The Grand Army of the Republic

A little summary for people who aren’t familiar with Star Wars: The movie Star Wars: Attack of the Clones began with an attempted assassination of a famous galactic senator. As a result, two of the Galactic Peacekeepers, Jedi Knights Obi-Wan Kenobi and his padawan (student) Anakin Skywalker, were sent to protect this senator. On a chase through the streets, they finally caught the assassin, only for her to be shot by her employer with a poisoned dart, killing her and preventing her from divulging any information about her motives for the assassination. Tracing the dart’s design, Kenobi tracked it to a planet called Kamino, an Ocean World, where inside a city called Tipoca City, the Kaminoans were producing an army of clones for the Republic. 

This is a summary of Star Wars’ main story over the course of many movies. The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) was known as the “Boys in White,” and was considered the best army in the galaxy. They were cloned from the genetic template of the Mandalorian Bounty Hunter, Jango Fett. These clones were trained from an early age in their respective squads, to complete mission objectives, work together, and care for each other. By the time of Star Wars: Attack of the Clones millions of troops were already trained and waiting for deployment. Following the capture of Obi-Wan Kenobi on the planet Geonosis, the Jedi sent a massive army of over 200 Jedi to rescue him from the Separatists, who were made up of independent planet systems that decided to secede from the Galactic Republic.  Upon mounting this mission, the Jedi knew that they would need anyone they could get since they expected a large resistance from the droid factories mass producing battle droids. However, the battle quickly went downhill, as the droids and native Geonosians quickly overwhelmed the Jedi, killing hundreds and encircling the remaining survivors. In this time though, Master Yoda was on Kamino, inspecting these clones, and decided that he had to save the surviving Jedi on Geonosis. He immediately departed Kamino and rushed to Geonosis, bringing a landing force of the newly trained clones to the front, gaining a narrow victory and saving all the survivors. However, this battle started a three year long Galactic Civil War.

Over this three year long civil war, the Kaminoans continued to mass produce these clones and train them in their facilities before being sent onto the front. Notable soldiers include: CT-7567 (Captain Rex, captain of the 501st legion and later commander of the 332nd Division, serving under the command of General Skywalker), CC-2224 (Commander Cody, leading the 212th division under General Kenobi) and CT-3636 (Commander Wolffe, leading the 104th Battalion under General Plo Koon). These soldiers exhibited great loyalty to their commanders, bravery on the field, and compassion for their fellow soldiers – “brothers” as they called them. These brave, famous soldiers fought against the Separatists alongside their Jedi commanders for three years until a tragic event ended the entire Civil War. 

Since these clones were implanted with an organic biochip in the early stages of their development under the pretext that they would not listen to any rogue Jedi, the real reason for these chips was to brainwash them and force them to execute Order 66. This protocol stated that all Jedi were traitors to the republic and were to be executed for treason. As a result, upon the activation of this protocol, all of the clones in the GAR except a select few turned on their commanders and killed them. Only a handful of Jedi survived this infamous “Jedi Purge”, including Master Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano and Master Yoda. These Jedi would go into hiding following the Purge, concealing their identities while wandering around the galaxy as a common person.