Moff Gideon has the Darksaber in The Mandalorian and he's not afraid to use it, but where and when did he acquire this fabled weapon? The first season of Disney+'s celebrated live-action Star Wars series will be remembered for many things; Baby Yoda, the no-nonsense title character and the bounty of Easter eggs on offer, just to name a few. Also of great significance is The Mandalorian's closing scene. Fresh from being shot down by a jetpack-equipped Mando, Giancarlo Esposito's Moff Gideon manages to free himself from the wreckage by using a weapon known as the Darksaber, a black-bladed version of the Jedi lightsaber.
Introduced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, the Darksaber was created by the first (and only) Mandalorian Jedi, Tarre Vizsla, and was passed down to his descendants after the relic was reclaimed from the pesky thieving Jedi. Since then, the weapon has come to symbolize Mandalorian leadership, and whoever would hold the Darksaber also held the power of the Mandalorian people, in one form or another. The last canonical location of the Darksaber was in the hands of Bo-Katan Kryze roughly 2 years prior to the events of the first Star Wars movie, when she united several Mandalorian clans under a single umbrella and was handed the weapon by Sabine Wren in Star Wars Rebels: Heroes of Mandalore.
Exactly how and when the Darksaber moves from Kryze to Gideon isn't explicitly stated, with roughly a decade passing between Wren's relinquishing of the sword and Esposito's villain cutting his way out of a downed fighter, but there are some clues contained within The Mandalorian's first season. Peppered throughout the series are references to a mysterious, hitherto unknown event referred to as "The Great Purge." The specifics of this ominous sounding piece of history are unclear, but based on what can be gleaned from the Armorer, Gideon and the other Mandalorians, the Empire launched a decisive attack on Mandalore that almost crushed the entire culture.
After emerging victorious, the Empire stole Mandalore's rich resources, which is why Werner Herzog's shady "The Client" possesses copious amounts of Beskar Steel, and the remaining survivors of the purge were forced into a nomadic lifestyle, as seen on Nevarro. This information implicitly confirms that Mandalore was either destroyed or fell entirely under Imperial rule as a result of the attack. In The Mandalorian's season finale, Moff Gideon confirms that he was heavily involved in The Great Purge and must have also gained access to the records of Mandalore in order to know that Mando's real name was Din Djarin. Following the purge of Mandalore, Gideon either killed the current leader, whether that be Kryze or a successor, or was put in charge of the Imperial-controlled planet by the Emperor. In both cases, he would come into possession of the Darksaber as a spoil of war, a mark of his new leadership, or both.
Moff Gideon almost certainly obtained the Darksaber on Mandalore either during or immediately after The Great Purge, but when did this incident take place? Logically, it would have to be during the era of the original Star Wars trilogy. Assuming Kryze's reign wasn't ridiculously short, she would've still held the Darksaber going into A New Hope. The Empire would've been too weak to do any purging after being soundly defeated in Return of the Jedi, so this puts the passing of the Darksaber to Moff Gideon between 0 BBY and 4 BBY.
The Mandalorian season 2 premieres in October on Disney+.