Warrior Bio: Boba Fett, Mandalore.

Author's Note:  If you weren't aware of this (in which case you should visit the new Table of Contests found HERE!) this next article series will be very different from all previous ones on my blog... because it will be featuring fictional characters from the worlds of science fiction!  That's right:  this match will be Boba Fett, the most famed bounty hunter in the "Star Wars" galaxy, going toe to toe with the Yautja, "the demon who makes trophies of men" and signature figure of the "Predator" franchise.  I'm very excited to explore such new territory with this next step in the project, and hopefully so are you!  Before we get started, I want to outline how this match will be posted... today (18 December) is the debut of the first segment, Boba Fett's Offensive Assessment.  On 20 December his Defensive Assessment will go live.  22 December is his Variables Assessment (which is tweaked - more on that later).  24 December will be the Yautja's Offensive Assessment, 26 the Defensive, 28 the Variables, and the Narrative and "By the Numbers" on the final two days of the month, respectively.  As a final note, the grading for this match will be a little different than what you may be used to seeing from me:  five points have been taken from both Long-Distance Weapons (in the Offensive category) and Head Protection (in the Defensive category) sub-categories, and moved to the Variables category to create the "Prior Opponents" and "Health" sub-categories, each worth five points.  What this means is that the grading scale is now 35 (Offensive) + 35 (Defensive) + 30 (Variables), still equaling 100 possible points.


That out of the way, let's get started!

Boba Fett, Mandalore, circa 40 Years After the Battle of Yavin.

Image used without permission from https://www.facebook.com/.

-Offensive Assessment

~Close Quarters Combat; Fibercord Whip, Vibroblades.  A close-distance piece of Boba’s equipment that he inherited from his father’s arsenal was the fibercord whip:  a twenty-yard long length of tightly-corded rope that could snare and entangle targets, as well as aid in climbing vertical surfaces.  The final close-quarters weapons used by Boba Fett were the vibroblades – he had four of them installed in his armor.  They were three-inch long, retractable vibroblades held in the knuckle plates of his gauntlets, extending just slightly far beyond the closed fist, and in the toes of his boots, extending just as far.  Vibroblades were widespread in use throughout the galaxy as an answer to mechanical enemies, force-fields, and most armor systems.  They operated via ultrasonic vibration generators installed inside of the hilts or handles that caused the blades to vibrate at ultrasonic levels, becoming better cutting weapons by many orders of magnitude.

Here you can see Boba Fett deploying his fibercord whip to ensnare an opponent.
Image used without permission from http://images.wikia.com/.

~Weapons of Reach; Dur-24 Wrist Laser, Grenades.  When operating at closer distances than he was comfortable with using the EE-3, Boba relied on the Dur-24 wrist laser to fight at a distance.  It had a very short charge to compensate for its power intensity, which was comparable to a standard full-size blaster rifle.  This translates to it having an effective range of fifty yards and only forty rounds, which it fired in single-shot bursts with a one second interval between each shot.  However, the small magazine size would require it to be used sparingly.  The basic, handheld grenades used by many factions came in three variants – physical, sonic, and anti-armor.  Physical grenades were fairly standard, releasing a blast of kinetic energy to damage organic targets and damage equipment.  Additionally, a concussive wave exuded three yards beyond the one-yard kill zone, serving as a makeshift electromagnetic pulse and shock wave, stunning organic targets and disabling mechanical ones.  The second grenade type would be the sonic concussive grenade – it would not be fatal, or even create lasting wounds, but would knock any normal targets unconscious.  The final grenade type was the rarest; the anti-armor grenade.  It had the smallest blast radius – less than one full yard in both kill zone and shockwave.  It was used on slow-moving, armored targets, and could use an adhesive patch along its circumference to stick to them.

Here we have a clear view of Boba Fett's EE-3 Carbine Rifle, featured below.
Image used without permission from http://www.bigshinyrobot.com/.

~Long-Distance Weapons; EE-3 Carbine Rifle.  The EE-3 was a shortened variant of the popular E-11 blaster rifle used by Imperial Stormtroopers, essentially making it into a long-distance submachine gun.  Like the E-11 from which it was designed, it had a low weight and small profile that made it a very mobile weapon.  This allowed it to be used from a prone or covered position rather than a purely upright stance.  Its basic design was of a long, circular barrel and a hollowed-out stock with the magazine incorporated into the joint of the stock and barrel, along with the trigger mechanism.  The alternate version of the EE-3 used by Boba Fett was modified with an extended shoulder stock, telescopic sight, and a fast-draw shoulder sling that fit comfortably over his armor.  The EE-3 fired in rapid three-round bursts over one second with a two-second interval between each burst as the barrel cooled itself back down to safe operating temperature.  It used a more intense charge than the E-11 that gave it more power and effective reach at the sacrifice to total round capacity.  It had a charge of 300 shots and an effective range of 400 yards with the scope, and 200 without it.
 

With the help of his Z-6 Jetpack, Boba Fett was able to escape the dreaded Sarlacc monster... on more than one occasion.  The first time he was trapped inside of the large predator, he was able to manipulate it into activating his jetpack, releasing him and killing it in the process.  He was much more careful after the first incident.  Image used without permission from http://25.media.tumblr.com/

~Specialized Weapons; ZX Miniature Flame Projector, Westar-34 Blaster Pistols, Fex-M3 Poisoned Darts.  Mounted on the left wrist along with the Dur-24 wrist laser, the ZX was a concealed, portable incendiary weapon that was extremely effective when deployed against organic targets as well as the environment.  The ZX produced a cone of fire five yards long and one yard in diameter at its widest point.  The fuel line for the ZX was kept internal within the Mandalorian armor rather than external for safety reasons, and connected to a backpack canister that allowed for three minutes of continuous use.  That said, the models used by Jango and Boba Fett were connected to the fuel tanks for their Z-6 jetpacks to conserve space and utility.  Beyond its offensive capabilities, the ZX could be used to manipulate the environment by igniting vegetation aflame, giving its user an edge in operating on a field of their own choosing.  Unfortunately, creating live flames could be dangerous to the user as they were beyond the user’s control once deployed on the environment.  Like his father Jango Fett, Boba’s preferred sidearm was the Westar-34 blaster pistol – two of them, in fact.  These pistols were made for precision shooting at sustained close-range fighting rather than power over a long distance, and had a small 20-shot charge with the only interval between shots being the time it took the user to aim.  What was unique about Boba’s use of the Westar-34 was that he kept two of them stowed away in a compartment within his Z-6 jetpack rather than on a holster belt like many other bounty hunters, including his father.  A final piece to Boba’s armor was the poisoned darts located on his knee-guards.  They were only effective at the shortest of distances, being propelled by minute compressed air cannons they were an efficient way of killing a target silently.  The poison that they carried was an artificial nerve toxin that caused a complete shutdown of the nervous system, spreading throughout the body in less than ten seconds.

Boba Fett's life was not an easy one - an unaltered clone of his "father" Jango Fett, his career as a bounty hunter and general gun-for-hire was violently begun with Jango's death at the hands of Jedi Master Mace Windu, leading to a lifelong distrust of the Jedi on Boba's behalf.  Image used without permission from http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/.

-Defensive Assessment

~Head; Mandalorian Helmet and Gorget.  Boba Fett’s Mandalorian helmet was an essential piece of hardware for his line of work.  A sophisticated technology, it went a long way towards making him the talented bounty hunter he was known as – it featured a video and sound recorder that played back on command, automatic compensation for light and pressure conditions, infrared and heat scanners, and a broadband antenna that could connect to his ship as well as act as an external rangefinder and target-locker.  In addition to its technological features, the helmet was still a capable protective device – like his other armor elements, it was made from Mandalorian iron, a unique alloy that was resistant to energy attacks ranging in intensity from handheld blaster pistols up to repeated lightsaber strikes.  It was also effective in use against kinetic assaults, but was intended more to disperse blasters than bladed weapons.  Boba’s father, Jango Fett, was infamously killed by the Jedi Master Mace Windu beheading him with his lightsaber – a fact that Boba was painfully aware of.  Therefore, when he had a new set of Mandalorian armor made in 40 ABY to replace his battered Duraplast suit, he commissioned a gorget to protect his vulnerable neck and shoulders.

Boba Fett was said to wear his armor so often that he had the appearance of a ghost without it.  Image used without permission from http://images.wikia.com/.

~Torso; Blast Plates, Flak Suit, Power Liner.  Boba’s main body protection was the blast plates sewn into the back and chest of his flak suit.  Originally made of Duraplast, they served him well throughout his career until he was forced through his responsibilities as Mandalore – a sort of warrior-king to his people – to better protect himself and so commissioned his new suit of Mandalorian iron armor.  What was interesting about the blast plates is that they were not a single, solid plate, but instead four individual ones that were designed to complement the body structure of his chest – one for each pectoral muscle, one over the sternum, and another over the abdomen.  This granted him great mobility and flexibility while not sacrificing protection.  Two other plates locked together to make a groin guard.  Like his helmet, the blast plates could absorb and disperse the power of blaster bolts better than basic kinetic attacks, as well as concussive waves from grenades.  The other element to Boba’s body protection was the flak suit – a thick, durable mesh suit that covered him from neck to toe and integrated with his helmet to seal for use in volatile conditions.  It protected well against indirect attacks such as low-intensity blaster bolts, indirect bladed attacks, or the shockwaves produced by explosives, but most direct attacks would defeat it.  Interestingly, the flak suit was supported by an inner power liner that helped seal the wearer against vacuums, hostile environments, and extreme heat or cold conditions.

Mandalorians believed that their armor was the best advertisement they could give of themselves - so they seldom bothered to touch it up with paint or hammer out dents and blemishes, instead reveling in the battle-scars of past glories.  Boba Fett was no exception to this rule, wearing his marks on steel and skin.  Image used without permission from http://i125.photobucket.com/.

~Limbs; Blast Plates, Vambraces, Flak Suit, Power Liner.  The flak suit that covered Boba Fett’s body was reinforced with a power liner shirt that contained two layers of separate ceramic plates that protected the upper and lower arms and legs.  Additionally, external plates also made from Mandalorian iron on the shoulders and knees helped protect the vital bone joints there.  An interesting feature of the knee-guards was that the compressed-air dart-launchers were located within them, as well as a makeshift survival kit.  Numerous pockets were sewn into the legs of the flak suit, holding a myriad of tools, anti-security blades, and other odds and ends.  The final piece of Boba Fett’s body armor was the pair of vambraces he wore on his forearms.   Though they were primarily used for housing weapons like the fibercord whip, flame projector, and wrist laser, they would be able to stop an attack in an emergency.

A newly-made set of Mandalorian iron armor; the material was also known as "beskar".  Unlike other Mandalorians, Boba Fett did not equip himself these many plate components, choosing extra mobility over extra protection.  Image used without permission from http://images.wikia.com/.

~Mobile; Z-6 Jetpack.  Boba Fett’s most distinctive piece of equipment was possibly his J-6 jetpack, which besides granting him additional mobility also housed a powerful anti-vehicle missile.  The Z-6’s fuel tank allowed for one minute of continuous operation split into 20 three-second or three 20-second ignitions.  A user of standard height and weight could attain a top speed of 90 miles an hour, but suffered a loss of maneuverability as the supportive counter-thrusters could not operate at such velocities.  As for the missile included in the jetpack, it was a standard computer-navigated, self-propelled explosive that was essential for use against large mechanical targets, but could be very messy if deployed against organic ones.  It had a blast radius of approximately ten yards, with anything caught within five yards of the explosion being hit with enough kinetic force to kill or destroy.  Though he was well prepared for a stand-up, drag-out fight, he preferred to fight from a distance and exercise stealthy tactics or fight on the move, not allowing opponents to get a shot at him.  Combined with the jetpack, this gave him a great edge over technologically-inferior, surprised prey.  However, Boba had no shields to speak of, and was not as talented in hand-to-hand combat as he was with a blaster, being infamously beaten by a blind Han Solo and outnumbered Luke Skywalker in a skirmish at the Pit of Carkoon.

Before his death at the Skirmish at Carkoon, Jabba the Hutt was a frequent  employer of Boba Fett and his services - often taking jobs to hunt down the Hutt's debtors and criminal rivals, including Han Solo.  Boba was a fluent speaker of Hutteese, Jabba's native language.  Image used without permission from http://images.wikia.com/.

-Variable Assessment

~Tactics; Boba Fett was a very social hunter, using a vast network of contacts and informants all throughout the galaxy to locate his prey.  Once he singled out a target, he would formulate a plan using whatever resources he had available to him – initially just himself and whatever equipment he had on hand, but later in life his resource pool expanded to include other, sub-contracted bounty hunters and Mandalorians.  Boba Fett was a great proponent of the ambush – he would often lure his prey into a situation where they believed that they were safe from harm.  Complacent and unaware of their danger, he would then spring his trap – stunning his prey with sudden violence and limiting the amount of danger to himself.  He was wise enough to apply this tactic to the hunt beyond face-to-face encounters – he also used it when stalking prey in the vacuum of space.  While he and his Mandalorians were very capable of holding their own in a fight, Boba Fett always preferred to swoop in and neutralize his enemies before they had a chance to retaliate.

~Training; before he was the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, Jango Fett was.  Boba was an identical, but unaccelerated clone of Jango, who took him as his son.  Jango Fett taught him everything that he knew, covering fields ranging from battlefield tactics to foreign languages, to equipment maintenance to how to single-handedly navigate a starship.  Interestingly, Jango Fett was also responsible for training the Clone Army of the Republic, playing a crucial role in preparing every Clone soldier from standard riflemen to elite ARC commandos for service in war.  What this means is that Boba Fett would have been at least as well-trained as the average Clone soldier, but it isn’t difficult to imagine that his training would have been superior to theirs by several orders of magnitude.

~Motivation; credits and revenge were Boba Fett’s motivators.  His father’s death at the hands of the Jedi caused him to have an anti-Jedi stance throughout much of his life, often leading him to take on extra jobs and tasks in the interest of paying the Jedi Order back for what he had lost.  Another thorn in his side was the smuggler Han Solo – he had escaped the bounty hunter numerous times, often making off with expensive cargo to Boba’s loss.  As with all bounty hunters, Boba Fett was motivated by money – so long as the credits kept coming, he could be counted on to take jobs and see them through to their completion.  And like all true Mandalorians, Boba Fett had a high sense of honor, instilled in him by his father – he was not one to harm innocents or to take jobs he thought morally wrong, but did not forgive slights to him or his honor.

Image used without permission.

~Innovation; a disastrous civil war among the Mandalorians during Jango Fett’s lifetime meant that the fabled warrior-people were disorganized and spread far and wide throughout the galaxy, leaderless.  Jango did what he could to reunite his people in his lifetime, but it was not enough; it would fall to Boba to finish what he had started.  After establishing himself as the galaxy’s leading bounty hunter and a leader in his own right (commanding groups of Imperial Stormtroopers on occasion as a hired gun) he was able to gather the scattered Mandalorians together into a unified group.  Satisfied with his leadership (and defeat of any rivals) they soon declared him Mandalore, in effect the warrior-king of his people.  This innovation made the Mandalorians a military powerhouse once again.  However, in terms of strict military innovation he more or less took what traditions already existed and augmented them with what his father had trained him to do.

~Experience; by the time he was sixty-two years old, Boba Fett had been hunting bounties across the universe as far back as his ninth birthday.  He knew virtually every trick in the book towards locating and neutralizing his prey, and had a lifetime of experience in fighting opponents.  The galaxy was filled with all kinds of life, sentient or not, and Boba had dealt with all of them at some point in his career.  Alien life-forms would be nothing new to him; he would be difficult to surprise.

~Health; as said, Boba Fett was into his sixties at this time.  But he was far from elderly – he still stuck to an intense training regimen that kept his body in top condition, and had one of the cleverest minds in the galaxy throughout all of his life.  Due to being an artificial clone, not a natural-born human, Boba had many of the genetic flaws common in normal people, as well as an improved immune system.  However, he still would not take as many risks by coming to fisticuffs with an enemy, knowing the limits of his body.  Fortunately for him, his limits happened to be much higher than many other people his age.