Order 66

Order 66, also known as Clone Protocol 66 or Protocol 66, was one of the series of contingency orders that the clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic were required to obey without question. The order was programmed into the Clone Troopers through an inhibitor chip to ensure that the Clones would obey the command. The order branded members of the Jedi Order as traitors to the Republic and called for their immediate execution without question. The issuing of the order by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine caused clone troopers to obey it immediately, due to the programmed mindset of always obeying higher authority figures imbued into them by the Kaminoans, marking the beginning of the Great Jedi Purge and leading on to the rise of the Galactic Empire.

Almost all of the Jedi were killed upon the issuance of Order 66, and most of the survivors were killed in the purge that followed. The Jedi Order survived through the acts of surviving Jedi, such as Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, passing on the ways of the Force and the Jedi to promising Force-sensitives such as Luke Skywalker.

Text and facts from the “Order 66/Legends” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.