The Crusaders were drafted into the Great Sith War after the Indomitable lost a battle. When the war ended 4,000 years before Star Wars: A New Hope, a new group of Crusaders called themselves, and they were not satisfied with being led by a non-Mandalorian.
Unlike the Crusaders before them, the Neo-Crusader armor was standardized to give a cohesive look to the various species that would be adopted into the Mandalorian culture. The sleek shaped armor was left by the organic accoutrements. The color-coded armor allowed Mandalorians to be ranked according to their rank: gold for field marshals, silver for front line veterans, and scarlet for rally masters.
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There have been many debates about how the evolution of the Mandalorian people and their culture was influenced by the personal influence of the father and son of Boba Fett. It has had a huge influence on how we see them.
As The Book of Boba Fett shows, the notorious hunter-turned-crime-lord is embracing his legacy in a new way, complete with his latest adaptation of his legendary armor.
The Crusaders wore the earliest Mandalorian armors thousands of years before the events of the Skywalker saga in stories like the Knights of the Old Republic comics. The roaming armies first conquered their own world before being lead by the Mandalores, the unifying leader of the Mandalorian clans.
Crusader armor was made with the famous Mandalorian iron beskar and was able to be worn in environments with no atmosphere. The organic components over the base suit were a common connection across Crusader Aesthetics.
The Crusaders were drafted into the Great Sith War after the Indomitable lost a battle. When the war ended 4,000 years before Star Wars: A New Hope, a new group of Crusaders called themselves, and they were not satisfied with being led by a non-Mandalorian.
Unlike the Crusaders before them, the Neo-Crusader armor was standardized to give a cohesive look to the various species that would be adopted into the Mandalorian culture. The sleek shaped armor was left by the organic accoutrements. The color-coded armor allowed Mandalorians to be ranked according to their rank: gold for field marshals, silver for front line veterans, and scarlet for rally masters.
Thanks to the Clone Wars animated series, some of the Neo-Crusader iconography made it into the current iteration of the Star Wars canon. The Neo-crusaders wore rounded, plain helmets like the ones seen in the Knights of the Old Republic games, but they were also depicted as covering their armor.
The traditional aesthetic of what we knew as Mandalorian armor was what inspired some of the Neo-Crusader armor. In the Knights of the Old Republic comic series, the Shock Troopers were made of heavy plated armor, supported by exterior tubing and other elements, that would allow them to operate in the vacuum of space for extended periods of time.
The visual design of the Mandalorians has taken a huge leap in time, all the way to being contemporary with the mainline Star Wars movies. After a period of civil war, the New Mandalorians, a group who abandoned their warrior past to establish a pacifistic, isolationist ideology, took over and transformed the society. The New Mandalorian movement still had some traditions of Mandalorian armor, but in a different aesthetic style. The peacekeeper force known as the Mandalorian Guard and the more elaborately armored Royal Guard were used for protection.
The Mandalorian Guard and the Royal Guard have a different look than the typical Mandalorian one, and that is the most important break.
The Death Watch, a splinter group of the terrorist group, still believed in the traditional warrior culture of Mandalore and wore armor that was similar to the armor worn by the New Mandalorians. The designs are very similar to the armor that Boba Fett wore in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as the armor his father wore in Attack of the Clones.
The Death Watch is similar to the designs worn by Jango but with a darker metallic look.
The Clone War brought about a coup by elements of the Death Watch and the Shadow Collective that brought about turmoil in Mandalore. The armor of the Mandalorians who were formed into groups of "Super Commandos" was similar to that worn by Death Watch, but with black and red skin striping and tattoos. Some would go even further and modify their helmet with organic spikes, to mimic their new master, not as a nod to the Crusaders of long ago, but the bone protrusions on a Zabrak's head.
In the final hours of the Clone War, the New Mandalorians petitioned the Republic for help in freeing their world from the clutches of Maul. The execution of Order 66 and the perceived betrayal of the Jedi Order led to the rapid transformation of the Republic into the Galactic Empire. The Imperial regime and the Mandalorian collaborators that helped maintain its control would take a page from the Death Watch and the Shadow Collective and use new, specialized armor to maintain the Super Commandos as a fighting force. Imperial Super Commando design was inspired by real-life alternate concept art for Boba Fett from Empire Strikes Back, with a mostly white color scheme and smaller jetpacks. Their helmets were mostly the same, except for the addition of two small sets of antennae on either side.
After it was re-liberated, there was a mixture of forces from the Rebel Alliance, including former Death Watch members, and the rebel houses that had remained on the world. The Great Purge is a term used to describe a period of occupation and apparent genocide that occurred after the Galactic Empire struck back at Mandalore.
The scale of survivors who survived the Great Purge is unknown to the general public, as the surviving Mandalorians scattered into individual nomadic tribes and enclaves across the galaxy to keep the true scale of survivors unknown. Some of the enclaves returned to the armor designs that were used before the New Mandalorians. Individual Mandalorians would change the look and color of their armor, as well as mark it with their clan's mark. The practice of an individual earning a full suit of beskar-crafted armor, exchanging plasteel armor pieces for newly forged plates was one of the most consistent features of Star Wars.
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