Grand Army of the Republic

The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), also known as the Grand Army, Clone Army, Army of the Republic or Republic Army, was a major branch of the Galactic Republic Military composed entirely of clone troopers, an army of elite soldiers created from the genetically altered template of the bounty hunter Jango Fett. Bred in secret within the cloning facilities of the planet Kamino, the Grand Army was officially formed by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine at the behest of the Galactic Senate in response to the Separatist Crisis which threatened to divide the galaxy between the Republic and the newly born Confederacy of Independent Systems. The members of the Jedi Order were commissioned as high-ranking commanders and generals in the GAR, second in authority only to Chancellor Palpatine, who held the rank of Supreme Commander. Under the leadership of their Jedi officers, the Grand Army engaged the Separatist Droid Army on many worlds during the Clone Wars, suffering heavy casualties for three years while restoring Republic sovereignty to numerous rebellious areas throughout the galaxy.

By the year 19 BBY, the Clone Wars were nearly over and the Republic was on the verge of a decisive victory. In the midst of the final battles, particularly in the Outer Rim Campaign, Chancellor Palpatine issued Order 66, an executive command calling on all clone troopers to neutralize their Jedi officers with lethal force in the event of a Jedi insurrection. The vast majority of clones, programmed to obey Sidious's command without question or debate, turned their weapons on the Jedi and promptly gunned them down. On Coruscant, the newly-anointed Sith Lord Darth Vader, formerly Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker who betrayed the Jedi and became Sidious's apprentice, led the 501st Legion in an attack on the Jedi Temple, killing nearly all of its inhabitants within mere days before the Chancellor's Declaration of a New Order. Immediately following the Republic's transition into the first Galactic Empire, the Grand Army of the Republic was reorganized into the Stormtrooper Corps; its remaining clone soldiers composing the ranks of the reformed branch in addition to the millions of new clones engineered by Spaarti technology. Under the reign of Emperor Palpatine, the Imperial stormtroopers became a symbol of the New Order, most notably due to their unwavering loyalty to the Emperor. Likewise, what's left of the Grand Army of the Republic formed the basis of the Imperial Army, which acted as the surface warfare branch of the Imperial Military, with the human commanders being promoted to being the officers within the branch.

At the end of the Clone Wars, it was discovered that Palpatine was secretly Darth Sidious, a Dark Lord of the Sith who belonged to an order dedicated to the fall of the Republic and the destruction of the Jedi. As Palpatine and Sidious, the Dark Lord controlled both sides of the civil war, deceived both the Jedi and Confederacy, and used the GAR as an instrument to restore Sith rule to the galaxy while simultaneously purging it of the Jedi Knights. As a result, the GAR was remembered as a key factor in the Sith plot that brought about the era of the Dark Times and the subsequent Galactic Civil War between the Empire and the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

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