The Atrocity on Mahranee occurred in 19 BBY toward the end of the Clone Wars and resulted in the genocide of all Mahran refugees who were escaping from their embattled homeworld of Mahranee. When the Confederacy of Independent Systems targeted Mahranee for its plentiful resources, the native Mahran people appealed to the Jedi Order for aid. Jedi General Chubor brought a Galactic Republic task force of clone troopers to Mahranee, but they were too late to prevent the Confederate forces from laying waste to the planet's capital city.
Although Chubor's detachment tried to escort thousands of Mahran civilians off-world to safety, the Separatists were unwilling to leave any survivors, killing the Mahran refugees alongside the Jedi and clone soldiers. Separatist leader Count Dooku unequivocally blamed the Jedi Order for the massacre, leading the Jedi High Council to finally sanction an operation to assassinate Dooku as a means of stemming the war's casualties.
In the year 19 BBY, near the end of the Clone Wars, the Confederacy of Independent Systems set its sights on capturing Mahranee, a member world of the Galactic Republic whose abundant resources made it a valuable target. Count Dooku, the leader of the Confederacy, had unsuccessfully attempted to win the planet over using false promises and lies before planning an assault to take the planet's resources by force. As a result, the planet's native Mahran inhabitants transmitted a distress call to the Jedi Order, which responded by dispatching a detachment of clone troopers under the command of Jedi General Chubor to aid the Mahran against the Separatists.
Dooku (pictured) refused Chubor's pleas to let the Mahran escape, resulting in their massacre.
When the Mahranee government refused to capitulate to their demands, the Confederacy forces initiated an assault on the planet, turning it into a battlefield. Chubor and his clone soldiers arrived too late to stop the Separatists from obliterating the planet's capital city, which was summarily reduced to rubble. Consequently, thousands of Mahran civilians—many of whom were injured—attempted to escape from their homeworld. While some of the refugees departed aboard their planet's vessels, others were ferried off-world aboard Republic craft, such as Chubor's Republic frigate, with clone troopers aiding in the escort operation. The Republic and Separatist forces battled each other in orbit of Mahranee, exchanging barrages of laser fire through the vacuum of space, while Mahran ships made their attempts to flee.
Desperate to save the refugees, Chubor opened a direct holographic transmission to Dooku. Chubor pleaded with Dooku to spare the Mahran, stating that his own frigate was filled with civilian families; moreover, half of the Mahran were only younglings. However, Dooku was unsympathetic to the plight of the Mahran. Knowing their conversation was being broadcast to the Jedi High Council, Dooku took the opportunity to blame the Jedi Order for the billions of casualties that the war had caused, claiming that such was the price of the Republic's resistance to his Confederacy. Chubor's frigate was the next ship to fall to Separatist fire, with members of Mahranee's prominent bloodline of Ashu—including Ashu-Nyamal, the Firstborn of Ashu—being among the deaths. Altogether, it took the Separatists a matter of hours to capture Mahranee and slaughter its thousands of inhabitants, resulting in a victory for their side.
The massacre of the Mahran impelled the Jedi Council to sanction a plan to assassinate Dooku.
Once they had established control of Mahranee, the Confederate forces all but issued a death warrant for any surviving Mahran, claiming that they were extremely hostile and were to be killed on sight. Dooku's message to the Jedi Council, meanwhile, was met with dismay and anguish from its recipients. At a subsequent session, the Council decided that the time had come to assassinate Dooku, an act that Jedi Master Mace Windu and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker—the latter of whom had been invited by Master Obi-Wan Kenobi to sit in on the meeting—believed would collapse the Separatist regime and also prevent further bloodshed from occurring. Grand Master Yoda also agreed to such a plan, acknowledging that Dooku's schemes placed too many innocent lives at risk.
The maverick Jedi Master Quinlan Vos was assigned the task of killing Dooku with the aid of Asajj Ventress, Dooku's jilted apprentice–turned–bounty hunter. Although they failed to execute Dooku, the count would eventually meet his demise at the hands of Skywalker during the Battle of Coruscant.
The Atrocity on Mahranee served as the opening scene of author Christie Golden's 2015 novel, Dark Disciple, based on an unfinished eight-episode story arc for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series written by Katie Lucas, Matt Michnovetz, and Dave Filoni. Described in Dark Disciple only as an attack on Mahranee, it was the 2019 reference book Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition, published by Dorling Kindersley, that would eventually provide the proper name—the "Atrocity on Mahranee." The 2023 reference book Star Wars: Timelines incorrectly dates the event to 20 BBY.
- Star Wars: The Dark Side
- Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition
- Star Wars: Timelines