Full Series The Separatists

When you think about it we have hardly seen any true Separatists on TCW since Dooku was just going along with his Sidous's plan, Grievous was only in the war because of his hatred for Jedi and the CIS Council Leaders/Corporation Leaders Nute Gunray and Wat Tambor only seemed to be bothered about profits (apart from Gunray wanting revenge on Padme) and just committed crimes under the Separatists name. The CIS commanders were just shown to be evil.

We hardly had any characters that seemed to be truly bothered about the Separatist Cause, the only two I could be sure were true Separatists are Mina and Lux Bonteri. We needed to see some Separatists that were fueled by rage towards the Republic. There should have been more episodes exploring the Separatists, I am left with questions such as why did so many Separatists dislike the Republic? What did they think of Corporations such as the Trade Federation and Banking Clan doing business with Republic as well thus keeping the war going? What did they think of the Leaders of such Corporations being on the Separatist Council?

The way I see it is that villains like Dooku and Gunray just wanted to be labelled as Separatists and were labelled as Separatists, but weren't true Separatists. Heroes on Both Sides was the best episode we got for exploring the Separatists.

 

Darth Maul is a separatist.

 

No he wasn't

He was neither working for the Separatists or the Republic

 

Edit: (Sarcasm).

 

It will always be his fault

 

It should have been explained better what this "corruption" was in the Republic. It's really annoying that nearly all of the Separatist schemes to get a planet to join them failed and as Dooku was behind a lot of them it downplayed him as a villain. The best episodes for Separatist victories are Cloak of Darkness, Lair of Grievous, Supply Lines, Heroes on Both Sides, Monster, Witches of the Mist and the 2 episodes where Grievous won in S5.

 

As a huge Separatist fan myself, what made me upset was the lack of major Separatist victories in TCW and we never got to see their viewpoint or perspective of the war. For the battles, it was disappointing seeing in lots of war-centric arcs how it ended almost every time with a Republic victory and the death (or capture) of the main Separatist leader of that particular arc. No matter how many clone troopers died, the Republic still had a lot of clones and won the battle (Geonosis, Umbara etc.). There were some Separatist victories, but they were minor ones or just referenced to (ex. Felucia, Florrum and Sarrish). As for arcs, there was never really an arc or episode that concentrated on the CIS. Except for maybe Heroes on Both Sides, but that was all the way back in Season 3.

 

Even Heroes on Both Sides was never a truly CIS centric episode since what happened on Raxus was through the eyes of Ahsoka and Padme. In S1 I feel like TCW team made a joke out of the CIS far too much with most of the villains getting humiliating defeats, making them more boring as antagonists. S1 should have had a lot of Separatist victories and more menacing CIS commanders so people could look forward for future Republic victories more and competitive CIS villains returning.

 

Separatists were really underused even as villains. Many times they brought some non-sep characters like Maul and Mandalorians etc. to be bad guys and forget the entire war. Separatist could've been explored much better than TCW did- especially when HOBS revealed that many separatists are not evil monsters, but ordinary people. Dooku was also too much personally involved- many times there should've been some member of the separatist council instead of Dooku himself overseeing some CIS operations- Dookuy should have no time for minor plots when there is galaxy-wide conflict going on.

Same was true with the Republic though, Palpatine, Yoda and Padmé were in too many episodes personally (As well as Obi-Wan, Anakin and Jar Jar). There should've been other jedi masters and senators and Palpatine's aides doing those things that they did. They should have no time to be involved in local affairs so much during the war. But writers didn't want to use anyone else than those few same iconic characters- so there were always Dooku who personally gave orders to the villain of the week. (At least after season 2- they did use Tambor, Nute and Poggle)

 

Wise guy.

 

CIS Council Leaders should have been overseeing more CIS operations, I wasn't happy that Dooku was the one overseeing the battle of Dac, it should have been Tikkes - maybe the writers didn't like the idea of putting him on the hologram because the majority of the audience wouldn't know who he was. Dooku should have only been overseeing major affairs so it would have been a big deal him being on and CIS Council Leaders should have been used for more minor affairs like the Dac and Onderon arcs.

TCW team used battle droids too much when there should have been more living CIS villains and soldiers instead, it would have been more fun to have seen villains like Tambor, Trench and Sobeck personally interact with living villains instead of Tactical Droids. It's a shame there weren't more Easter Eggs in TCW for CIS fans, there was a good opportunity for Mar Tuuk to appear on board the command ship on Citadel Rescue and Lushros Dofine could have had a cameo on Massacre... just little things like that would have made the show a lot better.

I agree certain Republic characters were overused too. I'm glad that Rebels is going to be more reliant on new main characters and that the Imperials will get quite focus - these things will be two improvements on TCW for sure.

 

I just wish they had explored why the Separatists were seceding. And not just the hollow blanket reason that "the Republic is corrupt," but specific grievances.

Naboo was not far from Tatooine, close enough to make it there without hyperdrive. And the Republic did not exist on Tatooine. Geonosis was similarly close by, and a member of the secessionist movement. In Bombad Jedi, Rodia was contemplating leaving the Republic, since they were receiving no aid from the Republic.

Add to that, Pablo stated that the Outer Rim is where most of the disorder is, and they could have established something like the Trade Federation had a monopoly in the Outer Rim, and though it led to exploitation and gave the TF a lot of political power to lean on regional systems, it still was the only means of ensuring secure trade in a region plagued with pirates. And so when the TF leaves the Republic, many systems go with them to ensure their continued security. Or something like that.

Dooku even states that he anticipated a large number of additional systems would join the CIS cause, if the commerce guilds pledged their support. But why? And even if they did go with the above scenario, that still raises two questions.

1. Why would other systems secede, if the TF remained neutral and retained a seat within the Republic?
2. Why would the CIS Senate have any delusions that they are not controlled by the commerce guilds? At least speak of the situation for what it is: the commerce guilds had the Outer Rim by the balls, and joining them was preferential to being left high and dry in the lawless Outer Rim without their security.

TCW just made a tangled mess of the situation.

 

The Separatist Senator saying that Corporations don't rule them chucked a big spanner in to the works when the leaders of the Corporations are Separatist Council Leaders. S1 seemed to follow the EU and implied that the Corporations were just Separatists, the Separatist Council was even mentioned by Hondo. The Separatist Council not being present is a big problem on Heroes on Both Sides as it makes you wonder how it fits in with the Separatist Congress.

 

I'm guessing that Lucas was trying to retroactively say that the CIS Council was more of a shadow government. That Dooku made all of these hidden dealings with the commerce guild leaders and promised them positions in an oligarchy. But that officially they were not in control and instead the CIS was run by a Senate.

Though, in reality, I'm not aware of the CIS Council ever being called such in the films. In AOTC, they were merely a bunch of commerce guild leaders that Dooku was trying to win over and get them to sign the treaty so as to win over countless more systems, to expand the Separatist crisis.

And as the corporations that owned all the military hardware, the "CIS Council" seemed less like a political body and more like a military council in ROTS, as Palpatine sends Vader against them to eliminate them and shut down the droid army.

 

Separatist council appears to have somewhat similar role as jedi have in the republic- except that jedi follow decisions of senate more closely than CIS-leaders follow their senate.

It's just dumb that they (seppie council) were dropped off completely when season 4 started (well except Miraj Scintel, who was according the EU part of sep council). Season 3 at least had several mentions of Gunray being openly supporter of separatists, but after season 4 there were no mention of any separatist leader and Tikkes were reportedly edited away to avoid confusion with Nossor Ri... I don't think anyone would confuse them if they would've speak to each other, having different voices and costumes and Tikkes being on Raxus (or somewhere). I really started to hate holographic Dooku during season 4.....

 

Businesses are still going to have owners, employees, employers, and backers, like any organization. All of which will be in control of the systems they're based in (which is why they have Republic senators).

Throw in the Sith making a mess of how said businesses can go about their business, and you can eventually have secession if nothing changes.

Hence, systems leaving the Republic (which so happen to contain many important businesses -- which is what the Sith would want, since if they don't have parity in numbers of systems, they can have parity in other ways).

 

The systems that contain those businesses never actually left the Republic though, they officially remained neutral. And people like Gunray were denounced as extremists by the TF senator in the Republic.

If the commerce guilds signed the treaty and withdrew from the Republic completely, then yes, I'd see many systems following them for their services.

But the PT never touched upon the relative lawlessness of the Outer Rim, or showed/mentioned the TF having any kind of positive influence there. For instance, in an area close to Hutt Space and where pirates are rampant, signing deals with a large trade cartel with battledroids and battleships may have been the only practical means of conducting trade, since the Republic itself was not contributing to maintaining order in the Outer Rim in any way.

But instead TPM shows the TF as an entity that blockades a planet, depriving them of trade all together in protest of the taxation of trade routes (which everyone knew was going on), and then ended up invading said planet (which came to light after the fact). Still, I could see systems leaving with the TF if the aforementioned security of trade held true, but TCW establishes that only Gunray took his personnel and assets and left. Lott Dod insisted that the TF was neutral and denounced Gunray as an extremist. Meaning those systems could have remained in the Republic and still derived benefit from the TF, since Filoni (per Lucas) states that the TF is providing services to both sides in the war. And it seems the same of the Banking Clan, with Clovis retaining a seat in the Senate, while the Malevolence arc has Padme on her way to meat the chairperson of the Banking Clan to discuss defection (iirc), and I think that was implied to be San Hill -- who was probably labeled an "extremist" like Gunray.

 

Obviously, there's many systems and leaders we don't know about; as evidenced by the CIS senate itself [and the various alien commanders we see]. Each would have their own grievances and reasons for leaving the Republic and starting a new form of galactic government (the CIS obviously held a portion of the galaxy). The various businesses in the least supplied the weapons of war with Dooku persuading them, and also persuading those in the CIS senate, and ultimately those who'll join and make such.

Lucas put it that the TF threw all in with the CIS at least by the time of the battle of Coruscant, so there were still systems and businesses seceding and jockeying as the war went on. So, the TF wasn't the biggest part of the CIS, just one of the pieces used [by the Sith] to kick it all off. The various political maneuvering with the various businesses within the Republic throughout the war would also point to this; if only half of an institute leaves, that's still half. Lots would be unsure, even if they knew what they wanted, and need someone to kick them along (which is what the Sith did). Some were in a state of flux, such as Mon Cala; the system itself was divided (with external forces supporting either side), which is a pretty good analogy to the whole thing.

Businesses themselves could also call neutrality even if their home systems seceded for whatever reason -- which would allow them to still operate if their assets aren't seized by the seceding government (they can just move the shop).

 

AOTC actually makes it pretty clear that businesses are not separatists mentioned in the opening crawl and lead by Dooku. Tjhat's especially clear in Padmé's discussion with Queen Jamillia where they talk about danger of Commerce guilds to side with separatists. Dooku is representing separatists and he makes secret alliance with leaders of the Commerce Guilds to receive army for his separatists.

It would've been interesting to see how Dooku explained all this to separatist senate, who seem to have illusion that companies don't rule them. Did Nute Gunray appear before the CIS senate and donate his army and navy for them or how Dooku explains that Confederate forces are mainly consisted of TF- battledroids...
Of course they may think that their army is just legally purchased from neutral techno union and has no connection to similar armies of trade federation. At least all CIS hardware was marked with blue symbols to make difference between neutral and CIS-aligned units.

 

On Attack of the Clones the Corporation Leaders weren't Separatists, but ROTS implies that the leaders became Separatists. I guess the guilds had been kicked out of the Republic by that time in Lucas's version. George could have had the Coporation Leaders pretend to be neutral from the beginning in TCW and shown the leaders and their Corporations getting kicked out of the Republic later on in the show to tie in with ROTS, but for some reason he decided to make Gunray and Tambor already Separatist in S1, which is why the Corporations being supposedly neutral storyline is so complicated.

I think Lucas went off using the Separatist Leaders after Senate Spy which started off the TF and BC being involved with both sides storyline. It was good that Gunray was mentioned a few times in S3, the only appearance of Dooku in S3 that annoys me a lot is on Supply Lines - Wat Tambor should have been on instead, he was the main villain of the Ryloth arc, but that is ignored on Supply Lines, it was also disappointing that Mar Tukk didn't appear, would have been nice to have seen him cheering his victory - maybe the reason he never returned was because TCW team didn't want to add confusion to the TF neutrality storyline. Dooku was way too overused in S4 it gets really bland.

 

I don't think there was anything to explain.

The section in brackets is in the script, but not the final film.

I agree with you that he's principally trying to secure an army, and is making concessions to the commerce guilds to do so (though again, these aren't listed in the finished film). But his very first sentence makes it clear that this agreement with the commerce guild leaders was not meant to remain secret. Dooku wants the commerce guilds to publicly throw in their support with the CIS, and expects 10,000 more systems to join the CIS when they do.

The TF and Banking Clan did not openly throw their support in with the CIS, or at least not at first. Instead the implication was that San Hill and Nute Gunray were denounced as traitors. But when it comes to the Commerce Guild, Techno Union, and Corporate Alliance, I don't know if they were supposed to be all in or not. The script makes it sound like the Techno Union and Corporate Alliance threw their support in with the CIS, while the Banking Clan wanted a non-exclusive arrangement, and the Commerce Guild was unwilling to support the CIS openly, but would be willing to do so secretly.

I don't think there was any contradiction of the CIS Senate with the "CIS Council."

There was no indication on screen that the CIS Council controlled anything other than their own businesses. They were not said to rule over the CIS politics in anyway. And the CIS Senate likely knew full well where their military hardware was coming from.

 

There are a lot of problems in this. First, I'd like to say that Dooku's estimation in AOTC that 'ten thousands more systems would rally to our cause with your support, gentlemen' must not necessarily mean that the corporate bodies represented by the guys meeting with Dooku would have to drag all their client/membership worlds into the CIS (or defect to the CIS themselves), but rather that the fact that the CIS will have its own army now would convince a lot of systems pondering seceding from the Republic to go through with it. Not necessarily because they feared to be invaded by Dooku, but because they were now convinced that the Confederacy had a chance to win a war against the Jedi/Republic.

The problem with the conception of TCW in itself is that the show consisted of stand-alone episodes and small arcs that did not have much to do with each other. There was no multi-season arc telling the story of the campaigns of the clone wars, no continuous story telling us what this fake war was actually about, and how the Sith forced more and more planets into it.

Such a conception could have enabled them to put indeed heroes on both sides, and tell the story. Tell the story of Jedi disillusioned with the Republic that join the Confederacy and fall not to the dark side. To tell the story about politicians who really have cause to believe that Dooku is a good guy at heart, who rains in corruption rather than to thrive in it. And so on.

The Clone Wars were never about clones vs. droids. It was always about people fighting people for no (good) reason at all. But it would have really been great if the better people, the people fighting the strongest against corruption in the Senate (and also the staunchest supporters of democracy) would have been among the founding members of Dooku's Confederacy. Nothing could have shown the tragedy of the Clone Wars better if the Sith had succeeded in making the true patriots enemies of the Republic. It could have been interesting to see how this kind of people would have actually (co-)run the Confederacy with Dooku in the beginning of the war, only to be gradually ousted, discredited, and assassinated by the Sith and their minions. Such a thing could have resulted in the gradual rise/overtake of the Confederacy by the corporate leaders.
The fact that the CIS bought its droid army and navy from major corporations could have explained how and why they slowly overtook the CIS in general. They would have the means to take control of their troops/ships even after they were 'sold' to the CIS.

But the show really starts with a very cheap good vs. bad theme, despite the fact that this is not what the Clone Wars were.