Droid uprising

The droid uprising was a massive gathering of droids assembled by Captain Ought-Six of the Droid Crush Pirates of Bestoon with the aim of killing the Sith Lord Darth Vader, who had destroyed every droid who joined the uprising at some point prior in their mechanical lives. The droids took advantage of an Imperial mandate put out by Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine, who sought to test Vader amid the Force Wave, to kill Vader himself. However, one of the uprising's key members, ZED-6-7, was working as a double agent for Vader within its ranks. After the battle with the droid uprising, the uprising droids were reprogrammed by Vader for his own uses. As many of the droids underwent repairs aboard the Executor, however, they would be infected by the Scourge, forcing Vader and the uninfected of the uprising to engage those corrupted.

Later, Vader would try to take control of the Scourge to place its legions of droids under his own control, intending to create his own army with which he could finally best his Sith Master, Darth Sidious. However, the strain of trying to manage so many droid minds on his own proved to be too much. Afterward, Vader focused his efforts on trying to find a team of rebel cyborgs, whom he intended to control by implanting droid brains within their neuro ports; as Vader and ZED-6-7 reasoned, battle droids were unable to betray Vader because of their programming, yet they were not as skilled as organic warriors. However, organic soldiers, such as Vader's own death troopers, had independent minds and could betray their leader: during the Scourge of Coruscant, those death troopers had indeed turned on Vader on the order of Sidious. As such, Vader and ZED plotted to combine the best of both worlds: Vader would control the power of the rebel cyborgs and ensure their loyalty via the installed droid brains. For the cyborgs themselves, who would need to remain conscious for their cybernetics to function, they would be trapped in the horror of being unable to control their own bodies. All the while, Vader still commanded the loyalty of remaining droid uprising members, such as ZED and the Crush Pirates. Vader would unleash a number of the battle droids under his command into the assault on Exegol during his alliance with the Schism Imperial.

Text and facts from the “Droid uprising” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.