Date: 22 BBY – 19 BBY

Sparked by the secession of thousands of systems into the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the war pitted the Republic’s clone army, led by Jedi Generals, against vast Separatist droid forces. Behind the scenes, both sides were secretly controlled by the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. The war was engineered to exhaust the Republic, centralize power, and discredit the Jedi by turning them into military commanders rather than peacekeepers. As battles raged across the galaxy, the Jedi Order was slowly weakened and politically isolated. The Clone Wars ended with Order 66, when the clone troopers were compelled to turn on the Jedi, nearly wiping out the Order overnight. In the aftermath, the Republic was transformed into the Galactic Empire, and the war was revealed to have been the final step in the Sith’s long-planned return to power.