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The Confederacy
of Independent Systems is a collection
of thousands of systems and corporate
entities united by former Jedi Master
Count Dooku against the rule of the
Galactic Republic. Dooku, who had
abandoned the Jedi Order around thirty-two
years before the Battle of Yavin,
returned from his self-imposed exile
twenty-four years before the Battle
of Yavin to begin organizing groups
that opposed the Galactic Republic,
which he viewed as corrupt and ineffective.
After quickly gathering thousands
of systems to his cause, Dooku began
negotiating with various corporations,
such as the Trade Federation, in the
hopes of using their private armies
to bolster the secessionists’
military might.
In just two years, Dooku
had built a powerful secessionist
movement backed by the financial support—both
privately and publicly—of many
powerful institutions, including the
Corporate Alliance, InterGalactic
Banking Clan, Commerce Guild, Trade
Federation, and Techno Union. Twenty-two
years before the Battle of Yavin,
Dooku held a meeting between leaders
of these groups on Geonosis, where
they officially founded the Confederacy
of Independent Systems and began mobilizing
a massive droid army. This meeting
was interrupted by the appearance
of Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, his apprentice
Anakin Skywalker, and Senator Padmé
Amidala, all of whom were captured
by the Geonosians and sentenced to
death by Count Dooku.
But just as the three
traitors were about to be executed,
Mace Windu led one hundred Jedi into
the Geonosis Arena in a daring rescue
mission. Dooku gave the order to kill
the Jedi, and his military secession
from the Republic truly began. Just
as the Jedi were on the brink of total
defeat, the clone army of the Republic
arrived and engaged the surprised
CIS forces. The secessionists were
quickly scattered and were ultimately
ordered to retreat by Dooku himself.
This conflict became known as the
Battle of Geonosis, which was the
start of the Clone Wars.
Though the first battle
of the Clone Wars was a defeat for
the Confederacy, it was a victory
for Count Dooku, who started the war
with ulterior motives. He was in fact
working secretly for the Dark Lord
of the Sith, Darth Sidious. So the
mighty corporate powers and the numerous
disgruntled systems of the Galactic
Republic were actually just tools,
used by the Sith during the war to
weaken the Republic and destroy the
Jedi.
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