The Separatist Droid Army was the largest of its kind, making up the vast majority of
the ground forces of the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars.
But despite its grand size and power, such a massive army was reduced into nothing after
Vader gave out a signal from the Separatist High Command center which ordered a complete
shutdown of all battle droids.
While this signal ended the Separatists’ ability to wage war on a galactic scale, it
didn’t end some remnants of its movement from continuing the fight many years after
the war ended, as many former military commanders and government leaders still continued to
resist the newly formed Empire.
This group was known as the Separatist Holdouts, which ranged from isolated squads of droids
that never received the shutdown signal to commited commanders who restarted droid factories
in order to rebuild the army itself.
First in Canon, the droid army shutdown caused panic among the lower command structure of
the Separatist military, with many of them fleeing into the Western Reaches of the galaxy
which was a region that still held strong pro-separatist sentiments and in which the
Republic didn’t have a firm foothold in.
When the Empire was established, it declared vast military campaigns in the Western Reaches,
justifying its aggressive advancements as a need to fully wipe out the remaining Separatist
elements.
These early campaigns saw widespread praise from most of the general public, as they viewed
the crackdowns as final stepping stones into ensuring peace and stability into the galaxy
once more.
As the Separatists started to get cornered, some of them began to stage terrorist attacks
on pro-Imperial worlds.
These Separatist terror attacks were like candy to the militarists of the Empire, which
used them to justify the vast increase and expansion of the Imperial military and the
occupation efforts on many planets.
As time went on however, some portions of the public began to question whether or not
the Separatist holdouts were really as great a threat as the Empire made them out to be.
Others even wondered if the Empire itself staged some of the terrorist attacks as a
means to increase its authority over the affected regions.
We know of at least one case where this was somewhat true, where an Imperial testing facility
ended up blowing up due to an experiment involving Kyber crystals went wrong, which was later
blamed on a Separatist anarchist terror group to cover up the research of the crystals.
About a decade after the end of the Clone Wars, nearly any real threat of the Separatist
Holdouts was destroyed by the Empire.
The very few leaders that survived went into hiding, with some taking on the life of crime.
Some eventually joined the Rebel Alliance once the Rebellion became widespread.
A few isolated battle droid squads remained, but they were usually wiped out whenever they
contacted the outside world.
Those that weren’t continued their previous orders of maintaining a defensive position
on whatever outpost they were until they ran out of power, with a few even forming mini
droid societies overtime.
Other droids were reactivated and used by either the Empire or the Rebellion for various
purposes.
In Legends, the existence of the Separatist Holdouts was very similar to their Canon counterpart,
with the main differences being that they lasted longer and seemed to have been at a
greater size, plus we get more more detailed examples of some of them.
After the shutdown of the droid army, many Separatist worlds went on the defensive as
they fortified their positions and remained inside their shielded cities and outposts.
Many of these worlds were within the Western Reaches and Outer Rim regions of the galaxy.
Hoping to reclaim these territories under the Imperial banner, the Empire continued
and even accelerated the former Republic’s mass militarization efforts.
The Reconquest of the Rim was the biggest campaign of the Empire in its effort to retake
the Separatist worlds, as well as destroying bands of pirates and slavers that were allowed
to reign free during the unstable times of the Clone Wars.
This campaign was met with wide praise from the general public over the course of its
2 years as order and peace was brought back to the galaxy.
Actually many of the generals and admirals that led this campaign became galactic heroes
to the citizens of the core worlds.
One notable battle was on the planet Acherin, where the Separatists leaders of the world
actually protected a Jedi who survived Order 66 and sought refugee.
After refusing to surrender and give up the Jedi, Acherin underwent massive bombardment
campaigns from the Empire, which saw the death of thousands of civilians and the destruction
of its biggest cities.
Despite this, the Separatist leaders and the Jedi survivor were able to escape with the
help of Obi Wan.
Another notable Separatist holdout was the Nosaurian cell, known as the New Plympto resistance.
The natives of the planet continued to fight their invaders, who now were under the Imperial
banner.
They too were led by a surviving Jedi Master, named Dass Jennir.
Although this resistance group was able to take down an impressive number of Imperial
troops, they ultimately lost and met severe consequences for their actions, as all the
soldiers were executed on the spot regardless of their surrender.
Later the Empire tracked down the families of all the soldiers and forced them into slavery
as further punishment for their resistance as an example to the rest of the galaxy.
Perhaps the one most people are familiar with is the Gizor Dellso holdout on Mustafar, where
a surviving Geonosian restarted a droid factory on the planet in an effort to rebuild the
droid army and its fleet in an attempt to overthrow the Empire.
He was able to amass quite a considerable force, including a full blown fleet of droid
starfighters and even a few old Separatist capital ships.
The 501st was sent to wipe him and his forces out, but met resistance far greater than they
initially predicted.
Despite this, the 501st was able to punch through the naval blockade and land on the
main droid platforms, taking control of enough of the sector to implant an orbital strike
beacon that signaled the Star Destroyer overhead to bombard the factory into total destruction.
This was the last major Separatist holdout that held any real threat toward the Galactic
Empire.
A few squads of battle droids still remained activated in the galaxy here and there, but
they tended to pose very little threat.
The largest grouping of still active droids were encountered during a skirmish on Geonosis
between Imperial and Rebel forces, during which they discovered a core ship that still
contained activated battle droids.
They were destroyed in the aftermath however.
Once the Rebel Alliance formed, many surviving Separatist holdouts joined the Alliance to
restore the Republic, offering the rebellion their men in arms and the few remaining separatist
ships they still had at their disposal.