- [Justice] When Star Wars first came out,
the Clone Wars were just a glimmer in George Lucas' eye.
Fans could only imagine
what epic battles must have been fought.
Since then, we've got a whole animated series about them.
What a time to be alive.
Since Clone Wars is finally coming back with new episodes,
we've dug up the records of the battles so far.
This is the timeline of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
Pre-War.
Before we get on the warpath,
there's some background information to cover,
beginning way back with some ancient cosmic evil.
Over 2,000 years ago,
two entities called the Son and Daughter collide
with unbelievable Force power.
The fulcrum between them is a man known as the Father.
To protect the universe from their might,
the Father seals the children away on Mortis.
It's a world between worlds
that is said to have birthed the Force itself.
The three Force-wielders remain there,
as the Father awaits the prophesied Chosen One,
who can take his place and keep the Son and Daughter at bay.
Elsewhere in these ancient times,
there is a Shaman of the Whills
who discovers a way to preserve identity after death.
Using the Cosmic Force to communicate with the Living Force,
she creates the Force spirit ability.
Over the eons since her death,
the Shaman separates into five Force Priestesses
that take up residence in a wellspring of the Force.
But not Mortis.
A different wellspring.
There are multiple wellsprings,
the Force is all around us and whatever.
The other thing that's all around us?
Bacteria.
Midichlorians are the powerhouse of the Force.
The Blue Shadow Virus spreads,
infecting water supplies across the galaxy,
killing millions before the virus finally gets wiped out.
Okay, let's fast forward to only decades
before the Clone Wars begin.
On the planet Dathomir,
a coven of Nightsisters come under siege
by a slaver named Hal'Sted.
In order to save the coven,
Mother Talzin sells the young Asajj Ventress to Hal'Sted.
Ventress remains in Hal'Sted's service
until a Weequay pirate uprising kills him.
During the raid, she finds a new master,
a Jedi master, named Ky Narec.
Under his mentorship, Ventress' life turns around.
She and Narec battle the pirates for years
as she becomes skilled in the ways of the Force.
After a decade-long struggle,
the Weequay gain the upper hand and shoot Narec down.
Ventress is so overcome by rage
that she taps into her dark side.
Embracing these new abilities,
she turns to the Sith Lord Darth Tyranus, aka Count Dooku.
Eager to overthrow his own master, Darth Sidius,
Dooku takes her on as his apprentice.
Some years before 32 BBY,
that's before the Battle of Yavin,
Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi
are tasked with protecting
the Mandalorian Duchess Satine Kryze.
Mandalore is in the midst of a civil war,
making the Duchess a prime target for enemy bounty hunters.
While on the run, Obi-Wan and Satine
develop feelings for one another.
Hmm, it's an awful lot like Anakin and Padme's situation.
Except, when the Mandalorian civil war
finally comes to an end, so does their fling.
Had she said the word,
Obi-Wan would have abandoned the Jedi order
to stay with her,
but the two go their separate ways.
Satine has a lot of cleaning up to do all by herself,
transforming Mandalore into a pacifist world.
The terrorists are exiled to the moon Concordia,
where they band together to form Death Watch.
Their leader, Pre Vizsla,
rules from the shadows
while acting as the governor of Concordia.
Vizsla also wields the Darksaber,
a rare black lightsaber built by his ancestor, Tarre Vizsla.
But that's a story for an entirely separate
Star Wars: Rebels timeline video.
Jumping to 33 BBY,
Jedi Master Plo Koon
finds a young Togruta girl named Ahsoka Tano
and brings her back to the Jedi Temple for training.
She spends a decade in their tutelage
until she is finally granted the rank of padawan.
At this point, she needs a teacher.
22 BBY.
Right, okay, so the Clone Wars are officially underway.
After the inciting Battle of Geonosis,
Separatist forces shoot a clone transport down
and execute all the troopers onboard.
The lone survivor, Cut,
is appalled by the violence of war and goes AWOL.
As a clone trooper, Cut was literally created for war,
but instead he marries Suu Lawquane, has some kids,
and begins a simple life on a farm on Saleucami.
For those who are still in the war,
many battles are yet to come.
The Battle of Christophsis
really gets the show on the road though.
Separatists forces, led by the presumed-dead Admiral Trench,
blockade the planet to starve out
the Republic base that operates there.
Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi
are tasked with taking out blockade,
which Anakin accomplishes
by using Trench's own homing missiles against him.
But just like in the Battle of Malastare Narrows,
Admiral Trench survives yet again.
When Obi-Wan and Anakin arrive on the planet's surface,
they're ambushed by droids,
who received intel from the inside.
Turns out the clone sergeant Slick
sold them out to Asajj Ventress,
who's now working with the Separatists.
The other clones apprehend Slick, but it's too late;
the droid army is already on its way.
In the midst of all that,
Ahsoka is dispatched to begin her apprenticeship.
Doesn't seem like the best time,
but I guess that's what they call trial by fire?
At first, it seems she will study under Obi-Wan,
but she's actually been assigned to Anakin,
a sneaky plan by Obi-Wan all along.
Anakin and Ahsoka get off to a rough start,
but after deactivating the Separatist shields
and ending their siege,
they begin to see eye-to-eye.
The victory is short-lived, however,
as the trio receives word
that Jabba the Hutt's son Rotta has been kidnapped.
The Republic's alliance with the Hutts is essential,
which is why Count Dooku is trying to sabotage it.
He's working with Ziro the Hutt
to frame the Jedi for the kidnapping,
which would compel Jabba to execute them.
He'd be arrested for their murders,
creating a Jabba-sized power vacuum that Ziro could fill.
Everybody wins!
Rotta is no baby Yoda,
so Anakin and Ahsoka return the child to his father,
who nearly executes them anyway.
Thankfully, Padme Amidala swoops in
with the conspiracy intel that clears the Jedi
and saves them at the last second.
Over on Kamino,
five clone cadets must prove that they aren't a Bad Batch
and are actually capable of following orders together.
Hevy, Cutup, Droidbait, Fives and Echo
all make up the Domino Squad.
The team is put to the test
when General Grievous invades the outpost of Rishi.
In the attack, Hevy, Droidbait, and Cutup all fall,
but Echo and Fives both manage to pull through.
For their bravery, they are inducted into the 501st Legion,
led by Anakin, Ahsoka, and Clone Captain CT-7567 Rex.
Basically that means
they get to go on all the A-List missions now.
Soon, Grievous is back with a new battle tactic.
During the Malevolence crisis,
he uses the destructive ion-cannons of the massive cruiser
to decimate Republic forces across space.
Anakin enlists the Shadow Squadron,
a team of Y-wing bombers, to destroy the massive weapon,
but the campaign is complicated by Padme's arrival.
Separatist leaders trick her
into coming onboard the Malevolence,
so Anakin and Obi-Wan
have to continue their crusade on foot.
Fortunately, it gives Anakin the hands-on approach he needs
to crash the vessel into the Dead Moon of Antar.
Not long after that,
the Separatists hit back with biological warfare.
Dr. Nuvo Vindi re-engineers the old Blue Shadow Virus
from thousands of years ago,
only this time perfects it so that it's airborne.
Yeah, there's no Geneva Protocol in a galaxy far, far away.
Padme and Jar Jar Binks
discover Vindi's base of operations on Naboo
and alert the Republic's forces.
Vindi is thwarted, and Anakin and Obi-Wan
recover a cure on the Outer Rim planet Iego.
You know, the home planet of Angels
that Anakin was going on about when he met Padme.
These are the sort of day-to-day conflicts
that the Republic face during the Clone Wars.
Though as the stakes rise,
the battles would soon become personal.
21 BBY.
The Separatists continue their tried-and-true tactic
of starving out Republic worlds with blockades.
In the Battle of Ryloth,
Ahsoka experiences a humbling defeat.
Her reckless leadership of her first clone squadron
ends with some nasty casualties.
Even so, Anakin still has faith in her.
He leaves her in command
while he pulls a slow-speed Holdo Maneuver,
careening his Star Destroyer into the Separatist flagship.
On the surface of Ryloth, Mace Windu joins forces
with the Twi'lek Resistance, led by Cham Syndulla.
The Senate is hesitant to work with Syndulla
because of his extreme methods,
but Windu disregards the politics.
They liberate the capital city of Lessu
and claim a key victory in the larger war.
Cham Syndulla also happens
to be the father of Hera Syndulla,
so there's another Star Wars: Rebels plug.
But some victories don't last.
Back on Geonosis, where the Clone Wars first began,
Separatists take hold once again.
Using brain worms from Queen Karina the Great,
they seize control and reinstate the droid foundry.
To destroy the factory,
Ahsoka and Luminara Unduli's padawan Barriss Offee
slip down to the reactor
and detonate it with a big old tank.
Unfortunately, the ensuing explosion traps them underground.
Luminara is quick to accept their sacrifice
in the name of war,
but Anakin doesn't like to surrender hope.
Sure enough, Ahsoka's able to contact her master
with a makeshift communicator.
Meanwhile, Captain Rex becomes disillusioned with the war
when he meets Cut Lawquane on Saleucami.
At first, Rex is angry with his fellow clone
for deserting his one true purpose,
but eventually, Rex comes to see that law and order
isn't always the right path.
That's the guy you want to be around when Order 66 comes.
Let's check back in with Obi-Wan.
He hears reports that Mandalorians
have been attacking Republic cruisers,
despite the fact that Mandalore
is meant to be a neutral force in the war.
Duchess Satine literally leads
the Council of Neutral Systems,
so something is going on here.
He visits his old friend,
and the two learn that Death Watch is still active
over on Concordia.
They're not pleased with Satine's pacifist regime,
so they're working with the Separatists
to edge her out of power.
Pre Vizsla and Count Dooku
aim to spur the Republic into occupying Mandalore,
which would be unpopular with its people,
thus allowing Death Watch to swoop in like big damn heroes.
Satine is able to de-escalate the Senate
before the vote passes, shutting down Death Watch's scheme.
But Mandalore's neutrality has unforeseen complications.
Their isolationism has sent the planet
into an economic spiral,
so black market smuggling routes
are the only way to receive resources.
Santine urges the Senate to reopen the trade routes
for legitimate imports,
but Prime Minister Almec blocks her efforts.
He's embracing the corruption
and making bank off those smuggling routes.
When the Duchess discovers his true intentions,
she has him and his conspirators arrested.
Asajj Ventress has only been growing stronger
during her service.
Since she's Dooku's apprentice,
Darth Sidious is starting to worry
that Count Dooku will betray him.
So, he orders Count Dooku to prove his loyalty
and have her killed.
Dooku reluctantly agrees,
abandons Ventress and leaves her for dead.
Ventress survives, and from there,
does what everyone does after a bad breakup,
she rushes home to Dathomir to see her Mother,
well, Clan Mother, Talzin.
Funny enough, Dooku reaches out to the Nightsisters
looking for a new apprentice,
so Ventress and Talzin seize the opportunity
to attempt an assassination.
They travel to the camp of the Nightbrothers
and hold a contest to see who is the strongest.
Savage Opress, wins and gets a mythical stat boost
by the Nightsisters.
Then, they deploy him with Dooku,
secretly remaining under Ventress's command.
When the time is right,
the two of them launch a coordinated strike
against the Sith Lord,
but are still incapable of defeating him.
Ventress disavows her double agent,
so Opress does what everyone does after a bad breakup,
rushes home to Dathomir to see his Mother.
Talzin instructs the failed Nightbrother
to locate his brother, the long lost Darth Maul,
and train under him.
Over on Mortis,
the Father hears whispers
that Anakin Skywalker is the Chosen One,
so he summons him to the world between worlds.
Anakin is skeptical about his role in this story,
but he proves his worthiness
by defeating both the Son and the Daughter simultaneously.
The Father comes clean about his decaying state
to the Jedi Knight,
but having seen dark illusions on Mortis,
Anakin is in no hurry to stay there.
The Son has plans of his own.
He corrupts Anakin and Ahsoka,
unleashing their full Dark Side potential
so that they'll help him leave the planet.
The Son arms himself with the Dagger of Mortis,
a weapon capable of killing even the ancient Force-wielders.
He attempts to assassinate his father,
but the Daughter takes the blow instead.
With her death, the balance of the Force is undone,
so in a desperate play to restore it,
the Father plunges the Dagger into himself.
His sacrifice allows Anakin to kill the Son,
restoring balance,
and the three soldiers are expelled from Mortis.
During his time on the planet,
Anakin received visions of him
turning to the dark side and the Empire,
but the Father wiped them away
before they could fully corrupt him, for now.
20 BBY.
At the Battle of Umbara,
General Pong Krell takes control of the 501st Legion
and irresponsibly orders them into direct combat.
Fives protests the General's obvious insanity,
but Rex insists that it's their duty
to carry out his orders no matter the cost.
Given Krell's increasingly nonsensical orders,
Five goes rogue and leads a secret squadron of his own,
comprised of himself, Hardcase, and Jesse.
Though they successfully blow the main supply ship,
at the cost of Hardcase's life,
Krell has them court-martialed for disobeying orders.
When they are on the verge of execution,
Fives appeals to his clone brethren,
reminding them that they are more than mere droids.
While that buys them some time,
Rex investigates the mission
and finds that Krell is setting them against
the 212th Attack Battalion.
It's all an elaborate scheme for him to court Count Dooku.
Krell gets executed for treason,
but Rex and Fives worry about their place in the universe
after the war.
Let's get some bounty hunter stories in here.
Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and Yoda
catch wind of a Separatist plot
to capture Chancellor Palpatine.
That's just something they keep trying to do, apparently.
To hinder the planned abduction,
Obi-Wan fakes his own death
and goes undercover into a prison
as the bounty hunter Rako Hardeen.
There, Fauxbi-Wan meets a gallery of scum and villainy,
including Cad Bane, Boba Fett, and Moralo Eval.
Bane, Eval and Rako Hardeen break out together
and kidnap Palpatine, but of course,
Obi-Wan sells them out and the bounty hunters get arrested.
The operation is a success,
but Palpatine's underlying plan still comes to pass.
The mission fractures Anakin's trust in the Jedi Council
and even his master.
Speaking of poor master-apprentice relations,
Ventress comes out of hiding and reunites with Mother Talzin
and the Nightsisters.
Count Dooku is still bitter
over that whole assassination attempt,
so he sends Grievous to Dathomir
to finish off the Nightsisters.
With the Separatists banging on their door,
the elderly Daka summons an army of the undead as a defense.
Grievous executes her and the others,
leaving only Talzin and Ventress as the survivors.
Meanwhile, Savage Opress' search for Maul
leads him to the junk world of Lotho Minor.
He finds his brother half-mechanized
and driven mad by a decade in solitude.
Despite his mania, Maul still has one clear goal:
get revenge on Obi-Wan Kenobi.
He challenges Obi-Wan,
inviting him to a duel on the planet Raydonia.
Obi-Wan is outnumbered and outmatched by the Nightbrothers,
until Asajj Ventress arrives.
She has her own bone to pick with Savage,
so she and Obi-Wan form an unlikely alliance.
They can't overcome the powerful Nightbrothers,
but they escape with their lives.
On the jungle world of Onderon,
the government falls to Separatist influence,
but a rebel faction led by Steela and Saw Gerrera
push back against their reign.
The Republic doesn't want to send a full force of troops,
so instead, they send Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka and Rex
to train the rebels.
After successfully taking down the droid power station,
the rebels elect Steela as their official leader.
Saw's not too happy about his sister's new position,
but he and Steela stand together
to overthrow the Separatists
and reinstate Ramsis Dendup as King.
Tragically, Steela perishes in the resistance effort.
Saw Gerrera goes on to become Forest Whittaker,
combating the Empire with the very skills they taught him.
19 BBY.
Maul and Opress are rampaging across the galaxy,
leaving wanton destruction and seizing wealth at every turn.
Though Obi-Wan foils their plans at Hondo Ohanka's base,
they get discovered by Pre Vizsla and the Death Watch.
Maul and Vizsla have a mutual disdain for Obi-Wan Kenobi,
so they collude to take back Mandalore
and slay Kenobi in one decisive move.
They enlist members of Black Sun, the Hutt Clan,
and the Pyke Syndicate to form the Shadow Collective.
The Collective has no loyalty
to either side of the Clone Wars
and simply exists for their own vengeful purposes.
As vengeful fellows, though,
Maul and Vizsla realize
they'll probably betray each other as soon as possible.
Here's their plan:
the Collective wreaks havoc on Mandalore,
and the Death Watch swoop in as big damn heroes.
Again.
Only this time, it works.
The public favor shifts from Duchess Satine
over to Pre Vizsla,
and the Death Watch leader imprisons Maul and Opress.
Maul saw this coming, so he challenges Vizsla to a duel,
decapitates him and claims the Darksaber for himself.
At the same time,
he reinstates the jailed Almec as Prime Minister
because screw Satine, I guess!
Everything is crazy on Mandalore,
so Satine sends out an SOS to Obi-Wan Kenobi,
her only hope.
Obi-Wan's personally invested in the cause,
so he bypasses the Senate intervention ruling
and hurries straight to Mandalore, right into Maul's trap.
His old adversary taunts him by Force-choking Satine,
trying to push him toward the dark side,
but Obi-Wan refuses to give into him.
Finally, Maul kills Satine and throws Obi-Wan into prison.
Darth Sidious senses the sheer madness and collision
of plot threads going on, so he wants in on the party too.
As Obi-Wan escape Mandalore,
Sidious tags in and takes on Maul and Opress in combat.
Of course, he wipes the floor with them,
killing Savage, then tormenting Maul with Force lightning.
In the end, he spares his old Sith apprentice;
he can still use him for future nefarious plans.
As the war wages on,
Barriss Offee comes to believe
that the Jedi Council have lost their way.
Truthfully, they probably never should have gotten involved
with the war at all.
She allies with Letta Turmond and they bomb the Jedi Temple.
Since Anakin and Ahsoka were absent
at the time of the attack,
they were put in charge of the investigation.
They determine Turmond's guilty and arrest her,
but while she's in custody, Offee chokes her to death.
The security footage of the murder
makes it seem as if Ahsoka did the choking,
so she's arrested.
Anakin is the only one who believes she didn't do it,
so she's forced to go on the run
until she can clear her name.
While on the run, Ahsoka crosses paths with Asajj Ventress,
and they form a truce.
However, the clones still capture Ahsoka anyway.
The Jedi want to give her a customary trial,
but Admiral Wilhuff Tarkin convinces them to exile her
so they can try her as a terrorist.
To appease the Senate,
the Council throws Ahsoka under the bus.
Anakin still has faith, so he tracks down Ventress,
who points him in Offee's direction.
Offee gets caught, and Ahsoka is cleared,
but she's no longer interested
in being part of the Jedi order.
She goes off on her own,
leaving both her and Anakin disenfranchised
with the whole system.
That's not the only trouble in the Republic.
Clone Trooper Tup malfunctions,
prematurely activating Order 66.
He assassinates Jedi Master Tiplar,
and during the investigation,
Fives discovers the hidden programming buried in all clones.
He tries to warn Anakin and Rex of the coming Jedi purge,
but gets himself killed before anyone buys into it.
So, the Jedi are pretty much dead meat,
but there's still hope for their spirits.
Qui-Gon Jinn reaches out to Yoda through the Force,
from beyond the grave.
He summons Yoda to Dagobah,
where he reveals his tutelage under the Shaman of the Whills
to become a Force ghost.
Though Qui-Gon himself cannot return in full-bodied glory,
he sets Yoda on the path to unlock that ability.
Yoda's trial leads him to an ancient world
from which the Force originates, but not Mortis,
and then to the homeworld of the Sith, but not Exegol.
I guess the Sith have multiple homeworlds, right?
On Moraband, Yoda trips hard on Force illusions,
even hearing his own last words,
but proves himself worthy of the Force's greatest abilities.
Near the conclusion of the Clone Wars,
Anakin and Obi-Wan receive word
of a dangerous trade deal on Utapau.
General Grievous is looking to obtain
a massive kyber crystal for some kind of destructive weapon.
The Jedi block the trade,
but Yoda warns that the Sith
have a history of creating
weapons of mass destruction in this way,
perhaps even, planet killers.
General Grievous remains stationed on Utapau,
where Kenobi will one day cross paths with him again.
Post-War.
Just a few odds and ends to wrap up here
before you get back to the Battle of Coruscant.
Think of this as the Where Are They Now? epilogue
to wrap up some of the characters
that don't get screen time in the movies.
Meanwhile, Asajj Ventress continues her
Spy-versus-Spy game with Count Dooku,
until a crash landing on Christophsis
sets up their final encounter.
Ventress had fallen in love with Quinlan Vos,
another Jedi who was seduced to the dark side.
She sacrifices herself to save him,
and her loss shows him that redemption is still possible.
Maul spends time as Palpatine's prisoner
before escaping back to Dathomir.
His presence leads Mother Talzin back into the open,
and Grievous takes the opportunity to kill her
just as Sidious planned.
With her gone, Maul returns to Mandalore.
Rex and Ahsoka are part of a battalion
who come to capture him,
but unfortunately that happens to be Order 66 day.
Ahsoka has to choose between saving Rex or killing Maul,
so she saves her friend
and Maul lives on to found the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate.
Not bad for a guy who got Boba Fetted in his first movie.
Anyways, all of these characters
go on to do way more things in Star Wars: Rebels,
so let us know if you want to see that timeline too.
And be sure to subscribe to Channel Frederator.
I've been your host, Justice, and thanks for watching!