The Mandalorian Season 3 has arrived, and the premiere contained mostly footage we had already seen in promotional material. But prior to the season premiere, in usual Disney fashion, the marketing began to ramp up. On Monday, we were gifted with a TV spot entitled “Who We Are” which contained loads of new footage. Towards the end of the spot, a particular shot caught my attention – that of a lush, green landscape with large grey domes placed throughout (0:27 – 0:29). Many questions immediately popped into my head – who is flying the Kom’rk-class fighter/transport on the right-hand side of the frame? Is it Bo-Katan’s Gauntlet? Where is this? When is this? Read on for what I think could be going on here.

The current timeline of the “Mandoverse”, the live-action mini-franchise created by Jon Favreau containing The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka and Skeleton Crew, starts in 9 ABY (five years after the Battle of Endor seen in Return of the Jedi) with The Mandalorian 1×01 “Chapter 1: The Mandalorian” and “many years” elapse across at least the first two seasons of The Mandalorian (at least according to Jon Favreau).

The obvious answer as to where the above shot is located would be the planet Mandalore. Homeworld of the Mandalorians, the location was at the heart of the Mandalorian-Jedi War which resulted in the Mandalorian cataclysm, which scorched much of the planet’s surface into the lifeless white desert, uninhabitable outside of hermetically sealed bio-domes which contained Mandalorian cities. The presence of the bio-domes suggests this scene takes place at least after the Mandalorian cataclysm. An exact date for this is yet-to-be-confirmed in Canon, although Legends dates the event (known as the “Mandalorian Excision”/Dral’Han) to 738 BBY, over 700 years before The Phantom Menace.

We know, however, that the world wasn’t completely ruined, as on page 322 of the short story Kenobi’s Shadow featured in the anthology The Clone Wars: Stories of Light and Dark, it is revealed that Satine Kryze, Duchess of Kalevala and older sister of Bo-Katan Kryze, used to “chase flitters in the tall grass of the Mandalorian plains”. This reveals that at some point after the cataclysm, nature began to recover.

While page 4 of Star Wars: Build the Millennium Falcon #32, entitled Guide to the Galaxy: The History of Mandalore, states the planetary surface was “once lush with jungles and seas” but that the surface will “probably never recover”, I think it can be reasonably assumed that Stories of Light and Dark takes precedence over Build the Millennium Falcon #32 here.

We then get a glimpse of post-war Mandalore in The Clone Wars 2×12 “The Mandalore Plot”, depicting the lifeless and barren deserts in 21 BBY.

This is how the planet stayed for a few decades later until 2 BBY, as seen in Star Wars Rebels: The Heroes of Mandalore.

At some point following the unification of the Mandalorian clans under the leadership of Bo-Katan during the Imperial Era, the Empire led the Night of a Thousand Tears during the Great Purge of Mandalore which once again ruined the hope and lives of the Mandalorian citizens. This was depicted brutally in The Book of Boba Fett 1×05 “Chapter 5: The Return of the Mandalorian”, in scenes reminiscent of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

And finally, the most recent depiction of the planet will be in The Mandalorian Season 3, where Din Djarin must travel there so he may be “forgiven for his transgressions”.

The ship flying in the right-hand side of the frame is almost certainly a Kom’rk-class fighter/transport commonly used by Death Watch, a Mandalorian traditionalist group founded following the end of the Mandalorian Civil War in 42 BBY. Since Satine doesn’t have a canon year of birth, it can be assumed that she is of a similar age to Obi-Wan Kenobi, born in 57 BBY, since the two developed a loving relationship. That would make Satine 15 years old during the events of the Civil War, where she would still technically be a “child” and could frolic around in the Mandalorian plains while Gauntlet starfighters zip across the skies. So my theory is that this scene takes place on Mandalore between 42 BBY and 39 BBY.

Bo-Katan wouldn’t be the only character getting a further fleshed-out backstory, as we will see flashbacks to Grogu’s rescue during Order 66.

We also don’t know that much about Bo-Katan’s backstory prior to The Clone Wars, with only brief mentions scattered across Canon media. There has also been a tease of a secret connection between Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze’s past that will be revealed in Season 3 – could this be where that is revealed? I’m personally excited about their “secret connection”, it could be absolutely anything and it’s certainly intriguing.

And there you have it! This is what I think is happening in that mysterious shot of The Mandalorian Season 3’s “Who We Are” TV spot. What do you think? Could this be taking place in the past or even far into the future? Are you excited for the rest of The Mandalorian Season 3? Leave a comment below or tag us on Twitter @Blacklight or @Geekritique with your thoughts.