The Night of a Thousand Tears was the night on which the Galactic Empire massacred the Mandalorian people on the planet Mandalore during the Great Purge of Mandalore. The attack came after Lady Bo-Katan Kryze, leader of a Mandalorian resistance against the Empire, laid claim to Mandalore through her ownership of the ancient black lightsaber known as the Darksaber.
In the Empire's counterattack, a large contingent of TIE/sa bombers destroyed cities on the surface, while KX-series security droids, accompanied by Viper probe droids scoured through the wreckages and terminated any survivors. Additionally, gunships eliminated fields of Mandalorian recruits, immortalizing the event in songs as a night of tears.
After the Great Purge, the surviving Mandalorians became scattered across the galaxy. Members of the Children of the Watch, followers of the ancient Way of the Mandalore, believed that Kryze's apparently illegitimate claim to Mandalore had brought the disaster onto the planet. When trying to draw out the Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin, Moff Gideon brought up the massacre of Mandalorian recruits during the Night of a Thousand Tears.
Bo-Katan Kryze was regent of Mandalore before her betrayal by Clan Saxon
In 19 BBY, the planet Mandalore was invaded by joint forces of the Galactic Republic and the Mandalore resistance. After Mandalore's leader, the former Sith Lord Maul, was captured and his forces defeated, the Jedi Council appointed the Mandalorian Bo-Katan Kryze, leader of the Mandalore resistance, as regent of the planet. Shortly after, though, the Republic transitioned into the Galactic Empire and the Jedi were nearly completely wiped out. When Kryze refused to obey the Galactic Emperor, she was betrayed by the Mandalorians of Clan Saxon, who chose to side with the new Empire. The Emperor subsequently placed Gar Saxon, the leader of Clan Saxon who had formerly served under Maul, as governor of Mandalore.
In 2 BBY, the Mandalorian and Rebel Alliance fighter Sabine Wren reached out to her family in the Mandalorian Clan Wren to make them defy the Empire. She used the Darksaber, an ancient black lightsaber whose wielder could stake claim to rule Mandalore if they won it in combat, as an attempt to unite her fellow Mandalorians with her. However, Saxon, having been informed of the meeting, arrived and used the rebels' presence as an excuse to betray Clan Wren. In the resulting skirmish he was killed by Clan Wren leader Ursa Wren after he lost in a duel against Sabine, resulting in a civil war between the two Mandalorian clans.
Bo-Katan Kryze unites Mandalorian clans with the Darksaber
Tiber Saxon, brother of the late Gar Saxon, became the new governor of Mandalore and went on to lock his planet down as the civil war progressed. In 1 BBY, Clan Wren joined forces with the Mandalorian resistance led by Bo-Katan Kryze. Together, the combined forces attacked and killed Tiber Saxon, After Saxon's fall, Kryze was gifted the Darksaber by Sabine and went on to unite multiple Mandalorian clans under her against the Empire. Although she and claimed rulership Mandalore with the Darksaber, she had not won it in combat, and so followers of the ancient Way of the Mandalore known as the Children of the Watch believed that it was a curse on the planet, as prophesized by their Mandalorian Creed. Broken off from the rest of Mandalorian society, the Children of the Watch were cloistered on the moon of Concordia.
KX security droids and Viper probe droids scour surface of Mandalore killing survivors.
With Kryze and her followers rebelling against the Empire, the latter faction launched a counterattack, resulting in the Great Purge of Mandalore. During a night of the siege, gunships, equipped with heavy repeating blasters, attacked fields occupied by Mandalorian recruits, decimating the troops. Flights of TIE/sa bombers bombed the domed cities on Mandalore, wiping them out, and the planet's sandy surface, which was burned into a glass-like mineral known as trinitite.
After the bombing, KX-series security droids and probe droids scoured the urban wrecks to kill any survivors. Among those wiped out during the night were the members of Clan Tal, who would be survived by a single Mandalorian warrior named Aran Tal.
Kryze and her people attempted to fight the Imperial effort, living around the Great Forge on the planet, but Kryze would lose most of her forces in the Night of a Thousand Tears. Following the Night of a Thousand Tears, Moff Gideon, who participated in the Purge and served as an officer in the Imperial Security Bureau, met with Kryze after the ISB reached out to her to negotiate a ceasefire. Gideon told Kryze that all Mandalorian lives, as well as all cities that remained at the time, would be spared if she agreed to submit to the Empire and disarm. Aware of the shame such an act would bring, but believing the survival of her people came first, Kryze gave up the Darksaber to Gideon as an act of surrender. However, Gideon would betray Kryze, continuing the Purge while taking the Darksaber for his own.
Dubbed the "Night of a Thousand Tears," the battle was recounted in Mandalorian songs in the following years. The Great Purge forced any Mandalorian survivors to flee from the Mandalore sector and scatter into the galaxy. The ex-Imperial Migs Mayfeld considered the world non-existent like the planet Alderaan. Following the fall of the Empire in 5 ABY, Gideon went on to lead his own remnant of the fallen faction as a moff.
Moff Gideon mockingly referenced the Night of a Thousand Tears to the Mandalorian Din Djarin while the latter was entrenched.
In 9 ABY, during a clash on the Outer Rim world of Nevarro, stormtroopers who served Gideon's Imperial remnant assembled an E-Web heavy repeating blaster cannon to draw the Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin, a member of the Children of the Watch, and his allies—former New Republic shock trooper Carasynthia Dune and former Magistrate Greef Karga—out of hiding. Calling out to Djarin's group, who were trapped in a common house, Gideon presumed that the Mandalorian may have heard the songs of the night, comparing his E-Web to the gunships' heavy weapons. Gideon's knowledge of the night and other information about Djarin's group startled them. Nevertheless, the Mandalorian and his allies escaped and emerged victorious.
Djarin later encountered Kryze, who led a unit of Mandalorian resistance fighters against Gideon's forces, hoping to reclaim the Darksaber and rule Mandalore again. The pair later teamed up to attack Gideon's light cruiser. Although Kryze had requested to take on the moff in order to reclaim the Darksaber by Creed, Djarin was the first to encounter Gideon, and defeated him in combat. Thereafter, the Mandalorian bounty hunter became the rightful owner of the ancient weapon, much to Kryze's dismay. After, Djarin eventually reunited with two other members of the Children of the Watch, and one of them, a Mandalorian armorer, retold her point of view of the Night of a Thousand Tears, stating that Kryze's apparently illegitimate claim to Mandalore had brought a curse to the planet, and only those who walked the Way of the Mandalore escaped the curse.
After the night, the justice-obsessed Aran Tal would find himself taking part in the Hunters of the Outer Rim tournament, yet he still hoped to find those responsible for Clan Tal's annihilation. A group of Mandalorians later returned to Mandalore, attempting to retake the planet back. While on the planet, they found a group of survivors who never left the planet since the Purge. They joined their longship to the Great Forge, where they wanted to establish a settlement. While on the boat, Kryze recounted how she surrendered to Gideon following the night.
The Night of a Thousand Tears was first mentioned in "Chapter 8: Redemption," which served as the finale to the first season of The Mandalorian television series. The episode first aired on Disney+ on December 27, 2019, with the episode's subtitles giving the name of the event as "The Night of a Thousand Tears." However, "The" was not capitalized in Joe Schreiber's 2021 novelization of The Mandalorian Season One, Star Wars: The Mandalorian Junior Novel. The event first appeared in a flashback sequence in "Chapter 5: Return of the Mandalorian," the fifth episode of The Book of Boba Fett, which was released on January 26, 2022. The sequence was inspired by the film Jarhead, which featured silhouettes of soldiers in the desert and oil fields with destruction around them.
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