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For over a thousand years, the Galaxy had stood united under the benevolent rule of the Galactic Republic,
its citizens enjoying an almost unprecedented era of peace and prosperity.
Yet over the centuries, the idealistic pillars of The Republic were weakened
as complacency and corruption spread to the highest levels of its government.
Senators began placing their own interests above the common good,
while immense corporations and local power blocs found loopholes and ignored regulations to exploit the impoverished systems of the Outer Rim.
As the true extent of the Republic's ineffectual governance became apparent,
thousands of star systems rallied around the former Jedi Count Dooku
in what would lead to the galaxy-wide conflict known as the Clone Wars,
Dooku's fiery rhetoric and calls to actions inspired hundreds of millions to abandon the Republic
and embrace the ideals of the Confederacy of Independent Systems,
also known as the Separatists or simply CIS.
As a secessionist state, the Confederacy was an amalgamation of many different planetary governments,
industrial concerns and corporate institutions.
While Count Dooku served as Head of State and was responsible for many of the Confederacy's wartime decisions,
representatives from member worlds assembled in the Separatist Senate on Raxus, site of the Confederate capital.
The Separatist Senate was widely belittled by the Republic as nothing more than pawns of Dooku,
yet many of its representatives were true believers in the Confederacy's cause
advocating democracy, corporate regulation and even peace with the Republic.
Unknown to the Separatist Senate however, a cabal of powerful Confederate leaders, known publicly as the Separatist Council,
conspired with Dooku to prolong the war and actively worked to hinder the efforts of their own senate.
Many of the Council's members, including the Trade Federation, Techno Union, Corporate Alliance,
Commerce Guilds and the Intergalactic Banking Clan, all engaged in widespread war-profiteering
while some even denied having any links to the Confederacy and maintained a seat in the Republic Senate.
This shadowy council exerted considerable influence across the Confederacy
and, in particular, over the military, of which the council members were the primary contributors.
The Armed Forces of the Confederacy consisted of a corp of mass-produced battle droids
with organic soldiers limited to serving in elite units or in upper-level leadership.
These included noted battlefield commanders Admiral Trench, General Lok Durd, and the Supreme Commander of the Droid Army, General Grievous.
While individual battle droids lacked the flexibility or personal initiative found in their clone counterparts,
They could be mass-produced in great foundries spread across confederacy and deployed in overwhelming numbers.
At the height of its power, the Armed Forces of the Confederacy were the largest in the Galaxy,
divided into two main branches: the Separatist Droid Army and the Separatist Navy.
The Separatist Army utilized dozens of models of droids that were produced over the course of the war.
These ranged from basic line infantry to more advanced and specialized variants
capable of performing tasks and missions of greater complexity.
The Droid Army also made use of a variety of armored vehicles,
which varied between fully-autonomous droid tanks to those which required a separate crew to function.
The Separatist Navy operated using a similar doctrine, fielding swarms of automated starfighters
and using droid crewmembers onboard its larger ships.
A wide assortment of starship designs were also commissioned by the Confederacy during the Clone Wars,
ranging from hastily retrofitted freighters to purpose-build warships
that could compete with the most advanced Star Destroyers used by the Republic.
From the very outset of the Confederacy, the Republic had rejected its claims of succession and declared the CIS to be illegitimate.
After a crisis on the Confederate capital of the time Geonosis escalated into a full-scale battle
between Confederate forces, Jedi Knights and later Republic Clone Troopers, battle lines were drawn across the Galaxy.
In some of the first moves of the war, Separatists began to seize control of major hyperspace lanes,
fragmenting major regions of the Republic and dividing its forces.
The fighting quickly spread across the Galaxy,
engulfing Ryloth, Kamino, Mandalore, Felucia and countless other worlds.
While the Confederacy initially made impressive gains aided by super weapons such as the Heavy Cruiser Malevolence,
successive Republic counter-attacks eventually pushed the Confederacy to the Outer Rim
where some of the heaviest fighting would take place.
In a final desperate move to end the war, the Separatists launched a massive attack on the Republic capital of Coruscant.
During the fighting, the Supreme Chancellor of the Republic Sheev Palpatine was captured.
although he was quickly rescued by two Jedi Knights with Count Dooku killed in the ensuing battle.
Leadership of the Confederacy was briefly passed onto General Grievous
before he too was killed during the Republic's invasion of the remote sanctuary world of Utapau.
With most of their upper leadership killed,
control of the Confederacy fell to the Separatist Council,
who had relocated to Mustafar at the direction of some unknown influence.
Their location was quickly discovered and Palpatine, now Emperor,
dispatched Lord Vader to force their surrender and the deactivation of the Droid Army.
The end had come for the Confederacy of Independent Systems.
The Confederacy only existed for a brief period of history, but its effect on the Galaxy and the legacy it left behind was profound and far-reaching.
Separatist holdouts and other remnant forces continued to resist the authority of the newly-formed Galactic Empire
and the Imperial Navy would spend the next few decades rooting out the last vestiges of the Confederacy.
Vast stores of abandoned military equipment including thousands of deactivated battle droids, starfighters and even capital ships
fell into the hands of various criminal elements, local governments and resistance movements greatly expanding their capabilities
and contributing to a growing lawlessness across the worlds of the Outer Rim.
In the Empire's propaganda, the Confederacy and the Clone Wars were used as a dangerous example of what could befall the Galaxy
in the absence of a strong central authority.
Many of the Galactic Empire's most prominent institutions including the Imperial Navy and Army
introduced widespread racial policies with the Galaxy's alien races considered untrustworty
due to the disproportionate support for the Confederacy among nonhumans.
Perhaps the greatest contribution of the Confederacy to the modern Galaxy was the design of the so-called ultimate weapon,
the plans for which were either designed or obtained by the Separatists under mysterious circumstances,
acquired by the Republic during the last stages of the Clone Wars and then finally brought to completion under the first Galactic Empire.
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