving Mandalorians, who scattered into individual nomadic tribes and enclaves across the galaxy, intending to keep the true scale of survivors unknown on a galactic level. At least some of these enclaves returned to the more traditional armor designs that preceded the New Mandalorians’ cultural prominence. Individual Mandalorians would customize the overall look and coloration of their armor, as well as eventually imprinting it with the mark of their own clan. But one consistent trait seen so far in Star Wars’ exploration of this period was the practice of an individual “earning” a full suit of beskar-crafted armor, exchanging plasteel armor pieces for newly forged plates, once they had found a way to retrieve the now-rarer Mandalorian iron to give to an enclave’s armorer.

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