Geonosis, referred to as Geonosia by some natives, was the desert home planet of the Geonosians. It was the Confederacy of Independent Systems' first capital and hosted its major battle droid foundries. It was the site of the First Battle of Geonosis, the opening conflict of the Clone Wars, as well as the subsequent invasion by the Galactic Republic. During and after the war, the Death Star was constructed above the planet. Five years after the conflict's conclusion and transformation of the Galactic Republic, the Galactic Empire would garrison the planet heavily and attempt to mine the planet's asteroids for minerals. At least five years after the Clone Wars, the Empire moved the Death Star to another construction site and the planet was sterilized by the Empire as a security measure, an act which resulted in the virtual elimination of the planet's native population.
The arid, rocky surface of Geonosis
Situated in the Geonosis system of the Arkanis sector in the Outer Rim Territories, the planet of Geonosis was 43,000 light years from the Galactic Core, and less than a parsec away from the neighboring Outer Rim planet of Tatooine. It was the homeworld of the Geonosians, a species of sentient insectoids. It had a breathable atmosphere, but a hot and arid climate. Its irradiated surface was covered in harsh, rocky deserts, marked by mesas and buttes. Both its rocks and sky were tinted in shades of red. Surface water was scarce, amounting to only 5% of the entire total planetary surface. However, Geonosis had frequent flash floods. From space, it could be seen that Geonosis had awe-inspiring rocky rings. The planet was orbited by fifteen moons, four of which were major and including the icy moon of Bahryn.
Galactic colonizers were attracted to Geonosis when the Tatoo system was discovered due to its close proximity to Tatooine. When the Galactic Republic made first contact with the Geonosians, it was successful and beneficial to both groups. Due to this, the Geonosians became interested with Republic technology and became skilled in adapting and improving advanced technology. As such, Geonosians exported droids and other technology to the rest of the galaxy, although this didn't last long. Once Tatooine was almost abandoned by the first wave of colonizers, Geonosis suffered from its distance from the Core Worlds as visitors to the planet grew smaller and smaller until visitors stopped traveling to Geonosis altogether. Geonosian exports were more easily met by other manufacturers closer to the Core.
Geonosians became split over the idea of working with offworlders, and with the planet's economy in ruins, wars erupted throughout the planet for millennia, while the rest of the galaxy largely forgot the planet and left it to its endless wars. A few hundred years prior to the Separatist Crisis, the world was rediscovered by the Galactic Republic and manufacturing deals were made to sell and distribute their advanced technology and droids.
In the later years of the Galactic Republic, Geonosis became a major base of operations for the Confederacy of Independent Systems, an alliance of separatists that spread across the galaxy. The enormous Geonosian droid factories began to manufacture of tens of thousands of different types of battle droids, thus maintaining their own Geonosian droid army. During that time, Geonosis built droid armies for large corporations such as the Trade Federation. Ten years after the election of Sheev Palpatine as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, the Archduke of Geonosis, Poggle the Lesser, hosted a summit of the heads of the Confederacy. During that meeting, the trade barons pledged their military forces to Count Dooku, a defrocked Jedi Master and head of the Confederacy. While the Separatists were ready to wage war, their plans were overheard by Obi-Wan Kenobi, a Jedi Master.
The Republic Army charges across the landscape of Geonosis.
The Geonosians took Kenobi captive, but he managed to dispatch a distress call to his superiors on Coruscant, the Jedi High Council. The Council then dispatched an assault team of Jedi to Geonosis. Meanwhile, the Geonosians sentenced Master Kenobi to death in the Petranaki Arena along with his apprentice Anakin Skywalker, and the Republic senator Padmé Amidala. Eventually, the Jedi reinforcements arrived, and quickly dealt with the Geonosian warriors. However, the immense droid army of the Confederacy was laying in wait, and many Jedi fell under enemy fire. When all seemed lost, even more reinforcements arrived, in the form of the newly created Grand Army of the Republic, which made use of the clone troopers. Upon the arrival of the clone army, the Republic and the Confederacy engaged in the first battle of what was soon known as the Clone Wars.
The Republic launched a large-scale invasion against Geonosis to end the rule of Separatists in the world for the second and last time.
After Geonosis was again under the control of the Separatists, and following the Battle near Dorin, the Republic sent Jedi Generals Ki-Adi-Mundi, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luminara Unduli, and Anakin Skywalker to take Geonosis with a massive invasion. As they made their descent, Kenobi's and his Clone Commander's, Cody, force boarded their gunships and flew to secure the rendezvous point. However their gunships came under heavy fire from the Geonosians and their defenses. Mundi and Commander Jet's forces followed him but they were forced to land their AT-TEs away from the rendezvous due to the heavy fire. Skywalker's, Jedi Commander Ahsoka Tano's, and Clone Captain Rex's gunships were shot down and all their AT-TEs were destroyed. Despite that, they continued towards the rendezvous point and were met with heavy resistance from the Geonosians. Mundi's gunship was shot down and he was wounded. Cody was able to land his AT-TEs, but the landing area came under fire from the Geonosians and their AATs. Kenobi's gunship was then hit and crash landed away from the landing zone. Only Kenobi and Trapper survived the crash and were then rescued by clone troopers Waxer and Boil. Kenobi, Cody ,and their troopers then held the rendezvous awaiting Skywalker's and Mundi's forces.
As Mundi's forces made their way through the Caltrop field to the rendezvous point, Jet contacted Republic Admiral Wullf Yularen for air support. The Admiral however, could not divert any air support with risks to other units. Jet then left a squad with the AT-TE walkers and with Mundi and his clone flametroopers continued to the rendezvous. Skywalker and his force then came to a fortress that blocked their path. Skywalker and Tano then scaled the wall. They were able to destroy the battle droids, but they were then confronted by Droidekas who they were able to defeat with Rex's help. They then placed their explosives inside the wall and their way was cleared. Skywalker's forces were then able to meet up with Mundi's forces. Skywalker then contacted Yularen for air support and Yularen was able to provide a squadron of BTL-B Y-wing starfighter/bombers.
As Kenobi's forces were being overrun, the bombers then took out the Geonosians' forces surrounding the rendezvous. Skywalker's and Mundi's forces then joined Kenobi's to plan the last part of their attack. Skywalker would attack the defenses of the Deflector shield generator while AT-TEs were brought in and Mundi brought in the remaining troops and the gunships. Skywalker, Tano and a squad were able to penetrate the shield. They then threw droid poppers at the defending proton cannons, which disabled the cannons. Kenobi then brought the AT-TEs in range of the shield generator and destroyed it. After the shield went down, Mundi brought in the gunships and captured Geonosians still at this location. Kenobi and Mundi, along with the rest of their wounded, left to recuperate, leaving Skywalker, Tano his Padawan, and their force to destroy the factory.
The factory was destroyed by the Padawans Ahsoka Tano and Barriss Offee.
To help Skywalker, Tano and their forces in destroying the factory, Unduli, along with her apprentice Barriss Offee and Commander Gree's 41st Elite Corps came to assist in the attack. They devised a plan to destroy the primary droid factory. Unduli and Skywalker then marched their troops across the bridge, without cover to get Poggle's forces' attention. During his time their, Poggle and his tactical droid, TX-21 were running the factory at 50% capacity and had ten garrisons of droids ready to be deployed. The super tanks were not finished yet but would be ready. The droids were then deployed, marching across the bridge to fight the clones. As the two forces fought, TX-21 then sent in Geonosians to attack from above. Despite this, Skywalker's and Unduli's forces were able to defeat the droids. However, Poggle, at the urging of TX-21, deployed the super tanks. As they moved in on the clones, Skywalker ordered their cannons to fire at it, to no affect. The super tanks rolled over the clones as they made their way across the bridge.
As battle raged above, Offee and Tano were able to make their way through the Geonosian catacombs to the main reactor. Unfortunately, Offee inadvertently woke one of the Geonosians, who informed Poggle and TX-21 of this. After planting the bombs, Offee and Tano were then confronted by Poggle, TX-21, their Geonoisans and, a super tank. Tano then destroyed TX-21, but failed to even dent the super tank. Offee and Tano then fought the Geonosian to get their bombs back, but failed. When Tano was knocked out, Offee took the droid drivers and took control of the super tank. Both of them decided to use the tank to destroy the factory.
As the super tanks moved across the bridge, Unduli and Skywalker planted explosives to make the tanks fall into the ravine. They were successful in destroying the tanks. However, they were then confronted by more battle droids. Skywalker then contacted Tano, telling her to set the bombs off. However, they then used the tank, knowing it might kill them. They fired the tank at the reactor, and the factory collapsed, burying them inside the wreckage. Despite that, Skywalker and Unduli were able to find their apprentices alive.
In addition to capturing Poggle, the Jedi ended the reign of a Geonosian queen.
Following the successful invasion, Jedi Master Luminara Unduli went in search of Poggle the Lesser, who had retreated into the catacombs of an ancient temple. While she and a trooper searched the temple, a sandstorm prohibited reinforcements from reaching their positions. While communicating with Masters Kenobi and Mundi via hologram, Unduli's clone trooper was killed by the undead hordes of the mysterious Hive Queen Karina the Great. Having been knocked unconscious and captured, the Jedi Master was taken before Karina. Jedi Kenobi and Skywalker came to her rescue; they were not far off when Luminara regained consciousness and wrestled her way out of the zombies' reach.
Realizing what they were up against, she contacted Kenobi to warn him not to come after her, but was cut off as the zombies overwhelmed her. The Jedi disregarded her warnings and continued their search until they came upon Karina's abode, where they found Luminara in an energy trap for her to be infested with brain worms. With Kenobi and Cody delaying the zombies and the Queen, Skywalker freed Unduli and the two captured Poggle. Cody and his troops shot down the cave support, burying the Queen and taking Poggle prisoner.
Orson Krennic allowed Poggle the Lesser to return to Geonosis, unknowingly giving the archduke the tools needed to escape back to the CIS.
Held as a prisoner on Coruscant, Poggle was repeatedly questioned by Republic Intelligence about the battle station, which would one day be known as the "Death Star," the Geonosians had designed, but the archduke denied knowing anything about the supposed weapon. When Lieutenant Commander Orson Callan Krennic met with him, Krennic noted that Geonosis could fall into chaos without Poggle's presence and that the Republic wanted to build the station. Poggle made a deal to build the station for the Republic and returned to Geonosis on the Eve of Meckgin, but he secretly planned to return to the Confederacy. Eventually, he directed a Geonosian riot as a diversion, allowing him to escape and sabotage the project. Still, this would not be the end of the Death Star.
At the end of the war, Poggle and the rest of the Separatist Council were slaughtered by Skywalker, now the Sith apprentice Darth Vader, on Mustafar. The Stalgasin hive queen appointed a new archduke in Poggle's place, but this was only conciliatory process. In reality, the Geonosians effectively belonged to the Republic's successor state, the First Galactic Empire, a tyrannical, autocratic regime led by the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious.
Darth Vader cuts down Geonosian rebels.
The Death Star's construction was again commenced above Geonosis. The Empire utilized numerous construction modules operated by slaves of various species to construct the battlestation.
In 18 BBY, Darth Vader arrived on Geonosis under command of Governor Wilhuff Tarkin. While Vader was on the planet, he and Director Orson Krennic nearly fell victim to a series of acts of sabotage. As a result, Vader began to investigate the situation, and discovered that a Geonosian egg had been shipped to Galen Walton Erso. Vader then executed a Geonosian queen, who was responsible for breeding the group of Geonosians at fault for the sabotage.
The construction field left over above Geonosis from the Death Star.
In 14 BBY, the Imperials attempted to mine the asteroids of Geonosis for minerals, but the project proved unfeasible. Geonosis was still the site of the Death Star's construction site and was supplied by a chain of marshaling stations including Rampart Station, Desolation Station, and Sentinel Base. Following the suppression of Berch Teller's rebel cell, the newly appointed Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin enacted procedures limiting contact between workers (including contractors, employees, and slaves) and the wider galaxy, cancelling leaves and strictly monitoring communications. After Tarkin returned from a tour of his homeworld Eriadu, the Grand Moff ordered the station's sublight engines to be activated, taking the Death Star into deep space.
After the rebel Partisan Saw Gerrera came close enough to discovering the station, the Empire was prompted to move it from Geonosis to Scarif around 9 BBY. All that remained were a series of Imperial construction modules orbiting the planet Geonosis. As a security measure to keep the Death Star a secret, the Empire also used poison canisters to sterilize the planet, killing all but one of the Geonosians.
The Empire ambushes the rebels on a space station
In 3 BBY, the Lothal rebel cell along with retired Clone trooper Rex were sent on a mission to one of the construction modules after rebel intelligence discovered the Empire had been building something above the planet, which unknown to them was the Death Star. Upon arriving above Geonosis, the rebels conducted a planetary scan and discovered there was no life on the planet, much to their confusion. Once they arrived at the construction module, they were ambushed by ISB Agent Kallus and several stormtroopers. After a brief skirmish aboard the station, the rebels escaped, however Kallus and the rebel Zeb were still locked in combat. Zeb boarded an escape pod and Kallus followed him in. The pod soon experienced an engine malfunction, causing it to crash on the icy moon of Bahryn. Striking the beginning of an unlikely friendship, the Imperial agent and the rebel managed to overcome the cold and fend off two bonzami to survive. After a few hours, the rest of the rebels managed to locate them by tracking their transponder, however ,Kallus decide to stay behind and wait for the Empire. After saying their farewells Zeb left for the ship.
In 2 BBY, Gerrera and his Partisans undertook a mission on behalf of Rebel Command to investigate the disappearance of the Geonosian species. During the course of their mission, they were attacked by the Geonosian Klik-Klak, who mistook them for hostiles. Most of Saw's team were killed, leaving Saw as the sole survivor. After losing contact with Saw, Senator Bail Organa dispatched the Spectres rebel cell and Captain Rex to complete Saw's mission. Upon arriving, they discovered that Imperial construction modules and debris they had seen the last time had been cleared away.
While Hera stayed aboard the Ghost, Rex, Ezra Bridger, Kanan Jarrus, and Chopper searched the catacombs for Saw while Sabine Wren and Garazeb Orrelios investigated a deflector shield generator, which turned out to be the power source that Saw's team had reported before losing contact. After finding Saw, the Spectres and Rex agreed to help him capture Klik-Klak in order to find out what happened to the Geonosians. Following a prolonged pursuit, the rebels managed to capture Klik-Klak while Sabine and Zeb managed to recover the generator's deflector core.
While Saw was hostile to Klik-Klak, Ezra managed to win the trust of the Geonosian. The rebels subsequently learned that Klik-Klak was the custodian of the last Geonosian queen egg. After some discussion, Kanan convinced Saw to return Klik-Klak to Geonosis after they had finished questioning him. The rebels' presence on Geonosis attracted the attention of an Arquitens-class command cruiser led by Captain Brunson. After escaping two TIE bombers, Hera, Zeb, and Sabine flew the Ghost into an air shaft and rendezvoused with the other rebels and Klik-Klak.
A fierce disagreement soon broke out between the Spectres, Rex, and Saw. The Spectres and Rex disagreed with Saw's plan to take Klik-Klak offworld for interrogation and harsh methods which included electrocuting him with a shocker. Following a struggle, Saw threatened to shoot the Geonosian queen's egg in order to obtain information from Klik-Klak. Before the argument could escalate, the rebels and Saw were forced to join forces to repel an Imperial boarding party consisting of Jumptroopers. To flee the Imperials, Hera took the Ghost into the depths of Geonosis.
Upon reaching the bottom, the rebels and Saw discovered that the Imperial weapons division had perpetrated genocide against the Geonosians using poison canisters. Saw, experiencing a change of heart, freed Klik-Klak and allowed him to retreat underground with the Geonosian queen egg. The rebels then loaded some canisters as evidence for the Imperial Senate. The Ghost then managed to escape the shaft by firing proton torpedoes at Bronson's light cruiser. Despite fleeing into space, they lost the canisters in the process.
Following their mission, the rebels were debriefed by Senator Organa and Commander Jun Sato. Despite losing the canisters, Organa reassured them that the images they took of the poison canisters could sway more systems to the rebellion. Sato also congratulated them for rescuing Saw and obtaining a deflector core. While Saw was disappointed that they had not discovered what the Empire was building on Geonosis, Kanan reassured them that they soon would.
Vader cuts Karina from her womb factory
Following the Battle of Yavin, Skywalker, now the Sith Lord Darth Vader, returned to Geonosis. Having been one of only a few individuals to survive the destruction of the Death Star, Vader had been sanctioned by the Emperor, both as punishment and as part of a test for Vader. Finding himself in need of guaranteeable personal assets free from Imperial oversight; troops, credits and the like, Vader recruited the rogue archaeologist Doctor Aphra and the assassin droids BT-1 and 0-0-0 to assist him in building an army of unquestionably loyal battle droids. Vader soon arrived on the planet and his team infiltrated the lair of Karina, who had hatched from the egg protected by Klik-Klak. An injury that she had suffered before hatching had rendered her sterile, but her instinct to reproduce had influenced her to create a droid factory to produce modified B1-series battle droids as her "children". While BT-1 fired on the queen's droid workers, Vader and Aphra severed the queen from her factory, and Aphra used her starship, the Ark Angel, to blow a large hole in the roof of the lair so that Vader's own starship could then extract both the factory and Vader's team with a large crane. The captured droid factory began producing BX-series droid commandos for Vader, which he used to assault the research base of a rival Imperial operative named Cylo.
In the wake of the Empire's disastrous defeat in the Battle of Endor, some Imperials arrived on Geonosis in an effort to restart surviving droid factories, only for the plot to be uncovered by the New Republic. The ensuing operation on Geonosis to take out the Imperial forces saw a gunship travel through an .
The planet Geonosis first appeared in Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones, the second installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, which first premiered on May 16, 2002.The planet was first identified as Geonosia by "Legacy of Terror," the seventh episode of the second season of the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series, which was released on November 20, 2009. Geonosis also appeared in the non-canon LEGO Star Wars: Droid Tales cartoon series where the Imperial General Maximilian Veers attempted to rebuild the Separatist Droid Army in order to restore the Galactic Empire.
Geonosis possibly evolved from the planet "Ttaz," a proposed location for Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back. In the pre-production of Attack of the Clones, Geonosis was known simply as "rock planet", its landscape being a rugged world made of red soil and stone reminiscent of the real-life planet Mars and the buttes and mesas of the American southwest.The towering spires seen on Geonosis were a nod to the termite mounds of Africa. The background shots of Geonosis were a combination of still photography from the American southwest, matte paintings, and miniature models.
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