PT Separatist fates post-ROTS?

To my knowledge, one of three things happened to the former Separatists (like senators, governors, non-Council officials, etc.) after ROTS. They were: wiped out and made examples of by the Empire, relinquished their holdouts and joined the Empire, or joined the Rebel Alliance. Is this accurate?

 

From the Novels I've read and Clone Wars Cartoon Series, they were made an examples of and wiped out. Especially since the Separatists had the most knowledge of the Death Star, they had to be wiped out

 

From what I remember in both Legends and canon, corporations like the Trade Federation were absorbed into the Empire, the actual Separatists provided some resistance towards the Empire as holdouts and they were stomped out pretty quickly. Remaining separatists, like Cassian Andor, eventually linked up with the Rebel Alliance.

 

Palpatine worked things perfectly. Those corporations are what provided the money and munitions for the Confederacy to fight the The Clone Wars and succeed from the Republic. At war's end those organizations and their leaders were guilty of treason. They couldn't be allowed to continue as they were before the war. At the same time those organizations provided galactic necessities an couldn't end.

So the Empire federalized the organizations that made up the Separatist Council. They removed and prosecuted the confederate collaborators (ie: wiped them out) and installed Imperial bureaucrats working directly for the Emperor to run them.

So not only did Palpatine have complete military and political power, he also controlled manufacturing, trade, communications, and money in the galaxy.

 

In the old EU there were quite a few separatist holdouts that were by the OT era mostly crushed by the empire.

What separatist forces did survive joined the rebel alliance.

 

Going by canon, there were still large pockets of resistance across the galaxy. They were wiped out over timd or forced to join the Empire. The only individual members that joined the rebels in canon were, Cassian Andor, General Kalani, and Lux Bonteri.

 

Which is ironic.

“Hey, didn’t you lot use to fight against the Republic?”
“Yeah, but that was, like, twenty years ago. The Empire is giving us a hard time so we wanna help you fight them.”
“So you want to hep us restore a Republic that you once waged three years of war to defeat.”
“Like I said, twenty years ago. Let it go, man.”

 

It's still not clear what the Separatists were fighting for (other than, presumably, more local rule) and had to fight the Republic, the Rebels may have been sympathetic to the goals they had had or not.

 

The plan, as implied in AOTC, never was to actually fight a war. It was to have an army large enough to force the Republic into accepting the demands that were made by the Seperatists. If you are the only one with weapons, the other side isn't in a strong position when it comes to negotiations. Hence Dooku being shocked (well, pretending to be shocked) about the Republic suddenly having a large army of their own.

Then again, that's more or less theoretical, because the people behind said plan also had a larger goal in mind and only used the Seperatists as pawns. Since neither the leader of the Seperatists, nor the mastermind behind everything, truly wanted to see the Seperatists succeed, it seems rather doubtful that there was much of an actual goal. You probably have a diverse set of groups all with different ideas in mind. Some just wanted to leave the Republic, others might have disliked rules and regulations that existed under the Republic, trying to benefit from a new government that would give them beneficial treatment or even let them run things. And others might just have been opportunists. They all fell for a charismatic leader who gave them promises he never planned to keep.

 

I think a lot of those corporations like the Trade Federation, Commerce Guild, Banking Clan, etc. held too much influence in the Republic for Palpatine to take control. We saw how powerful the Trade Federation was for the Republic to do anything in TPM, so Palpatine knew he had to get exploit the corporations. Palpatine used the Clone Wars to dismantle the corporations' influence within the government.

 

I think any number of the above theories sound plausible and realistic and stuff.

 

Of course, what's often overlooked is that the Separatists--as in, the actual sincere Separatists whose interests Dooku is pretending to represent--likely only agreed to make an alliance with the commerce guilds because they felt threatened by the Republic's talk of creating a military to counter them. Padme explains all this to Queen Jamillia. So the plan to create a droid army to force the Republic to make concessions was, from their point of view, a preemptive move to defend against the Republic's aggressive posture.

This kind of casts the Republic's own preemptive move against the droid army in a more ambiguous light. The Republic basically started threatening to create an army to put down the Separatist movement, which spurred the Separatists to create their own army to defend themselves, which the Republic then used as a pretext to actually organize an army to attack them. The Clone War was a conflict born out of fear and miscommunication on both sides. Things escalated out of control because diplomacy was set aside in favor of fear-mongering. Neither side actually wanted a war, but both sides got one, just because they were so afraid the other side did want one.

 

I don't know if I would really put it that way, because both sides did want that war by the fact that they were led by people who wanted the war. There may have been sincere parts on both sides who only tried to get their point across and didn't really want to have a war unless it was unavoidable, but since the Republic was under Palpatine's control, and the Seperatists were under his and Dooku's control, the war was the ultimate goal anyway.

Your post makes it sound a bit too much like there were two sides which basically stumbled into a war due to fear of what the other might do, when in fact all reactions were explicitly caused by Palpatine and Dooku setting things up to create them. There's still quite a bit of difference between the circumstances causing a downward spiral, and someone specifically creating the circumstances in such a way that people would react in a certain way. Diplomacy can't really be set aside, when the actual negotiators are secretly on the same side, trying to create a war. In such a case, diplomacy never existed to begin with.

 

Palpatine and Dooku can't act without the consent of the people they represent. The Republic has a Senate and the Confederacy has a Parliament. Palpatine and Dooku didn't force anyone to do anything. The point is that the people chose to give their power away, chose to give in to fear. Nothing that happens in the prequels was inevitable.

 

If these "actual" separatists are overlooked it is because the films never shows them, who they are or exactly what they want and why.

As far as the films go, the seps are the TF, banking Clan, Techno union and so on.
RotS even calls them the Separatists Leaders.
A parlament is never mentioned.

At the start of AotC, the seps are some hundred systems, when Dooku is having his meeting, he says that with the support of the TF and some other group, 10 000 more systems would join them.
If this was before or after they used their big army against the republic is not clear.
And just before that meeting, Nute talks about wanting Padme dead and Dooku says that he is getting it done. So they talk openly about murdering an advocate of peace and none of the other seps object.
And during that meeting, the goal was very clear, use their massive army against the weak republic and then they could dictate terms. And there was little objection to that.

Also, the seps have been causing problems for the republic before AotC. So much so that the jedi have a hard time keeping the peace.
And, based on what Mace said, it sounded like they could attack the republic if things turned bad.

So to me it seemed that the army bill came about because of the seps aggression and them causing so much trouble. I did not get the impression that the army was made to keep the seps in the republic by force. And I have trouble believing that the jedi would go along with that.

Also, the TF are supportive of the seps and could aid them if they choose.
The same TF that ten years ago had no problem using overwhelming military might against a weak planet and were starving the whole planetary population, possibly with the goal to kill them all.

So the seps have some military capacity even before the deal that Dooku talked about. And they are supported by organizations that have big armies, like the TF and commerce guild.
The Republic meanwhile, seem to not have any military except the Jedi.
Plus there has been negotiations going on between the seps and the republic and all the while, those same seps have been building an army in secret and plan to use to enforce their demands.

The republic army bill was publicly known and had not yet passed when the seps made their army and planned to use it.

In all, the films don't really show the seps in a very good light, they are mostly presented as bad guys.
Their motivation is not explored that much and of those we see, there is the TF and the like. Who were the bad guys from TPM and are basically greedy, evil merchants.
The presentation of the whole seps movement, to me, seems like the creation of the Sith, Dooku and Palpatine. That if they did not exist, none of this would be happening.
There was a potential for a story with two sides stumbling into a war they don't want but I don't think that is what we got. There are those on the republic side that don't want a war but we see too little of the seps to say that there are any there that don't want war.
Their plan seemed to simply be "Build a big army and either by threat or actual attack, overwhelm the jedi and make the senate to what they wanted."

Bye.
Blackboard Monitor

 

This criticism makes no sense. At the beginning of the film, we are told of a Separatist movement, led by Count Dooku, who is seen by some as a political idealist. Padme says this about the Separatists:

Then, later, we see Count Dooku forming an alliance with the Separatists, just as Padme predicted. (As we learn later, Dooku is in league with Darth Sidious, but obviously the rest of the Separatists don't know that.)

No, we don't see a Parliament in the movie itself (are you really telling me you wanted another scene set in a senate chamber?), but that's irrelevant. We know the Separatist movement is composed of people who've chosen Dooku as their representative. It's just a common sense reading of the movie.

There's no way to watch the movie and come away with the impression that the commerce guilds are the entirety of the Separatists unless you weren't paying attention. The turning point of the movie is the revelation that the commerce guilds are joining the Separatists in order to provide them with an army, which Padme has previously told us would happen as a result of the Republic's move toward militarization making the army-less Separatists feel threatened. It simply can't be denied that this is clearly laid out in the film.

After this, the commerce guild leaders do indeed become leaders in the movement, presumably as condition of the alliance. It's a political movement that's been co-opted by corporations for their own selfish reasons. It happens in the real world all the time.

 

There's the claim that Dooku seems noble, even idealistic, but aside from some charisma (a rather dark form of charisma) from the actor, there's not much that actually supports why a lot of people would admire or follow Dooku especially when Padme seems to consider some of the Separatists not so bad, pretty decent though on the wrong side, but also consider their leader to be murderous.

 

We see how good of an actor Dooku is in his scene with the imprisoned Obi-Wan. When he reveals the Sith plot to Obi-Wan and claims that all he wants to do is destroy them, I almost believe him. And If it weren't for a lot of people going into the movie spoiled, there's really no reason to doubt him at this point. He's obviously become corrupted (making alliances with corporate robber barons, sending assassins after senators), but as far as we know at this point, he's doing it all for his ideals.

 

The Clone Wars series does a lot to explain the Separatists. They're made up of two largely different groups. There are the huge companies that bankroll the army and think they can become more profitable and powerful once they are free of Republic regulations, taxes, tariffs and other rules.

Then there are planets who feel disenfranchised by the Republic. Those beings feel that the Republic is looking out for the interests of bureaucracy and the government representatives, not the people being represented by the politicians. Dooku convinces them there is strength in number, if they leave in a large enough group, there is nothing short of galaxy wide military action that the Republic can do to stop their leaving.

It's interesting because those two groups could, maybe should, be at odds. The Republic should be regulating the businesses to protect the people. But they're allies because it's the rules of the government which they both want to escape.

Without Dooku I don't think the companies would have been brave enough to leave. Dooku showed them that they held the true wealth in the galaxy, not the Republic. And with that wealth they could build an army stronger than the Republic could defend. From there they could make their own rules.

For the regular people of the galaxy, Dooku is the idealistic leader that can inspire them to take action towards change. We see a little bit of this on The Clone Wars, not sure we do in the movies. In the films we see Dooku as power broker with the different commerce organizations. There he temps them to action with greed. But we don't see him inspire regular people to seek a better future outside the Republic.

What's so amazing is it's all a trick bring the entire system under Imperial rule.

 

First, I judge the films on what is IN the films, not what is in some books, TV, comics or videogames.
Anything not in the films don't matter because to me, the films have to be able to stand on their own and not require lots of other sources in order to work.

But take what you say about planets feeling let down by the Republic.
One obvious example of this would be Naboo.
In TPM, the TF blockade them for reason that had nothing to do with them and was just about the TF trying to use them as leverage to bully the senate into doing what they wanted.
The senate was unable to act.
Then the TF went one step further and invaded and killed some people and put the whole planet into camps and were starving them all.
The senate still did not act even when told this for Padme.
The Naboo were freed due to Padme, a handful of her people, two Jedi, Anakin and the Gungans.
The senate/Republic did nothing.

So Naboo had every reason to feel let down by the senate and could ask, "Why should we be part of the republic when they won't have our back in a fight?"
Even more considering that Nute got away with it all even after several trials.

The senate is shown to be in part controlled by the TF and other big companies.
So again, small worlds could look at it and say "The senate cares more about serving the interest of big business than caring for it's citizens."

So that there would be smaller worlds, like Naboo, that would feel the senate/republic is broken and they want out.

But why would they trust the TF and co?
The TF and others are the source of much of the corruption in the senate.
Why would a government run by the TF and the like be any less corrupt?

Plus the galaxy knows what the TF did to Naboo even if they weren't convicted in court.

But why would the TF and others want to escape?
From what TPM says, they have been able to get the senate to do much of what they wanted.
Yes the tax bit they didn't like but they could do a lot of bad things and get away with it.
They had bribed a lot of senators and got their way much of the time.

I think an alternative story would be that smaller worlds, like Naboo, want to leave and they get clones so they are not as weak as before. Then the TF and other are now on the side of the republic.
They have the senate in their pocket and want to protect their investment.

That would make for interesting drama as now the Jeid has to work with the TF, who were the bad guys before. And if Naboo wants to leave, Padme would be in a difficult spot. She still believes in the republic but she also has to follow the will of her people.

Mostly agree.
But based on AotC, the republic has no army except the jedi.
The TF already has a "battle hardened" army. The other merchant groups seemed to have armies as well.
So they could just pool their various armies and the Jedi would be no match for that.

But based on the films, what change does Dooku want to see?
He mentions that the senate would be forced to agree to their demands but what those are is never said.
But given the company, the TF, Banking clan etc then one could guess that it would be ruthless robber capitalism.
The companies would be unbound by rules and laws, be free to exploit anyone, not be answerable to any court and pay no taxes. Not having to worry about minimum wages, rules about toxic waste or anything like that, all they want is profit.
The "regular" people would likely not fare very well under this system.

I used the word "Show" as in see, visually. We see some people on the republic side, like Padme, who is against the army and others that are for it.
The only seps we see are the TF, banking clan, techno union and so on.
These "regular" seps are never shown.

The crawl says that several hundred systems, led by Dooku, want to leave.
Later, Doou is meeting with the TF, Banking clan and all those and now he talks about 10 000 systems.
So even if we assume that those several hundred are "regular" seps, with the TF and co comes 10 000 more.
So 10 000 vs several hundred, clearly the majority of the seps are connected to the TF and co or follow because of them.

Hang on, Dooku is the leader of the separatists and he is making an alliance with the Separatists?
Is he making an alliance with himself?

As for Padme and the Jedi.
The Jedi think Dooku is a political idealist, he really isn't. He is building up an army to attack the republci and enforce his and the seps demands plus he is willing to stoop to murder in order to get people on his side.
And Padme says that the seps can be reasoned with and yet accuses their leader of trying to murder her.
If Dooku trying to kill her was known and agreed to by the other seps, why would she trust them?
If Dooku did this on his own and the others seps knew nothing about it, then they are being led by someone untrustworthy. And why would the seps choose someone like that?

Actually yes, i would like more political scenes. Well made political intrigue is one of the things I like in films, if it fits the film. And I figured based on what little I knew of the PT ahead of time, that there would be politics in the films. Sadly, to me, too much of it was glanced over and so it didn't work that well.

As for Dooku being their leader, the presence of a leader does not have to equal the presence of a parliament.
We don't see these worlds so if they have some representative democracy or not is unclear.
What we do see is the TF, Banking clan and the like. They are the leaders of the seps and at no point do they ever mention asking their people or some parliament for advice or what their wishes are.

I said that the film SHOWS the seps as the TF, Banking clan etc. These "regular" seps are never shown.
So the examples of the seps that we see ar the TF, the bad guys from the first film, and other greedy, evil merchants.
So the seps are not painted in a very good light, they are shown mostly to be bad guys.

Also I did pay attention, like for ex Mace saying that if negotiations with the seps fail, there won't be enough Jedi to PROTECT the Republic, they are not soldiers.
Meaning that he saw a possibility that the seps could turn violent and attack the republic.
How could these "army-less" seps do that?
Answer, they did have some military capabilities already.
And we know that the TF and commerce guild are supportive of them.
And they have armies.
So the seps have access to some armed forces while the republic, as yet, has only the Jedi.

Plus, the seps have already been causing problems and unrest and the Jedi are now having considerable difficulty in keeping the peace.
So the seps have shown themselves to not be above violence.
And as I said, Padme accuses the leader of the seps of trying to murder her.

But lets consider what Dooku has been doing prior to AotC.
He has worked with the techno union, the Geonosians to build new and better battle droids.
A new army in short.
This has clearly been going on for a while.
Say a few months.
Was this before or after the senate started talking about making an army?
Unclear.
Did this "parliament" of the seps knew about this and the deal he was proposing to the TF, Banking clan etc?
If they did or they were the ones who told him to do this, then they are totally on-board with the plan to build an army and attack the republic, which has no army as that point.
And the TF and others all seem totally fine with this and Dooku says that 10 000 more systems would join them. If this was before or after he used his big army against the Jedi is unclear.
If they had no idea what he was doing and they would never agree with this, then that is something I think should be IN the films if that was the intent.

Dooku's plan as he explains it to the TF and co, they have a big army, they will use it to overwhelm the jedi and enforce their demands on the senate.
They are clearly not trying to be seen as the "good guys" here. The republic, as far as they know, has no army, and so could not hope to oppose them.
They will get what they want at gunpoint.
Pretty much what the TF did in TPM, use military force in order to coerce the senate to give in to their demands.

And from what Dooku said, more systems would join them.
I can certainly see some systems, faced with a seps movement that is armed to the teeth vs a weak republic. And deciding to side with the seps as they would clearly be the winner.
So better to join them than be on the loosing side.

If there is a "parliament" of the seps, how do you know that they didn't ask Dooku to do this?
That they were totally fine with siding with the TF and co and attack the republic.

Plus, the films mostly show the seps as being the tools and indeed constructed by the sith.
If there ever was a real movement or if it all was a bunch of people doing whatever Dooku tells them to is not clear.
Hence why I talk about what is being shown. These "regular" seps are never shown, we know next to nothing about them, what their aims and goals are, Beyond leaving the republic.
What we do see are the TF and co and what they want and how they are like we do see.
Greedy, not having any problem with murder or killing on a grand scale. Not having an issue using overwhelming military force against weak opponents.
In short, they are not shown to be very sympathetic or nice.
This makes the seps seem less sympathetic and less nice.

Bye.
The Guarding Dark

 

Oh, for the days when filmmakers took that as an obvious maxim. It made their work better. But corporate franchises encourage the opposite mentality: leave crucial bits of story out of the main films (note the plural!) and put them into ancillary media, encouraging viewers/consumers to buy, buy, buy.

 

Why do we need to see them? We know they exist. We know exactly why they allied with the commerce guilds, because Padme explains it to us. It's because they felt threatened by the Republic's impending militarization. Nothing is left unclear.

There wasn't a place in the story for a sojourn to the Separatist parliament. It wasn't necessary. We know all we need to know. The war is a backdrop which frames and parallels the more personal struggles and battles of the main characters. This story is told from their perspective. We don't need to go on a time-consuming detour to get intimately acquainted with Joe Separatist. (That's the kind of potentially interesting, though non-essential, side-story that The Clone Wars was made for.)

The plot of Attack of the Clones makes perfect sense on its own, though. I'm still not exactly sure what @Samuel Vimes is confused about.

 

The Trade Federation still has to pay the trade route tax. They probably have share holders to please. And the bosses want their giant bonuses.

They got off with a slap on the wrist for invading Naboo, but they still owe taxes. And maybe a reason they weren't held accountable for Naboo was so they could continue to pay taxes. The bureaucracy needs their money. So the government looks the other way about laws as long as they are paid by the companies.

Trade Federation and other commerce groups are just greedy. That's all the motivation they need. Greed. They want more. They want it all. They want to get away with bad things and not pay any taxes. They had a good thing going but they wanted more. I think they'd of been too cowardly to challenge the status quo without Dooku tempting them.

For his plan to work Darth Sidious needs the big companies like the Trade Federation on the treasonous side of the war and not the Republic. Then he can federalize those companies into the Empire later amd directly control them. It's also important that the Republic looses the easy money that pays for the bloated bureaucracy. Palpatine needs the corrupt system to implode before the people will ask him to impose order. And pulling those funds makes everything harder for the Jedi.

And the Clone Army is also needed to ambush the Jedi later in the war. Also the Jedi leading a living clone army helps them to make decisions that blur the line of what Jedi's role should be. Droids wouldn't have the same pull. I'm not sure Jedi would work with the Trade Federation. And working against them also helps draw the Jedi into a gray area.

If Padme and Naboo left the Republic, could Palpatine still be Chancellor?????

Anyway I like that the prequels get two of the most unlikely groups, big business and free people, to team up and leave. It's unexpected. And it very much like the two sides that fought each other on Naboo now on the same side.

I think that's exactly what the movie is saying. If the merchant groups pool their resources and do a little bit of arming up, they win the war before it even starts. There is no war. They can just walk away because the Republic and the Jedi aren't strong enough to stop them. If they had any idea there was a clone army, they'd of never done it. They don't want to take any risk that could hurt profits. But once the clones show up it's too late.

This is the weird disconnect in Dooku's rhetoric. And we don't know what he's promised the people. Is the count talking out of both sides of his mouth? Is he telling the "regular" people in public that the droid army will protect them. Taxes will be less. Government will function. They will be free of Republic corruption. And behind closed doors he's telling the big companies, you'll be free of regulation and over sight. Taxes will be less.

We know the entire plan is a setup for everyone. Dooku's real end is to have the entire galaxy under the rule of the Sith Empire he hopes to one day rule.

That's how it all gets started. Dooku is an exJedi. There are Republic planets that wish to leave the Republic. Dooku is the guy who brings them together. He becomes the leader of the Separatist movement. He gets different Separatist planets to ally with each other. Dooku gets the different companies to ally with him. And in the end Dooku gets the companies and the planets to form an alliance.

 

But not really. That whole "Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas ordering a clone army rather than Dooku or Sidious" thing came out of nowhere, it made no sense, and fans were told it was going to be explained in the next film. It wasn't. TCW eventually made a half-hearted attempt at mopping it up, but the fact remains that it's needlessly confusing.