Famous Mandalorians from the Old Republic through the Clone Wars era
By Jason Ivey
9. PRIME MINISTER ALMEC
Group Affiliation(s): Clan Almec, The New Mandalorians, Maul’s Splinter Group
Height: 6′ 2″ (1.89 meters)
Weight: 194 lbs. (88 kg)
Eye Color: Purple
Hair Color: Blond
Species: Human, Light-skinned
Gender: Male
Homeworld: Mandalore
Occupation: Prime Minister of Mandalore, second in command to her duchess Satine Kryze, and later puppet leader to Maul.
First Appearance: Star Wars: The Clone Wars, season 2, episode 12, “The Mandalore Plot”
Character History:
Prime Minister Almec was the second-in-command of Mandalore, under Dutchess Satine Kryze. He was a regal gentleman, somewhat aloof, that nonetheless seemed devoted to serving his people and upholding his ruler’s goals of maintaining a Utopian society, free of Mandalore’s warrior past.
However, his reputation became tarnished sometime after the Death Watch fiasco had settled down and Pre Vizsla had been banished from the Mandalorian system. Duchess Satine’s insistence on maintaining neutrality had begun to have ramifications on her planet as supply chains and trade routes were being disrupted by the ongoing Clone Wars.
Desperate times, created desperate measures, and a black market began to emerge on Mandalore. This soon became a problem after an epidemic broke out, causing Mandalore’s children to get sick and die from being poisoned by high levels of a spice called slabin that had become lethal when mixed into some black market tea.
The duchess — who was aided by a visiting Senator Padme Amidala — began investigating the origins of this tainted tea and found that the school’s superintendent had been buying it from an importer named Siddiq, who got it from a planet called Mooga. Satine and Amidala’s investigation uncovered high levels of corruption, filled with multiple parties engaging in some form of illegal activity and payoffs.
Ahsoka Tano was brought in undercover to lend some further assistance in discovering the roots of the food shortage and illegal black market activity. Duchess Satine’s nephew, Korkie, along with some of his fellow cadets from the Royal Academy of Government found a warehouse loaded with numerous crates filled with the missing food supplies. They had also stumbled across a secret meeting between a mysterious hooded figure and several Gotal.
This stranger turned out to be Almec, who was responsible for establishing the black market ring. His worst crime, though, came when he tried to pass all of the blame on Satine and torture her into signing a document confessing her crimes — all in an attempt to usurp her throne. Furthermore, Almec revealed how power-mad he was after he attempted to have his guards put a shock collar on the duchess’s nephew in order to attain his wish.
Thankfully, Ahsoka broke free from her captor’s grip and together with the RAG cadets overpowered them. Almec surrendered after Ahsoka removed Kryze’s collar and placed it on him. He was placed into the same cell he had kept Satine and left there to atone for his crimes her and his fellow Mandalorians.
Almec would later be given his freedom and put into place as the puppet ruler of Mandalore by Darth Maul, who had seized power by defeating the previous Mand’alor, Pre Vizsla, by trial in combat. Maul’s temporary reign over Mandalore ended following the Siege of Mandalore by a contingency of clone troopers led by Captain Rex. They were joined by former padawan Tano — who had recently quit the Jedi Order — fighting alongside Bo-Katan and her Nite Owls.
Almec was captured by Bo-Katan Kryze and the Clones during the opening of this siege but was executed while in custody by Gar Saxon of Maul’s Super Commandos before he could be forced to reveal any sensitive information he possessed to the Republic. The siege itself would end shortly afterward with Maul’s defeat by Ahsoka.
As for the New Mandalorian movement that had flourished for so long under Duchess Satine and Prime Minister Almec, it would soon become a fading memory of Mandalore’s past, as the planet’s populace rejected pacifism in favor of their warrior heritage.
Powers/Skills: He possessed all of the requisite skills of a long-time politician in his position, ranging from diplomacy to negotiations. He also possessed a ruthless, if not thug-like disposition in getting his way when fancy words and bribery didn’t do the job. Or, as Qui-Gon Jinn would have put it, he was adept at using “Aggressive Negotiations.”