Targus Sainze
The Whitehelm
Targus was born in 836 to Clan Sainze of the Mandalorians, a fractious, disruptive and almost pariah clan. The Clan was an unusually tight-knit and hierarchical unit, its members operating strictly by codified seniority, practices that likely dated back to the dark days of the Second Dark Age as well as its status among the Mandalorians. Each of the branches of the clan were themselves political units that acted as blocs and frequently jockeyed for control of the Clan's elder council but closed ranks when an external threat threatened the clan. Targus was born to a lower branch of the clan and grew up in such an environment, working for the good of the family and Clan. However, as the Sith Empire grew in strength near Mandalore, Targus and his father were part of a growing faction in the clan that publicly disagreed with the Clan's official policy of building friendly relations with their unpredictable and ravenous neighbour.
In 858, tensions reached a peak, with Targus implicated in a coup attempt against the Clan elders due to his connections to rogue Sith-Imperial figures of interest (who would later be some of the seeds for the NIO) as well as proof that some in his family were part of the coup. With relations between Mandalore and the Sith reaching a breaking point in 858, the Clan executed the members of the failed coup except for a few junior members, including Targus. He was instead stripped of rank and name, frozen in carbonite and sold off as collateral by the Clan to the powerful Hutt criminal networks that had given loans to the failed coup leaders (as the debt incurred legally fell, somewhat farcically, to the Clan's leadership after the coup leaders were executed).
Frozen, Targus was not there to see the decade of disasters that would befall the Mandalorian people. He would only awaken years later in 869 after the last of his clan died in the collapse of the Mandalorian Union, which left him the last heir of the Clan, forcing the criminals that owned his body to unfreeze him so that he could work to pay for the debts that were, even a decade later, still unpaid. Thus, while Targus has sufficient leeway to travel the Galaxy as a bounty hunter and mercenary, he is still tracked by the Hutts from afar to ensure he makes regular payments to pay off a loan he neither took out nor benefitted from.
Since then, Targus has been gathering information on the fate of his clan while travelling the Galaxy to pay off the debt. He knows that Sainze was completely destroyed, with strong evidence that they joined the Union after the Sith invasion. However, there are little records of their actions during the Sith occupation, and the timing and locations of their destruction is scattered and unreliable: they appear to have been destroyed during the Yuuzhan Vong Wars and Death Watch wars, but in locations that do not entirely correspond to known battlefields. Ultimately, Targus is still unsure what to think: did the Sainze collaborate with Sith, garnering hatred by other clans that was acted on in later years? If not, did allied clans still betray them during the latter wars? Or did the clan uncharacteristically decentralise during the wars, explaining the spread-out locations of demise? In any case, Targus is still searching for answers.
He is still conflicted over his relations with his Clan; while they exiled him, they were still family, and did not deserve to be annihilated, least of all by suspicious circumstances that imply some sort of cover-up or unknown vendetta. Since his unfreezing, he prefers to wear bleached white armour, a pattern that bears the mark of exile, but he still hangs on to his old suit in the colours of the Sainze in preparation for the day he hopes will earn back his name.
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