Separatist holdouts

The Separatist holdouts represented the surviving fragments of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. The political unrest between the Galactic Republic and the Confederacy led to the Clone Wars, a galaxy-spanning war that the Confederacy ultimately lost. This conflict also paved the way for the rise of the Galactic Empire to replace the Republic. Despite the war's ending signifying the Separatist cause's failure, remnants of the Confederacy persisted for years, concealing themselves from the New Order in locations like the planet Agamar and the Western Reaches. These holdouts ranged from groups of pro-Separatist beings to combat droids that hadn't received or followed the deactivation command at the Clone Wars' conclusion, often operating independently and without coordination. Commander [Orson Callan Krennic](/article/orson_callan_krennic] characterized the Separatist holdouts as anarchists aiming to destabilize galactic civilization. However, Krennic made this claim while attempting to convince his former colleague Galen Walton Erso to assist the Empire.

Governor Tawni Ames of the Desix Separatist holdout engaged in combat against the Empire to safeguard her people's autonomy. Surviving battle droids continued to execute their original programming or fought under the command of surviving organic Separatists and any remaining tactical droids, whose programming remained pro-Confederate despite the government's defeat. The ST-series tactical droid named Kalani held onto the hope of achieving a Separatist victory in the Clone Wars. While Kalani entertained the possibility of peace with the Empire, he ultimately concluded that as the Republic's successor, it was his enemy. Ames's Desix holdout reached a similar conclusion, with Ames herself regarding the Empire as a worse version of the Republic that Count Dooku had foreseen. Ames was willing to negotiate a peaceful resolution and avoid further conflict, as proposed by Clone Commander Cody, but Imperial governor Grotton disregarded Cody's offer. Kalani eventually allied himself with the Spectres rebel group after recognizing their shared opposition to the Empire, accepting the Clone Wars' conclusion in the process, but chose to separate from the rebels instead of joining the Phoenix Cell.

In 19 BBY, during the Clone Wars' final year, the highest-ranking leaders were eliminated in rapid succession. This began with Confederate Head of State Count Dooku, who was killed during the attack on the Republic's capital world of Coruscant, and General Grievous, who died on Utapau while attempting to flee. The Separatist Council, including Viceroy of the Trade Federation Nute Gunray, retreated to Mustafar. As the war neared its end, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine—secretly Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith—announced himself as Emperor and transformed the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire. Having amassed absolute power through the war, the Emperor sent his new apprentice, the Sith Lord Darth Vader, to Mustafar under the guise of peace talks. However, Vader ultimately executed the council and deactivated the Separatist Droid Army, effectively ending both the Separatists and the Clone Wars.

Consequently, most of the remaining systems and sectors within the Confederacy were seized by the Galactic Empire and quickly occupied. However, some military and political elements retreated to the Western Reaches to continue their resistance, while others, such as General Kleeve, abandoned the Confederacy entirely.

In the Empire's early days, the war was not entirely over, as pockets of resistance rose up against the new regime. Staunch Separatists established strongholds in the Corporate Sector, the Western Reaches, and the Tion Hegemony, where the former Separatist capital planet, Raxus Secundus, was located. Raxus itself, however, was soon brought under Imperial control. The early years of the Empire were characterized by the military occupation and subjugation of various worlds formerly belonging to the Confederacy, including Kooriva, Murkhana, and Raxus. The Kelrodo-Ai holdout remained active and deployed at least one Vulture-class starfighter.

Senator Avi Singh of Raxus was initially persuaded by the Empire to support Captain Bragg's occupation, but later rejected it and escaped the planet with Clone Force 99. The development of the Onager-class Star Destroyer was partly driven by the Empire's desire to effectively eliminate the planetary shields used by CIS holdouts. Governor Tawni Ames and the inhabitants of the planet Desix refused to submit to the Empire and resisted its occupation, deploying a force of reactivated battle droids in the process. However, a clone stormtrooper squad infiltrated Desix City and suppressed her holdout, with clone commando Crosshair executing Ames despite Clone Commander Cody's pleas for peace.

The Empire justified the construction of Imperial-class Star Destroyer by citing the ongoing need to combat Separatist holdouts. In 18 BBY, the Empire conducted a campaign of mass arrests, executions, and massacres on Antar 4, overseen by Wilhuff Tarkin, which also affected many Republic loyalists. Two reporters, Anora Fair and Hask Taff, extensively covered the operation, provoking anger among prominent Coruscanti and generating significant political controversy. Despite this, the Empire continued to use the existence of Separatist holdouts as justification for its continued peacetime military expansion and increased security measures. Fueled by growing civic pride and patriotism, many galactic citizens enlisted in the Imperial Military as Imperial cadets. Zare Leonis envisioned serving the Empire by fighting against Separatist holdouts, pirates, and enslavers.

Subsequently, the Imperial Navy launched incursions into space controlled by holdouts, including a series of campaigns in the Western Reaches, where the remnants of the Confederacy of Independent Systems had largely retreated. As the conflict continued, the planetary populations of former Confederate worlds, dissatisfied with the Empire's perceived lack of reconstruction efforts following the Clone Wars, joined the holdouts, further increasing their numbers. Imperial shipyards, such as the one orbiting Kartoosh just outside the Western Reaches, served as repair facilities for starships damaged in engagements with Separatists, as well as salvage yards for captured vessels. The Bilbringi shipyards also functioned as a dismantling site for obsolete Separatist warships. Imperial forces were under the command of Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, recently assigned by Palpatine himself after "pacifying Antar 4."

Tarkin and Lieutenant Commander Orson Krennic also exploited the conflict with the holdouts as a pretext to justify the appropriation of numerous legacy worlds—worlds legally protected as ecological reserves—to advance the top-secret Imperial construction project above Geonosis. In the same year, Moff Tarkin was reassigned to Sentinel Base to oversee the Death Star project. Many within the Imperial hierarchy mistakenly believed this was due to his failure to effectively manage the mop-up operations. Separatist holdouts were still considered a major threat by the Imperial Military, and were initially suspected of being responsible for the attack on Sentinel Base.

Separatists who refused to surrender their fight against the Galactic Republic and its successor, the Galactic Empire, became natural allies of the growing rebellion. However, these "diehard" Separatists were often more fanatical than other rebels, displaying a greater willingness to employ extreme measures against the Empire compared to the more politically cautious leaders of the central resistance. Many of these Separatists were former soldiers or operatives, as the droid members of the once-vast Separatist Droid Army were largely inoperable and rarely joined resistance groups.

These Separatists possessed military or sabotage training and often recruited family members or younger individuals, as most were typically older. Some were aware of hidden Separatist bases or weapons caches. While Separatists typically fought as individuals, in areas with significant local resistance, they could assemble forces rivaling those of the emerging rebellion.

In 2 BBY during the period of the early rebellion against the Galactic Empire, a holdout was encountered by Republic Clone Wars veteran Captain Rex while leading a rebel cell from Lothal on a mission to Agamar to recover proton bombs from a derelict DH-Omni Support Vessel. Rex, along with Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus, Padawan Ezra Bridger, and Garazeb Orrelios, were quickly captured by General Kalani, a high-ranking super tactical droid in the Confederacy military. Kalani, having studied the war's tactics for over a decade, forced the rebels to participate in a final combat simulation designed to definitively prove which side possessed the superior combat strategy.

However, Bridger successfully convinced Kalani that neither the Republic nor the Separatists had truly won the Clone Wars, but had both been decimated by their true enemy: the Empire. Through collaboration between the rebels and former Separatists, Kalani and the rebels successfully mounted a rearguard defense against an Imperial attack. General Kalani and the rebels ultimately escaped aboard Neimoidian Sheathipede-class transport shuttles. Declining an offer to join the rebellion, Kalani shared his prediction that the rebels had only a 1% chance of success against the Empire before departing for unknown destinations.

In 31 ABY, fifty years after the Clone Wars, a forgotten holdout persisted due to an ion storm that had struck the cruiser Obrexta III decades earlier. The cruiser was transporting the captured clone trooper CT-6116 from Coruscant to Serenno, with him locked in a cryo-cycle stasis pod. During the journey, the cruiser was attacked by Republic forces and sustained heavy damage. Recognizing that the ship was unable to reach Serenno, B1-series battle droid B1-CC14 activated the ship's emergency beacon before making a random jump through hyperspace. The jump took it to the desert planet Ponemah Terminal in the Outer Rim, where it crashed onto the planet's surface, and B1-CC14 lost power. Decades later, some of the cruiser's systems were reactivated, including its emergency broadcast.

Believing that the Obrexta III contained the legendary lost treasure of Count Dooku, several pirate groups raced to the downed ship. After a group of pirates led by Sidon Ithano managed to board the vessel, B1-CC14, unaware that the Clone Wars were long over, briefly powered back up and activated a fail-safe that mobilized all B2-series super battle droids on board to stop the intruders, believing them to be Republic clone troopers. As the pirates attempted to escape, the battle droid was ultimately destroyed when the Obrexta III exploded. Having recovered CT-6116 from cryo-cycle stasis, the crew of the Meson Martinet offered the clone a place on their crew, which was scouring the galaxy for lost Separatist installations they had discovered with the recovery of the Obrexa III's memory core, an offer he humbly accepted.

Following the incident, Ithano's crew, now joined by Kix, sought further raids of Separatist locations. One of these holdouts was situated on a swampy misty planet, where B1 battle droids emerged from the ground to attack the crew, which included Ithano himself, Kix, and Reveth. C-3PO later referenced this story to some visitors, describing it as "spooky."