Almec

Almec was a native of the planet Mandalore and, for many years, a dedicated ally of Duchess Satine Kryze and her pacifist government. By the time of the Clone Wars, Almec had become the Prime Minister of Mandalore and served as the head of the Mandalorian Government Council of ministers that comprised the Mandalorian government. During the war, Almec met with Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, who had been sent by the Jedi Council to investigate rumors that Kryze was building an army and preparing to ally with the Confederacy of Independent Systems, in the Grand Salon. Kenobi was also an old friend of the Duchess'. Almec assured Kenobi that the rumors were false, believing that Mandalore would never turn against the Galactic Republic and that Mandalore's violent warrior history was confined to the past.

Although Kenobi countered with the example of the late mercenary Jango Fett, who wore Mandalorian armor and was a Mandalorian due to being raised as a foundling, Almec dismissed the man as nothing more than a mere bounty hunter who had acquired Mandalorian armor through unknown means. During Kenobi's audience with the Duchess, Almec spoke out when the Jedi Master presented a recording of a Mandalorian saboteur responsible for an attack on a Republic cruiser, declaring that no Mandalorian would perpetrate such an attack. Although the Prime Minister expressed interest in the whereabouts of the Mandalorian in question, he was shocked when Kenobi revealed that the man had chosen suicide rather than submit to questioning. It was later revealed that the saboteur was a member of the resurgent group known as the Death Watch—a Mandalorian splinter-faction intent on returning the Mandalorians their warrior past—and that the once-trusted ally Pre Vizsla, the Governor of Mandalore's moon Concordia, was leading the group.

Following the revelations, Almec was part of the cadre of retainers and guards that escorted Kryze to her personal starship, the Coronet, for her trip to Coruscant. There, she hoped to convince the Galactic Senate that the Death Watch did not represent the views of the entire Mandalorian community. While the Duchess spoke on behalf of her people in the Senate chamber, Almec remained on Mandalore. It was there that he received a troubling report from a Mandalorian scout: the Death Watch was amassing an army at their base on Concordia. Almec agreed with the scout's assessment that the Death Watch would be unable to take over Mandalore without the popular backing of its residents, although he also surmised that, were the Republic to deploy a military force as they planned to do, it would drive the people to support the Death Watch as liberators standing against foreign oppressors. Left with no other recourse, Almec could only place his trust in Duchess Satine's efforts, trust that was rewarded when the Duchess convinced the Senate against sending an occupying force of clone troops to Mandalore.

The Duchess' efforts successfully allowed Mandalore to remain free of entanglement in the Clone Wars, but it's neutrality came at the cost of losing vital Republic aid in the form of supply shipments. Becoming desperate, Almec responded by taking it upon himself to establish a network of black market trade, which he created in order to ensure the continuing importation of much needed supplies for the New Mandalorian people. However, the creation of the market also granted Almec increased power and wealth, all while the humanitarian supplies never made it to the people. Despite his original intentions for the black market, he was sucked further and further into criminal conspiracy over time. At a later point in time, Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo came to Sundari, the capital of Mandalore, to assure the government that aide would come from sympathetic parties within the Senate.

During her stay, Amidala and Kryze discovered the illegal smuggling ring circumventing the previous loss of Republic trade, when it was revealed to endanger the lives of Mandalorian children. The Moogan smugglers moving the goods had diluted imported tea with the chemical slabin, which in the high doses used by the smugglers proved toxic to its consumers. Almec was informed of this development by Amidala and Kryze, though he reflectively implicated the Death Watch as the party behind the illicit activities. When the Duchess and senator shut down the smuggling ring and brought the issue of the corruption growing in the Mandalorian government to Almec's attention, the Prime Minister offered to form a committee to further investigate the issue.

Not long after, Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano was invited to Mandalore in order to lecture at the Royal Academy on the perils of corruption. She was met at the landing platform in Sundari by Almec, Kryze, and a gathering of Mandalorian academy cadets. These cadets—Amis, Lagos, Soniee, and Duchess Kryze's own nephew, Korkie—along with Tano, uncovered Almec's involvement in the black market trade network, and thus his complicity with the poisonings of Sundari's school children. Using the Mandalorian secret service, over which the Prime Minister's office held authority, Almec had the cadets and Tano arrested, in addition to Duchess Kryze herself upon learning that she had been informed of his involvement as well.

He attempted to have the Duchess sign a confession of conspiracy, but upon being denied, Almec used a shock collar as a means of persuading her. When Kryze refused to yield, he turned his attention to her nephew, Korkie; Tano and the cadets fought back, managing to overpower Almec and his guards until he could be fitted with a shock collar himself, forcing the Prime Minister to surrender. Almec and his conspirators were placed under arrest, and subsequently imprisoned. Despite this, Almec clung to his honor and refused to see what he had done as wrong.

Some time later, after Death Watch allied with crime syndicates and the Sith brothers, Maul and Savage Opress, Kryze was overthrown in a political coup led by Pre Vizsla and was imprisoned in a cell next to Almec. Almec called her name, and as he realized his former political rival was in the adjacent cell, the former Prime Minister refused to apologize for his past actions and mocked Kryze for her beliefs, saying that her faith in peace had finally betrayed her. Soon after, Vizsla betrayed Maul and publicly arrested him, saying he did not share Maul's vision of an expanding criminal empire and imprisoning him and his brother along with their political rivals. The two Sith brothers would easily escape shortly after and visited Satine to question her on the whereabouts of the other political leaders. Satine coldly said that the only one who hadn't sided with Vizsla or been killed was Almec, who was corrupt and vile. However, this pleased Maul, who approached Almec. Almec admitted he was the former Prime Minister that was in prison after corruption charges, and, after learning that they were no longer in league with Vizsla and Death Watch, quickly agreed to join Maul when he revealed that he planned to challenge Vizsla to single combat for leadership of the Death Watch. Not wanting to be killed and wishing to return to his former position, Almec accepted his role in their scheme as their puppet ruler even if the planet had descended back to the martial traditions that he had previously strongly opposed.

Maul then challenged Vizsla to an honorable death match for the allegiance of Death Watch, which he inevitably won. Almec was reinstalled as Prime Minister, and in his first address, he told the general populace that the once-peaceful Satine murdered Vizsla. His speech to the crowd was quick, and Almec returned to Maul to ask what was needed of him. Maul told him to set up his new cabinet, warning him that any failures they made would be on his hands. Almec was later present in the throne room when Obi-Wan Kenobi was brought before Maul and bore witness to Satine's murder by Maul as a means of torturing Kenobi.

Maul's takeover of Mandalore also led to a conflict between those still loyal to Pre Vizsla, and those who had sworn their allegiance to Maul. During the hostilities, Maul was captured by his former master, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, and taken to Stygeon Prime where he was imprisoned so the Sith could use Maul for their own purposes. Almec ordered Death Watch forces to pursue the Sith and rescue Maul before rendezvousing on Zanbar. During the rescue, Gar Saxon and Rook Kast communicated directly with Almec via hologram, who ordered them to proceed with the extraction and later rendezvous with their forces on Zanbar. When the rescue was completed, Almec spoke to Maul, who was on Zanbar, via hologram and told the Sith that the prison break was repayment for releasing Almec from prison on Mandalore.

During the closing days of the Clone Wars, Maul returned to Mandalore shortly before the world was invaded by a mix of Republic and Mandalore resistance forces led by Tano, Clone Commander CT-7567 "Rex," and Bo-Katan. After they had launched their Low Altitude Assault Transports and Kom'rk-class fighter/transports, Almec contacted them, demanding to know why they had invaded Mandalore, as the Republic presence was in violation of their treaty. After Bo-Katan answered him, stating his time had come and that they were heading after Maul, the Prime Minister understood she was behind the attack and felt her alliance with the Republic would turn the people of Mandalore against her. Almec then consulted his forces, directing Gar Saxon to prepare the Mandalorian super commandos for an all-out assault and Rook Kast to inform the Shadow Collective of the siege. After he gave his orders, however, Saxon asked the Prime Minister if he was ready for the battle.

With their defenses meeting stronger opposition than planned, Almec, who also told that their enemies were approaching his location, ordered the super commandos to move to the Undercity, stating that they would be met there. After this, Tano headed into the lower levels while Bo-Katan and some of her soldiers went to the throne room where Almec was stationed. After he was informed that the former Padawan was falling into Maul's trap, Almec, now donning a suit of gilded Mandalorian armor, and the Mandalorian warriors in the throne room fought Bo-Katan's forces. Bo-Katan's side quickly defeated them, and Bo-Katan asked Almec where Maul was.

While Almec initially only quipped that she had never been the politician that her sister was, Bo-Katan pressed him for an answer by firing a shot from her gauntlet. Almec revealed that Maul had tricked her, as the rogue Sith Lord had wanted her to bring the Jedi to the planet. Instead, however, she had brought Tano, who Almec dubbed as the wrong one. Realizing Tano was heading into a trap, Bo-Katan tried to contact her as Almec was head at gunpoint by two other Mandalorian rebels and smiled. Unfortunately for her, Tano never received the communication. Because of this, Tano's clone troopers in the Undercity were slaughtered, and she came face-to-face with Maul, but she was rescued by Commander Rex and his squad.

Following his capture by the Nite Owls, Almec was detained in the Sundari royal prison. He was there visited by Rex, Tano, and Kryze, who questioned him about Maul's plans to escape Mandalore. Almec said he was flattered by the visit, but that Maul had no plans to escape as he considered it pointless. Rather than believing he could defeat his opponents, Maul had been consumed by a sense of dread for weeks and didn't recall him saying anything about his master Darth Sidious. Kryze asked why he wanted Kenobi to find him on Mandalore, and Almec responds that it was not Kenobi he was interested in, but someone else. Ahsoka asked who, and Almec feigned absent-mindedness until she told Bo-Katan to help him remember. As he began to speak, he was hit by two bolts from a Galar-90 rifle fired by Gar Saxon, who had been ordered by Maul to ensure the former Prime Minister's silence. As Rex called for a medic, the dying Almec told Ahsoka that Maul had experienced a vision about her master Anakin Skywalker."

Almec was a large man, standing at a height of 1.89 meters, and possessed both blond hair and fair skin, in addition to violet-colored eyes. Almec was seemingly a firm believer in the peaceful ways of the New Mandalorians, displaying this by dismissing the supposed Mandalorian Jango Fett as nothing but a common bounty hunter, when questioned by Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi. While he held a high-ranking office in the Mandalorian government, he considered himself a servant of the people. That did not change the fact that he was a shrewd politician, able to correctly deduce the Death Watch's plans to rally favor for their cause by instigating a Republic invasion in order to appear as liberators to the Mandalorian populace. Almec was a friend of the New Mandalorians' leader, Duchess Satine Kryze, and placed a great deal of faith in her leadership abilities, until he was arrested for black market activities. Even if he was corrupt, he was a skilled leader and public speaker.

When the Mandalorian people were threatened with starvation after the Republic shut down trade routes to Mandalore in the face of the planet's declared neutrality, Almec took it upon himself to find a solution to the problem plaguing his people. To that end, he established an illegal black market trade network to smuggle the needed goods from the galaxy into Sundari, but, in doing so, opened himself up to the risk of greed and corruption. In trying to help his people, Almec instead made it possible for Moogan smugglers to poison innocent children throughout Sundari with toxin-laced tea. He attempted to cover it up, going so far as to turn on the Duchess. He betrayed his government's pacifistic beliefs by torturing Kryze and threatening to do the same to her young nephew, Korkie. He maintained that what he had done was not wrong even after imprisonment.

By the ending days of the Clone Wars, Almec had long abandoned the New Mandalorian's pacifist ideology because Maul presented him an opportunity to return to power. In fact, he outrighted stated to the Mandalorian public that they would regain their past as a warrior people. As the puppet ruler of Mandalore, Almec served Maul, even though the rogue Sith's influence was destroying the people of Mandalore, and helped direct the Mandalorian super commandos during the joint Republic-Mandalore resistance siege of the world. Almec even wore a suit of Mandalorian armor and fought Bo-Katan Kryze in hand-to-hand combat. When Kryze tried to contact Ahsoka Tano to warn her about the trap she was walking into, Almec smiled. Despite Almec's loyalty to Maul, with the Prime Minister even calling the rogue Sith his lord, he showed cowardice when threatened. When he initially pretended to forget what he knew, Tano told Bo-Katan to "help" Almec remember Maul's plan, but he was then willing to talk to avoid pain. Maul himself knew Almec could not be entirely trusted, however, and so had Saxon shoot the Prime Minister to prevent their enemies from learning information. Still, Almec lived long enough to tell Tano about Maul's vision where he heard about Skywalker."

Almec first appeared in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season Two episode "The Mandalore Plot," the first in a trilogy of episodes featuring the Mandalorians. He would appear again in the flashback reel at the start of the subsequent episode, "Voyage of Temptation," before making his second true appearance in the final episode of the trilogy, "Duchess of Mandalore." Almec is portrayed by voice actor Julian Holloway.