The origins of the Clone Wars came a millennium
before it began, with the defeat of the Sith by the Jedi Order. The once numerous Sith,
who had long suffered from in-fighting, were reduced to only two: a master and an
apprentice. This line began with Darth Bane, who started the Sith on the path that would lead
them to one day retaking control of the galaxy. Hundreds of years later, it was Darth
Sidious, otherwise known as Sheev Palpatine, who would execute the grand plan of the
Sith and cause the start of the Clone Wars. Though the war may have been a piece of
the plan to return the Sith to power, it was only made possible by the worsening of
problems that already existed. The downfall of the Republic started in the centuries following its
golden age, marked by an increase in corruption and greed in the Galactic Senate. The Outer
Rim worlds, many of which had only joined the Republic relatively recently, were neglected
or exploited, and corporations like the Trade Federation were granted equal representation to
protect their own interests. A conflict over the taxation of trade routes involving the Federation
on the planet Naboo, orchestrated by the Sith, put these problems on display and allowed Sidious
to manipulate his way into the Chancellery. Sidious relied on his new apprentice, Count
Dooku, to sow the seeds for the conflict further. Dooku meddled in the affairs
of planets throughout the Republic, backing coups and recruiting criminals to
worsen the Republic’s problems in the Rim. It was around this time that Dooku’s childhood
friend Sifo-Dyas had a vision of the impending war and was spurred into ordering an army from
the Kaminoan cloners to defend the Republic. This army was co-opted by Sidious and Dooku, who
had Sifo-Dyas killed and recruited the bounty hunter Jango Fett to serve as the clone template.
At the request of the Sith, the Kaminoans planted chips inside the clones that would make them
turn on their Jedi commanders when activated. Eight years after the incident on Naboo,
Dooku took control of a HoloNet relay station on the planet Raxus and publicly
condemned the Republic for the first time. This launched the Separatist crisis, with
scores of worlds flocking to the side of Dooku and his already-established allies
in the galaxy’s largest corporations. The Confederacy of Independent Systems began to
take shape, with Raxus becoming its capital. There was a Separatist Senate on the planet that
was overseen by Dooku, but much of the true influence belonged to the corporate powers Dooku
had secretly recruited for the Separatist Council. During this time, Dooku also recruited the two
figures that would serve as his primary military commanders. Asajj Ventress had once been trained
by stranded Jedi Master Ky Narec on Rattatak, but Narec’s death sent Ventress to the Dark Side.
She became a warlord on Rattatak until she was captured by one of her rivals and forced to fight
as a gladiator. Dooku freed her from the arena and trained her as his Sith assassin, feeding her
false promises of one day making her a true Sith. Qymaen jai Sheelal was a Kaleesh warlord with
a vendetta against the Republic and jealousy of the Jedi’s abilities with the Force. He chose
to cybernetically augment himself so he could defeat the Jedi in battle, eventually becoming
Dooku’s servant, the cyborg General Grievous. Though he was following the orders
and plans of his Sith master, Dooku’s rhetoric about the failings of
the Republic came from a genuine place, as he had become disillusioned with it during
his time as a Jedi Master. Dooku’s dedication was absolute; he ordered Ventress to murder
his own sister to keep his Sith secrets. Publicly however, Dooku was nothing
more than a political figure, giving impassioned speeches to win the
hearts and minds of many across the galaxy. As time passed, Dooku’s message more often began
to spur people into violence. The Republic Senate grew fearful over the possibility of war breaking
out, and it became split over the topic of a Military Creation Act. Dooku hired Jango Fett
to assassinate one of the most vocal opponents to the Act and one of the Trade Federation’s
greatest enemies, Senator Amidala of Naboo. These assassination attempts didn’t
succeed in killing Amidala but did lead the Jedi to discovering the clone army that the
Kaminoans had prepared at Sifo-Dyas’ request. The escalation of the crisis gave Sidious the
opportunity to manipulate the Senate into granting him emergency powers, allowing him to unilaterally
decide upon the creation of a Grand Army. During a meeting between Dooku and his allies
at a droid manufacturing plant on Geonosis, Amidala and her Jedi protectors, Obi-Wan
Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, were captured and scheduled for execution in the Geonosian
arena. This execution was interrupted by the arrival of two hundred Jedi led by Master Windu,
who engaged the droids in the arena. Many of the Jedi died during this fight, but the tide of the
battle was turned around when Grand Master Yoda arrived with the Kaminoan clone army that had
been officially adopted by the Republic. The Separatist leadership managed to escape, but the
battle of Geonosis was a victory for the Republic. With the end of Geonosis, the Clone Wars
had officially begun and neither side wasted time before launching into action. Tensions
soon arose on theoretically neutral worlds such as Cato Neimoidia, and the Separatists
attempted to coerce or threaten planetary governments like those of Hisseen and Toydaria.
Early in the war, the Separatists sought to find galactic footholds in the Outer Rim before
moving inwards toward the Republic’s home in the Core. Ideal places for these footholds
were worlds rich with valuable resources and lacking in substantial planetary defenses, such as
Christophsis or Hissrich. Many of the Confederate systems were Outer Rim worlds already,
giving the Separatists an early advantage. Among the most valuable resources for either
side in a galactic conflict are hyperspace routes. Gaining access to routes not commonly
possessed could give either side the ability to launch surprise attacks on the other
to devastating effect. As the Separatist goal to secure territory in the Outer Rim
defined the early stages of the conflict, the Hutts and the secret routes they possessed
through their territories in the Rim became a clear point of contention. The Separatists moved
to kidnap Jabba’s son from under him on Tatooine, forcing Jabba to ask the Republic for help. The
Chancellor and the Jedi Council pulled Generals Kenobi and Skywalker from an ongoing conflict
on the planet Christophsis and tasked them, along with Skywalker’s new Padawan Commander Tano,
with rescuing Jabba’s son on Teth. The Separatists tried to frame the Republic for the kidnapping
but Skywalker and Tano were able to prove the truth with the help of Senator Amidala, securing
the Republic access to the key Hutt hyperlanes. In the end, the lack of Hutt hyperlanes was not
enough to stop the Separatists from advancing through the Outer Rim. The Republic was forced
onto the back foot and a stand was taken at Bothawui in the Mid Rim to prevent the Separatists
from moving further in. This was successful due to clever tactics on General Skywalker’s part
that sent General Grievous running and the destruction of a Separatist listening post over
Ruusan quickly pushed the Republic’s advantage, but the war continued to ravage the
Outer Rim. The Separatist fleet proved to be formidable and numerous, allowing
it to overwhelm Republic ships at Quell. An obvious military target for
the Separatists was Kamino, as the world that oversaw the production of the
Republic’s entire army. The Republic foresaw the potential for invasion and a listening post
was established on the Rishi moon, which was near the jumping point to Kamino and could warn
the Republic of any Separatist movement nearby. Through great sacrifice from the clones
manning the station, this listening post was successful in signaling the alarm during
the Separatist’s first invasion attempt. One of the most important battles of the
Outer Rim during this time was at Ryloth, the homeworld of the Twi’leks that laid an
advantageous hyperspace position. The planet’s citizens had hoped to remain neutral despite
being one of the Republic’s memberworlds, but a Separatist invasion that destroyed
the Republic’s small presence there forced the organization of a Twi’lek resistance movement
led by Cham Syndulla. Underestimating the natives of a planet and driving them to fight with the
Republic was a recurring mistake on the part of the Separatists and could be seen on other worlds
around that time, such as Caliban and Mimban. The Separatists enacted a blockade over Ryloth,
cutting its people off from vital food and medical supplies. Diplomatic negotiations with the
neutral Toydarians allowed the Republic to send some relief aid to the planet but a brutal siege
was still required. After General Skywalker broke the blockade and General Kenobi helped establish
a foothold on the ground, General Windu and his men were able to recapture the planet’s capital
with the help of Syndulla’s freedom fighters. The capture of major Separatist leaders nearly
struck severe early blows to their cause. A political outreach mission to Rodia caused the
temporary detainment of Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray until the Separatists scrambled
to free him using a corrupt Senate Guard. Soon after, an attempt to capture Count Dooku
almost succeeded when he was taken captive by Weequay pirates, but the duplicitousness of
the pirates spiraled into Dooku escaping. Though these major targets slipped through the
Republic’s fingers, other important Separatist military leaders such as Whorm Loathsom and
Wat Tambor were successfully imprisoned for much of the war following the victories
against them on Christophsis and Ryloth. With so many corporations and weapons
manufacturers making up the Separatist leadership, research and development on
weapons more powerful than anything seen before was to be expected. The Sith
gave the Geonosians plans for a space station capable of destroying planets with its
superlaser. Money was sunk into constructing the ambitious Malevolence warship and its
powerful ion cannon at the Pammant Docks, which was successful in fleet battles but proved
unsustainable before being destroyed via sabotage. Experiments were also made into biological warfare
with projects like the Defoliator weapon and the Blue Shadow Virus, but neither saw large-scale
implementation following Republic intervention. Among the most strategically significant conflicts
from this time was at Malastare, which possessed fuel reserves both sides considered vital. The
armies each committed significant resources to the planet, leading to a brutal war of attrition.
The Separatists managed to gain the advantage and force the Republic into retreat to the
Imperial Palace of the planet’s native Dugs. Fearing Separatist enslavement, the Dugs elected
to ally with the Republic. As a desperate measure, the Republic unleashed a new weapon of mass
destruction: the electro-proton bomb, capable of shutting down all mechanical creations in its
blast radius. The consequences of unleashing the bomb proved costly when it awoke the last
Malastarian Zillo beast, but the victorious Republic was ultimately able to sign a treaty with
the Dugs and secure the valuable fuel resources. A year after it saw the start of the war,
Geonosis found itself again becoming a major theater of the conflict. The Republic had
captured the planet following the initial battle there but soon realized that its factories
could not be converted to support the clone army, causing its strategic significance for
the Republic to wane. The Separatists sought to utilize its potential once more
and Senator Amidala discovered plans for the largest Separatist droid factory yet
on the planet. The Republic launched a second assault to retake it and despite the
vicious resistance of the native Geonosians, a decisive Republic victory was won and
Separatist leader Poggle the Lesser was captured. During this second invasion of Geonosis, the
Republic discovered the plans for the Geonosian superweapon. A think tank was started to
research the possibility of beating the Separatists to its construction; this project
and its involvement of Orson Krennic and Galen Erso led to the eventual creation of the
Death Star. The idea for the weapon had originated from Sidious, who hoped to recreate
kyber-powered weapons of mass destruction similar to those used by the Sith in ancient
history. The Jedi came close to discovering this when halting the transport of a massive
kyber crystal by General Grievous on Utapau, but development of the weapon
under Krennic and Erso continued. Unsurprisingly, there were many systems who
desired to remain neutral in the conflict. Often these systems were forced to choose sides
when the war came to their door, but over 1,500 of them banded together under the pacifist leadership
of the Mandalorian Duchess Satine Kryze. Though nominally still members of the Republic, the
representatives of these worlds abstained from all matters relating to the war. The influence
possessed by this Council of Neutral Systems made them a strong target for Count Dooku; Dooku
forged an alliance with the Mandalorian terrorist organization Death Watch to usurp the Mandalorian
throne and use Mandalore’s leadership in the group to sway the worlds to the Separatist cause.
Through subterfuge and conspiracy, Death Watch was nearly successful in baiting the Republic into
invading Mandalore and turning the people against them, but their plan was exposed and foiled.
The alliance between Dooku and the Death Watch quickly fell apart, and the systems maintained
their neutrality for the remainder of the war. While investigating Separatist attacks in the
Outer Rim, Jedi Council member Eeth Koth was baited into a trap in the Saleucami system.
Grievous attacked and personally boarded Koth’s flagship, resulting in the capture of the
Jedi. The cyborg general intended to make this victory even more demoralizing for the Republic by
sending the Jedi a video of Koth being tortured, but Koth was able to secretly signal his location
and a rescue mission was launched. The tide turned when Koth was rescued and Grievous’ cruiser
was destroyed, forcing the general to escape to Saleucami’s surface. The Republic pressed
their advantage and tried to capture Grievous on the planet, but Grievous managed to signal
the Separatist fleet and make a narrow escape. Undeterred by the defeat of their first invasion
force, the Separatists launched a second and more blunt attack on Kamino’s cloning facilities.
While an intercepted message allowed the Republic to prepare for a fleet battle, they remained
ignorant to the true goal of the invasion: the theft of the prime Jango Fett DNA sample all
of the Republic’s soldiers were cloned from. Fett had died fighting for Dooku on Geonosis, meaning
that without the DNA sample the Republic would be unable to produce more clones. The assassin
Ventress nearly escaped with the sample, but she was stopped by General Skywalker. The
invasion was repelled and the clone production continued unimpeded; the Separatists
had failed to hurt Kamino once more. The closest the war ever came to ending peacefully
came around its midpoint, when old friends Senator Amidala and Separatist Senator Bonteri of Onderon
met without the knowledge of Palpatine or Dooku on Raxus, where they discussed the possibility of
bringing about a diplomatic end to the fighting. The two each brought the notion of peace talks to
their respective Senates and for a brief time it looked like de-escalation could be a possibility.
This swiftly ended when the Separatist leadership executed an unprecedented terrorist bombing on
the Republic capital, pushing the Republic Senate into immediately approving a motion to deregulate
the banks and extend the war effort. Meanwhile, Dooku had Bonteri assassinated and blamed
the Republic for her death. Both sides of the war became even more entrenched in seeing
the other eradicated, though Amidala and her allies in the Senate continued their efforts
to end the war without further violence. Hyperspace routes once more came to the forefront
of the conflict with the discovery of the Nexus Route coordinates by the Republic, which could
allow either side easy access to the other’s home territories. The coordinates were possessed
by Jedi General Piell and Captain Tarkin, who were captured by the Separatists and
imprisoned on the world of Lola Sayu, inside a Citadel designed for and built
by the Jedi. A rescue mission was quickly launched and successfully completed
after an intense battle above the planet, but General Piell died in the process and passed
his half of the coordinates on to Commander Tano. One of the war’s next flashpoints occurred at Mon
Cala, a planet dominated by two rival species, the Mon Calamari and the Quarren. The Mon
Calamari were the planet’s traditional rulers, which caused bitterness from the Quarren and made the Quarren an easy target for the
Separatists to win over to their side. An agent working for Dooku assassinated the Mon
Calamari king and caused a succession crisis, almost dividing the planet’s population
until the a Republic force of Jedi, clones, and Gungans were able to help Prince Lee-Char
ascend to the throne and unite his people. Shortly after the Gungans aided the Republic at
Mon Cala, Dooku launched a plot to destabilize their leadership and sow discord on Naboo.
This plan backfired and resulted in the capture of General Grievous, though he was released
shortly thereafter through a prisoner exchange. Naboo became the site of conflict again not
much later when Dooku hired bounty hunters to assassinate the Chancellor during a
celebration. General Kenobi was forced to fake his death and go undercover among the
bounty hunters in order to foil Dooku’s plan. Several times throughout the war, Dooku
showed willingness to use the Separatist army to resolve personal grudges against
other parties. After Dooku’s betrayal of Commander Ventress during a battle above
Sullust, Ventress’ clan of Nightsisters aided her in attempting to assassinate
him, leading to Dooku sending Grievous and a droid battalion to wipe them out
on Dathomir. Dooku also sent one of his assassins to murder the king of Toydaria for
not breaking neutrality to aid the Separatists, and later dispatched Grievous against the Weequay
pirates on Florrum that had once kidnapped him. Contrary to the war’s primary focus in the Outer
Rim, a number of battles during this time occurred closer to the Core. One of the most brutal
campaigns of the entire war took place at Umbara, a dark planet in the Expansion Region. The world
started the war as a member of the Republic but defected after the murder of its senator
by a rogue senatorial aide on Coruscant. One of the more unique aspects of the
fighting at Umbara was how it served as an instance of the planet’s natives
siding with the Separatists and being the primary combatants against the
clones in place of the droid army. After breaking the blockade, hostile terrain,
unique Umbaran technology, and the natives’ familiarity with the landscape made the campaign
brutal for the clones. The Republic managed to take the planet, but at the cost of many clone
lives and the betrayal of a Jedi General. A qualm not possessed by the Separatist leadership was seeking alliances with the Republic’s
other, particularly distasteful enemies, such as the Zygerrian Slave Empire that had
once been brought to its knees by the Jedi. This was uncovered when the entire neutral
Togruta colony of Kiros was kidnapped and enslaved on the Zygerrian world of Kadavo.
The Separatist-Zygerrian alliance was defeated when the Republic attacked Kadavo to free the
Togrutas and destroyed the slave facility there, crippling the Zygerrians and forcing them back
into obscurity until after the end of the war. One of the most successful instances of Dooku’s
penchant for sabotaging planetary leadership to further his goals was on Onderon in the Inner Rim,
where he imprisoned the rightful king and planted a puppet on the throne instead. This posed
a problem for the Republic, as they couldn’t be seen to depose a legitimate ruler. The Jedi
Council sent a small task force to train Onderon’s guerrilla resistance under Steela Gerrera so
they could take their planet back for themselves. The original king was restored,
though Steela died in the process. The guerrilla resistance, led by Steela’s
brother Saw, would ironically later fight against the force that trained and equipped
it when the Republic became the Empire. Many of the Republic’s top officers and
generals gathered above the military world of Carida in the Colonies for a strategy
conference, a move which almost ended in disaster. A team of Republic droids on a
mission to steal a Separatist encryption module uncovered plans to send a captured
Jedi cruiser full of explosives into the space station hosting the conference, wiping
out much of the Republic army’s leadership. This plan was thwarted when one of those droids,
R2-D2, prematurely destroyed the cruiser. Also in the Colonies was Cato Neimoidia, a
Neimoidian purse world that served as the headquarters for the Trade Federation. After
being the site of some controversy early in the war, the Separatists sent forces to
fortify it as the conflict dragged on. It stayed a hotbed of fighting
until the war reached its end, with the Separatists winning early victories
but the Republic refusing to give the planet up. Near the final stretch of the war, a faction
not aligned with either the Republic or the Separatists rose to prominence: the Shadow
Collective, led by the ex-Sith Lord Maul. Maul emerged from over a decade in isolation
with a thirst for revenge against both sides and a craving for power. He forced the
Mandalorian Death Watch, Hutt kajidics, Black Sun, and Pykes under his control
and moved to conquer Mandalore so he could gain control of the neutral systems it
led and become a major player in the galactic landscape. Though his initial strike ended in
failure when his former master captured him, Maul was freed from imprisonment on Stygeon
Prime by his allies and continued his plotting. As the war continued to drag on, the
general population began to grow more and more weary. With strikes more often
occurring near the heart of the Republic, faith in the war effort
soured and protests increased. The Jedi, who had long been inscrutable to the
general public, faced public blowback as well. Disillusionment with the war was not limited to
normal citizens; even some Jedi began to turn on the conflict. Young Knight Barriss Offee worked
with an anti-war activist to bomb the Jedi Temple hanger in protest. Commander Tano was framed
for the act and though she was ultimately proven innocent by Offee’s confession, she still chose
to resign from the Jedi Order and the war effort. During a battle above Ringo Vinda in the Mid
Rim, the war nearly came to a very different conclusion. The inhibitor chip inside clone
CT-5385 malfunctioned, causing him to prematurely kill one of his Jedi generals. On orders from
Darth Tyranus, the Kaminoans tried to cover the incident up, but ARC trooper CT-5555 discovered
the truth. Fives tried to warn his superiors only to be discredited by Palpatine and killed by
members of the Coruscant Guard. His attempts to spread the information were buried and one of
the other clones he had told was kidnapped by the Separatists to maintain the conspiracy.
Sidious and Dooku also aimed to produce lightsaber-resistant clone armor on Mokivj to aid
in the clones’ eventual betrayal of the Jedi, but the Separatist factory responsible was destroyed
by General Skywalker and Chiss Commander Thrawn. Despite one faction openly siding with the
Separatist cause early on, the main InterGalactic Banking Clan on Scipio had successfully maintained
its neutrality throughout the majority of the war, lending money to both sides of the conflict. This
continued until former Separatist spy Rush Clovis revealed to Senator Amidala that corruption ran
deep in the Banking Clan’s leadership. The ruling body was arrested and Clovis was elevated to
leadership of the organization, only to be quickly blackmailed by Dooku into taking an openly biased
stance against the Republic. A Separatist invasion of Scipio soon justified a Republic counterattack,
which ended with Clovis dead and the banks being nationalized under Palpatine’s direct control,
as according to his plan from the start. An old signal transmitting from a desert moon
of Oba Diah caused the Jedi to discover the crashed ship of Sifo-Dyas, the Jedi who
had originally ordered the clone army. Following a trail of breadcrumbs led the Jedi to
the discovery that Dooku had ordered Sifo-Dyas killed and played a key role in the creation
of their army. Though this was disturbing news, the Council knew there was little they could
do at that late stage of the war and the information becoming widely known would only
further shake public confidence. In the end, they elected to put their trust in the clones
they had served with for the last several years. With the casualties only continuing
to mount, the Jedi Council resorted to a plan they would have previously considered
unacceptable: the assassination of Count Dooku. As both the political and military
head of the entire Separatist state, removing Dooku from the equation would be a
large step toward ending the conflict entirely. To achieve this, the council tasked Jedi
Quinlan Vos with allying with Ventress, who had become a bounty hunter following
the eradication of the Nightsisters. Vos and Ventress came close to killing Dooku
on Raxus, but they failed to finish him and Vos was captured. Dooku managed to turn Vos to
the Dark Side as his new servant, but Ventress turned him back to the light at the cost of
sacrificing her life to save him from Dooku. Many of the battles in the final months
of the war were based around a series of conflicts known as the Outer Rim Sieges.
Planets deemed strategically significant for a variety of reasons became the site
of prolonged, tortured conflicts with the balance of power on those planets constantly
in flux. Among the most contested planets during this stage were what Republic propaganda
dubbed the “Triad of Evil”: Mygeeto, Saleucami, and Felucia. Mygeeto was valuable for its wealth
and natural deposits of kyber crystals, Saleucami became a vital part of the Separatist’s war
materiel transportation and other darker plans, and Felucia was a target due to its proximity
to a crucial hyperspace route. Other important battles during the Sieges were fought on
worlds such as Anaxes, Lokori, and Kaller. Though it was not located in the Outer Rim,
the Wookiee planet Kashyyyk also served as an important flashpoint during this time. The
Separatists first allied with the Trandoshans, longtime enemies of the Wookiees, in an
attempt to gain a foothold on the planet, but this was halted by Master Yoda and Clone
Force 99. With his connection to the Wookiees well established, Yoda returned to the planet to
help fend off a droid attack shortly thereafter. While fighting the droid army for control
of Yerbana, Generals Skywalker and Kenobi received a visit from Tano and the Mandalorian
leader Bo-Katan Kryze, who informed them that Maul had resurfaced and was trying to retake
Mandalore. Before the Jedi could decide whether this warranted full Republic intervention, they
received the news that General Grievous had made the bold move of launching an attack directly
on the Republic capital and kidnapping the Chancellor personally. Unbeknownst to the Jedi,
it was the Nexus Route that allowed Grievous to take them by surprise, having been given the
necessary coordinates by Sidious in secret. With the Chancellor held captive aboard Grievous’
flagship, Skywalker and Kenobi were forced to return to the capital rather than aid Mandalore,
though they sent Tano with a division of clones. Above Coruscant, the two Jedi weaved through the
Separatist fleet and infiltrated the Invisible Hand. Upon finding Palpatine, they engaged
Dooku in a duel that ended with Dooku’s death. Grievous managed to apprehend
them before they could escape but the general was forced to evacuate after Republic
warships irreparably damaged the dreadnought. The ship crashed on the surface of Coruscant with
Skywalker, Kenobi, and Palpatine safely on board. Deprived of Dooku’s leadership, the Separatist
army was placed under the command of Grievous, who went to the Utapau system to
meet with the Separatist Council. Sidious ordered Grievous to
move the council to Mustafar, which Sidious had previously utilized for his
plans due to its ancient connection to the Sith. Following his rescue from Dooku, Palpatine
continued pushing for power and reforms to the constitution in the Senate. Unhappy with
Palpatine’s abuse of his emergency powers, Senators Amidala, Organa, Mothma, and more
met at Cantham House to discuss their options. These meetings led to the formation of the
Delegation of 2000, who formally requested Palpatine return the Senate to its natural
order. Tensions between the Chancellor and the Jedi leadership also escalated when Palpatine
appointed Skywalker his personal representative to the Jedi council. The council requested
that Skywalker spy on Palpatine for them while at the same time denying the young
Jedi the rank of Master, alienating him. Clone intelligence revealed Grievous’ hiding
place on Utapau to the Jedi and the council dispatched General Kenobi to eliminate
Grievous and end the war once and for all. Utapau quickly became a battlefield between
Kenobi’s and Grievous’ forces as the two fought. Kenobi’s superior skill with a lightsaber
and quick thinking allowed him to gain the upper hand and kill the general after exposing
the cyborg’s final remaining organs. A similar battle was occurring between Maul and Tano at the
same time on Mandalore, ending in Maul’s capture. During his talks with the Chancellor, Skywalker
came to realize the truth that Palpatine was Darth Sidious, the one responsible for the
entire war. Despite his inner turmoil over Palpatine’s promises to save his wife from
dying, Skywalker reported this fact to the Jedi council and Mace Windu soon led a team
of Jedi to take the Chancellor into custody. After a prolonged duel, Windu was defeated when
Sidious manipulated Skywalker onto his side. With Windu dead, Sidious named Skywalker
his new apprentice, Darth Vader. While Vader led the 501st Legion to wipe out all
of the Jedi inside the Temple, Sidious finally activated Order 66. Across the galaxy, clones
who had loyally served with the Jedi for years were compelled by the chips in their heads
to kill their Jedi generals without mercy. Thousands of Jedi died across the galaxy at the
same time, leaving few survivors. On Kashyyyk, Yoda killed his clones and managed to
escape with the help of the Wookiees. Shortly after killing Grievous, Kenobi
survived on Utapau by faking his death. On board the Star Destroyer Tribunal,
Maul used the chaos to his advantage as Tano surgically removed the chip from her clone
commander’s head and worked with him to survive. An additional handful of other Padawans such as
Cal Kestis and Caleb Dume were able to stay alive thanks to the sacrifice of their masters, but the
light of the Jedi was extinguished in an instant. Palpatine informed the Senate that the war was
over and the Jedi had attempted a rebellion, showing off his scarred visage as proof, and used this as an excuse to reorganize
the Republic into a Galactic Empire. With his power solidified, there was no longer
a need for the Clone War to continue. Palpatine dispatched Vader to exterminate the Separatist
Council on Mustafar and a shutdown order was sent to the entirety of the droid army, immediately
ending all battles that hadn’t ended already. With all obstacles to his rule out of the way,
Palpatine’s control over the galaxy was absolute. Yoda and Kenobi faced the Sith in an attempt
to end their reign early but failed and went into exile, though Vader was mortally wounded in
a fight with Kenobi and forced to use a cybernetic suit to survive. Among Palpatine’s earliest
moves were making the former Jedi Temple his new Imperial Palace, incinerating Jedi lightsabers
in a public display, and arresting many of the senators among the Delegation of 2,000. The
surviving Jedi became hunted by a group of dark siders serving Palpatine and Vader known as the
Inquisitors, who had once been Jedi themselves. Governor Tarkin visited Kamino on Palpatine’s
behalf and instituted a program that saw the destruction of the Kaminoan cloning
facilities and their replacement with installations across the galaxy dedicated to
the training of willing stormtrooper recruits. Though the Death Star project suffered
a setback with the escape of one of its key scientists, construction on
the superweapon continued steadily. Under Imperial rule, the majority of the
clones that had made up the Republic’s army were drafted into the stormtrooper corps,
pushed into becoming military instructors, or forcibly retired. Some clones continued the
task of Jedi hunting by becoming purge troopers, who served the Inquisitors. Decommissioning
facilities were constructed on industrial worlds like Corellia to smelt and repurpose the
many now-unoperational Separatist battle droids. A number of droids that escaped the shutdown
order became a formidable criminal force with a grudge against the Empire in the
depths of the Coruscant underworld. Though the war itself had come to an end, the
scars it left behind remained for decades. Separatist holdouts across the galaxy strived
to keep their cause alive for a time but inevitably found overt action crushed by
the might of the Imperial war machine. Some Separatists ultimately joined the Rebellion;
one of the Rebels who helped steal with Death Star plans, Cassian Andor, had been a Separatist as a
child. A number of the early rebels against the Empire were insurgents that had fought with the
Republic against the Separatists during the war, including the Free Ryloth movement and Saw
Gerrera’s Partisans. Many of the Rebellion’s key leaders had also either been a part of the
Delegation of 2000 or the Republic navy during the war, including Bail Organa, Mon Mothma,
and Jan Dodonna. Though the Republic had won the Clone Wars, it took less than twenty-five
years for the Empire that took its place to fall.
