During the Clone Wars, the renegade Sith Lord Maul led a criminal army known as the Shadow Collective to take control of the planet Mandalore. During a battle in the city of Sundari, Maul was captured by his former Sith Master, Darth Sidious, who imprisoned Maul in the Spire, a Separatist prison on Stygeon Prime. Sidious' vessel was followed by Mandalorian super commandos Rook Kast and Gar Saxon of Death Watch, part of the Shadow Collective, on orders from Prime Minister Almec of Mandalore. It was their mission to ensure that Maul escaped from the Spire.
Sidious and his apprentice, Count Dooku, intended for Maul to escape, hoping he would lead them to the Nightsister witch Mother Talzin, Maul's mother and an old enemy of Darth Sidious. Dooku briefly interrogated and tortured Maul for information about the Shadow Collective, causing the renegade Sith Lord to believe that his enemies were only interested in destroying his base of power. Following the interrogation, the Mandalorians assaulted the prison and rescued their captive leader, where they rendezvoused with the remainder of their forces on the moon Zanbar. Maul's escape led to a battle between Death Watch and the Separatists on Zanbar, sparking a chain of events that culminated in Talzin's death and the destruction of Maul's Shadow Collective.
During the Clone Wars, and over ten years after being presumed dead during the Battle of Naboo, the Sith Lord Maul returned to galactic prominence by creating a criminal army known as the Shadow Collective. The army—made up of Death Watch, a Mandalorian splinter faction; the Pyke Syndicate, the galaxy's primary spice dealers; and the Hutt Clan— launched a coup against Duchess Satine Kryze and her pacifist government on the planet Mandalore. This fulfilled a years-long goal of Death Watch to take over the planet and restore Mandalore's ancient warrior culture, which had been replaced by the pacifistic ideals of Duchess Kryze and the New Mandalorians.With Death Watch in control of Mandalore, Maul seized power from the Death Watch leader, Pre Vizsla. Numerous Death Watch loyalists turned against Maul, who formed his own Mandalorian super commandos. The fighting that resulted from Maul's power grab led to a battle in the capital city of Sundari, where Darth Sidious—Maul's former Sith Master—arrived and captured Maul during a lightsaber duel. Sidious revealed to Maul that he did not intend to kill his former apprentice, as he still had use for Maul; it was Sidious' hope that Maul would lead the Sith to Mother Talzin, Maul's mother and the leader of the Nightsisters, so she could be eliminated as a potential threat to the eventual Sith rule of the galaxy.
Sidious brought Maul to the Spire, a prison fortress controlled by the Confederacy of Independent Systems on Stygeon Prime. It was there that Sidious briefly interrogated Maul, and told Count Dooku, Sidious' apprentice, to find out information about who and where the Shadow Collective leaders were. The goal was to make Maul believe that the Sith wanted to destroy the Shadow Collective, so he would seek out Mother Talzin. Meanwhile, Sidious was followed to Stygeon Prime by two Death Watch warriors, Rook Kast and Gar Saxon, under orders from Mandalore's Prime Minister, Almec, to free Maul from the Spire.
Once inside the Spire, and while Dooku interrogated Maul for information about the Shadow Collective, Kast and Saxon contacted Almec, with Saxon telling the Prime Minister that they had located Maul on the seventh level of the prison. Almec gave them the order to proceed, and the two set off explosive charges on the third level of the prison as a diversion. Battle droids were sent to the third level to investigate the explosion, though Dooku suspected that the true target of the attack was Maul. Droidekas were sent to the seventh level, where the two Mandalorians disabled super battle droids with electromagnetic explosives.
Maul, Kast, and Saxon prepare to escape.
As they approached Maul's cell, Kast and Saxon took out the droidekas with a rocket, destroying them and clearing the approach to the cell. Once they had Maul, they freed him from his restraints and informed him that they had arrived to rescue him. They shot another rocket through the walls of the prison, and all three escapees repelled via zipline out of the fortress and through the mountains to the surface, where a group of battle droids opted against pursuing them. With little resistance, designed to deliberately allow Maul to escape, the three boarded a Death Watch Gauntlet fighter and lifted off. Before leaving Stygeon Prime, the fighter fired back into the prison, destroying the battle droids who had decided against chasing them.
Kast and Saxon took Maul to Zanbar as ordered, where the Death Watch leader reunited with his forces. They were followed by the Separatists, led by General Grievous—who was under strict orders to weaken, but not destroy Maul, which would force him to seek out Mother Talzin for help against the Sith. The two armies collided on Zanbar and, by the battle's end, Maul ordered his forces to retreat. As Sidious and Dooku suspected, Maul contacted Mother Talzin, who told him to meet the Separatists in combat again on Ord Mantell. During the next battle, Maul captured Dooku and Grievous, leading to a temporary alliance between Maul and Dooku when confronted by the Grand Army of the Republic. This alliance was part of Sidious's plan, but Maul knew this as well.
During the Siege of Mandalore, Maul spoke in front of Saxon, Kast, and several other warriors, mentioning the time they had freed him from Dooku's capture. Although at the time he had thought Dooku was a fool, he realized then that they were the same—both being manipulated by Sidious. Maul then described how he felt the dark side was as strong as it had ever been and rallied the Mandalorians to prepare for battle.
Maul's escape from the Spire appeared in the comic book Darth Maul—Son of Dathomir 1, written by Jeremy Barlow and published by Dark Horse Comics on May 21, 2014. At the time, the prison did not have a name, but was later named the "Spire" in Star Wars Rebels: The Visual Guide.
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