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I'm going to make this one pre-note. I don't know if this is true, but I continue to assume that, rather than the New Mandalorians being neo-Nazis, the animators just decided that as Satine was going to be blonde and white that they were going to make her people look similar in order to create a unified look for them and didn't think that through. Satine and her people are as cosmopolitan and generally accepting as any other multicultural society in the Star Wars galaxy, it's just that the above-mentioned error has accidental rather than deliberate implications, so I'm going to ignore what I believe to be accidental implications.
One more note, as I said in my summary, this is pretty much just a poorly constructed essay with some plot threads tossed in at the end for flavour.
Let me begin by saying that I do enjoy the vibrant culture frequently described in fanfics as being the Mandalorian culture.
However, I've indicated before that there are problems - fundamentally - with warrior cultures, that have to be addressed, so I'm going to spin that, and some potential problems as seen in fanon/canon about the traditionalist Mando'ade, in such a way as to make Satine's New Mandalorians very much not 'The Bad Guys' as they are so frequently described. I'm going to plonk down the list of potential issues to start and then just go from there.
Let's start by reiterating a point, and this is that warrior cultures define themselves in such a way that they need a fight to validate their existence. There's something very present in their culture that when you read even the most positive fanfics about, say, the Haat'ade, there's this quiet disdain for people who simply cannot bring themselves to commit acts of violence, this base assumption that they are completely wrong. I can't recall which fic it was right now, but there's a scene in which Obi-Wan is explaining to Satine that the Haat Mando'ade showing up in armour is not an intimidation tactic, but a statement that, despite their warrior background, they are willing to talk rather than fight. However, at no time does anyone point out to the Haat'ade that showing up to a bunch of people who do not carry weapons and who have chosen to not wear armour - while wearing armour and a bunch of weapons - could be seen as a serious implicit threat. More than that, I feel like those Haat'ade would respond by saying, "Well, if they had a bunch of weapons and armour they wouldn't feel so threatened," which basically is just encouraging an arms race, rather than considering that showing up to negotiate wearing an implicit threat is perhaps not the best stance for a peaceful negotiation.
Don't tell me there's nothing violent about armour. We all know the kind of add-ons Mandalorians can put in their armour, many of which are specifically designed to kill. If you show up carting around a flamethrower or whistling birds, you are not demonstrating non-violence.
Satine, in watching her father try to negotiate with traditionalists sees again and again these people who show up to the table with arms and armour, who then react to every potential slight by reaching for their weapons. They react to every negotiating gambit and discussion point with, "Why don't we take this down to the sparring ring?", as though somehow having a fight with someone and winning proves your argument right. Trial by combat has been eliminated in most places precisely because logic proves your points right, not your ability to whack someone with a stick.
Adding to this is the easy radicalisation of youth, because they've been told that they're supposed to be powerful warriors and that this is How Mandalore Is. I mean, yes, the destruction of the Haat'ade does take away anyone willing to be more moderate, but the fact that Death Watch can parade around claiming that actual terrorism is the way to go forward and effectively snarfle up all the warrior clans that aren't hardcore traditionalists that never remove their helmets is concerning and suggests that there's a distinct lack of any other identifying cultural features to latch onto.
I would even suggest that part of the reason for Mandalore's decline is not just the Dral'han/Excision, but the fact that they had an economy based on conquest and empire, and when that stopped they lacked the infrastructure to actually maintain anything. I'm not saying the Dral'han is nothing, obviously gutting whole planets is a [massively, hugely, seriously kriffed-up] problem, but Mandalore (putting aside the culture) is a whole system. It's not one planet, it's a bunch, and it just feels like they don't have a setup to handle things if they're not taking over nearby systems and bleeding them of resources.
The New Mandalorians, who are traders and businessmen, among other things, at least have a plan to trade for things, and as they don't define themselves as warriors are free to take up any trade or vocation they want without the shadow of, "But you're supposed to be a warrior" hanging over their heads.
This is also important, because there's also a strong thread of implication to discussions among traditionalists of, "You can figure out how to be useful if you're not a warrior." An implication of "If you choose not to be a warrior, you're lesser." They all say that a farmer isn't lesser, but it's also something that feels forced because they have to keep saying it. It's like the Jedi knights talking about the Service Corps. "Oh yes, the Argicorps are totally not lesser than the knighthood, we just threaten the kids with booting them out to the Corps if they wash out of the program."
It must be very hard living in a warrior society when you are viscerally disinclined to be a warrior.
I find myself often wondering whether Jaster Mereel's much-touted codex actually considers things other than the Code for supercommandos. That is, does it actually show him having thought about how to lead a whole society that includes janitors, secretaries, farmers, artists, dentists, kindergarten teachers, bus drivers, bank tellers and housewives? Or has he just considered how to make a path forward for warriors and decided the rest will shake itself out?
Another potential issue is the adoption thing. You see in a lot of fics the whole notion that the traditionalists don't have orphanages because everybody gets adopted. Yay!
However, there are a lot of problems with all these spontaneous adoptions. There is, in fact, a reason why there's so much red tape around adoptions, and that's in order to try to ensure that new parents adopting children are fiscally ready to handle a child, that they're not people with big red flags that they're going to be abusive or neglectful, to try to be sure that they're capable of dealing with this responsibility.
When you look at those adoptions in fanfics, they're lovely and spontaneous and how do the clans make sure that this isn't some jerk planning to use the kid as cheap labour? How do they make sure it's not someone who thinks the child is going to be a fun new accessory that will love them and just kind of hang around? Sure, maybe someone with a large clan to check in won't get into that trouble, but some solo beroya? Who's checking up on that? There really doesn't seem to be any sort of check and balance to avoid that issue.
Those with successful adoptions have what are effectively rose-coloured glasses about it, and handwave that any kid can declare a parent dar'buir, without paying attention to the question of where they go when that happens.
So, Satine, seeing this, understands the value of not just letting anyone walk off with a kid without some guardrails in place - not just trusting that the rest of the clan will pay attention and fix the problem.
I would also point out that the Resol'nare is actually fundamentally divisive. Yes, you answer your Mand'alor's call, but first is 'aliit', which is translated as 'tribe' normally in the English/Basic, but aliit is family. You put your family first. Not the whole, not the House, not the Mando'ade, your family. Sounds great until you consider the clan wars. When you consider that you are not to consider the wellness of the whole, but of just your family. I grant there are further quotations floating around that would suggest that contribution to the whole is of value, but the earliest lesson doubles down on family first. Further, to add to my point above about warriors, you are considered dar'manda if you don't adhere to the tenets, but just think about Din Djarin who got booted from his clan because he made a decision that a child's welfare was more important than hiding his face. I note out there is a quote (Unattributed on a website I dug up, but I'm gonna use it because I'm assuming it's a valid quote, but even if it's fanon, well, I'm bucking some peoples' fanon in this as well) that says, “Any Mandalorian who does not adhere to these actions is considered dar’manda, or ignorant of their heritage. As such, they are a disgrace to other Mandalorians and do not deserve to be called Mando’ade. There is no home for them in the afterlife.”
Consider that, if you are ignorant, potentially through no fault of your own or you have been prevented from doing these actions through no fault of your own, you are without a soul. I feel like dar'manda - the stripping of your place amongst mando'ade - should be limited to grievous actions, not just 'I'm bad at this'. Further, it's exclusionary in that a person can make their home in the region and yet be seen as aruetii, a word that means both non-Mandalorian and traitor which is a double hit because you're basically equating non-Mandalorians with treachery.
Satine feels like this is a concerning precedent to set - especially when you consider that without a Mand'alor, or worse, with more than one claiming the title (Tor vs Jaster for example) each with his own adherents (yes, I mean 'his', we're talking about Tor and Jaster), you've created a setting where everyone is practically encouraged to see others with different interpretations or traditions as being aruetii, which is again extremely divisive, and not something you want in the wake of a civil war. In fact, it's a concerningly slavish adherence to a worldview that is completely dismissive of everything but your own. This leads to either cultural isolationism, or - as has shown up frequently in Mandalorian history - cultural imperialism. That is, 'we are the best and the rest of you suck'. On top of which, since the concept of dar'manda is a religious one, it makes the Mand'alor as much a religious figure as a secular one, and thus we have inextricably bound up religion and the state. This is something that has been unwound in many countries for precisely the concern of state bias against minorities (I will not discuss the success various nations/states have had in avoiding said bias, I will only point out that it would probably be worse if those ethical/moral strictures of religion were explicitly present in legislation).
Now that I've set out my brainstormed discussion of flaws in Mandalorian culture (incomplete, but I basically threw this out over a couple of hours of just musing on more details of inarticulate prior contemplation, so it's neither exhaustive nor wholly thought through), I will proceed with what I intend to be a fixit concept.
With all this in mind, having trekked through Mandalore and various other planets within the greater system during the Year On The Run With Obi-Wan (and Qui-Gon, but we're not worrying about him), Satine sets up to be Duchess of Mandalore and sets out to fight her way to dealing with these issues.
She starts by trying to figure out how to change this culture that is fundamentally a warrior one into one that celebrates non-warriors.
It begins with revamping the higher education system and aspects of government grants. Satine pushes hard to provide high-paying government contracts for scientists to figure out how to grow crops in the wreckage of the Dral'han, how to get non-beskar resources like food or wood on strip-mined planets. She pushes for grants for artists, musicians and architects. She pushes to ensure that there is a liveable minimum wage punched through for factories, stores, coffee shops and any other sort of employment, working hard to ensure that no one has to take bounty hunter or mercenary work because it's the only way to make money. She pays through the nose to ensure that her police force is trained in de-escalation and non-violent means of restraint.
She also puts in legislation that says you are Mandalorian if you live in Mandalorian space permanently. She draws a line between being Mando'ade, that is, culturally a member of those who agree to follow the Creed, and those who choose to live on Mandalore. So, you could be a Mirialan who follows the religion and traditions of Mirial who has not sworn the Resol'nare and have Mandalorian citizenship and belong to the citizenry, while not being Mando'ade.
The first thing doesn't have much strife beyond the fiscally conservative being uncomfortable with money being spent by the government like that. The second is where people begin to balk.
Satine then responds with the first of her long-term restructuring of Mandalorian values. She points out to people that the Creed accepts all who come so long as they agree to the Creed, but that she is not the Mand'alor, she is a purely temporal head of state, and as such it is necessary for her to accept all people to her planet equally, and can the followers of the Creed accept these people as their neighbours and as persons equally deserving to live and work in the places they wish to?
Having brought up that comparison to the Creed, and with Satine having carefully explained that she is not saying these people are Mando'ade, but that they are Mandalorian citizens, it stymies those objections.
Between that and starting a concerted campaign for people to consider themselves of Mandalore first, rather than of their clan or aliit first, she pushes for unity specifically to avoid another civil war.
Allow me to double-down on that statement and expand it a little. Satine knows that a significant cause of the Clan wars that killed her father was the striations between the clans and families on Mandalore, where everyone's allegiance was to that, rather than to the whole of the people. Specifically in order to bring people together, she focusses on an advertising campaign from the government to convince people that being Mandalorian is to care for the people as a whole, not just your family. You family is the microcosm of the macrocosm of Mandalore. This is so that, rather than, "I will defend my family and clan, and if my Mand'alor calls I'll do as they say," it is, "As I defend my family and clan, so too do I work for the betterment of all Mandalore whether or not there is a Mand'alor." Because that's the thing about all this house, clan and family division, it's pretty much a whole lot of provincial determination to protect and care for 'your people' without genuinely worrying about everyone else.
The thing is, she is trying to make nice with the rest of the galaxy by convincing the people of Mandalore to be more accepting of difference of belief. Because that's where the stumbling block is. They don't care about species or what you did before, they just care if you're part of the in-crowd or not. But that's just as prejudiced as a human-centric superiority complex. Think about it, according to Mandalorian beliefs you only have a soul if you're Mando'ade. That is, to borrow a word, extremely dehumanising for everyone who is not Mando. It's one thing to shrug and say other people's gods will do whatever with other people's souls upon death, but to say they just don't have them? It's concerning and I can see a lot of kids who didn't want to follow the Resol'nare or who wanted to follow a different path getting thrown out of their homes and told they have no families because of that. After all, they're dar'manda now, so they have no souls, so it's not disowning, because you can only disown a real person, not a soulless husk.
As Satine blows this secret, dark underbelly open wide, there's a lot of screaming from traditionalists, but there's an equal amount of serious consideration from people who'd never actually thought through what happens when people violate the trust of their children or families, what happens when the deeply silly people who think a child will be a fun add-on to their lives rather than a responsibility fail to live up to the trust placed in them and the many, many children who are in terrible home situations because no one actually checks if that adoption is a good thing.
Satine is forced to exile the traditionalists when they refuse to comply with regulation changes of even the most basic kind, like not taking weapons into hospitals. After a dozen incidents of Clan X showing up armed to the teeth because Clan Y member is in that hospital, so they have to be ready for Clan Y to attack them and Clan Y doing the same, leading to drawn blasters in the ICU, Satine declares weapons to be a privilege not a right and has to start disallowing armour because of how many people have flamethrowers and explosive devices in their armour.
The thing is, as time passes and fewer people feel the need to be afraid going out in the streets without protection, fewer people feel the need to be armoured to the teeth.
Let's put in the fix-it here, and that is that Satine does not foolishly act as though booting the warriors off of Mandalore proper would have dispersed Death Watch and instead takes her campaign to those planets she'd exiled the warrior-types to and advertises and offers scholarships and government grants for people to get into universities, start businesses and all those things that would allow those hemmed in off of Mandalore proper to have good lives.
See, if you assume that Death Watch has been using that old secret of terrorist organisations of making themselves into de facto governments by providing social services, food, medical supports etc. to those in need, then radicalising those who take their help, ('See, we're the good guys, so the people we blow up are the bad guys') then the way to undercut them is to go in there and provide those services and help first. Also, if she can prove they're still teaching Mandalorian history, language etc., there's not much to be objected to in terms of cultural annihilation. I mean, let's keep in mind two major factors about Satine's appearances during the Clone Wars, the first is that if she's around non-Mandalorians it's only polite to speak the language they speak because it's rude to speak something not everyone in the room can understand. The second is that making up a language for use on a show is a lot of trouble, and just having them speak English for the sake just not overcomplicating the writing of the drama is something that cannot be dismissed, so Death Watch et al can be treated as speaking Mando'a amongst themselves, but . . . y'know . . . TV.
In short, we can presume that Mando'a and Mandalorian history etc. are in the schools and not just Basic and Republic history. Though I can see Satine insisting on teaching Republic history so as to counter Glorious Mandalorian History with, "So, that time we struck a glorious victory against the Republic was also that time we massacred five planets of people down to the babies." Sort of teaching both side by side for the sake of a more complete picture.
Anyhow, the point is that we can reduce Death Watch down to the crazy and obsessive if Satine just pushes that bit further and gets to the people before Viszla does.
That way, when Maul tries taking over Mandalore he doesn't have nearly the numbers he needs, so it becomes possible to oust him, capture him, find out what he knows about Palpatine and then also keep Mandalore separate while the Jedi deal with Palpatine in the background and Satine leads Mandalore into a new era of prosperity.
I think that's enough character assassination of the Haat'ade for now, right?