Operation: Knightfall

"I want you to go to the Jedi Temple. We will catch them off balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate, show no mercy."

- Darth Sidious

Operation: Knightfall, which took place in 19 BBY immediately before the end of the Clone Wars, was one of the first conflicts of the Great Jedi Purge. After assisting in the death of Jedi Master Mace Windu and submitting to the tutelage of Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious, known to the galaxy as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic Palpatine, Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker fell to the dark side and was anointed Darth Vader. Just afterward, he was assigned the clone troopers of the 501st Legion and tasked with storming the Jedi Temple on Coruscant alongside them. This massacre, as well as the mandate given to the clones instructing them to kill their Jedi officers in the field, marked the beginning of the Great Jedi Purge, a galaxy-wide hunt of the Jedi. Most of the Jedi inside the Temple were executed by the invaders while the Temple burned, and within minutes of the Purge's inception, much of Jedi Order was wiped out.

During the fighting, Vader altered a beacon that alerted Jedi across the galaxy&mdash;the ones that had not already fallen to the clones in their ranks&mdash;that the Clone Wars were over and ordered them back to the Temple, where a garrison of clone troopers lay in ambush to finish them off. All of the Jedi who complied with the beacon's mandate were killed by squads of clones, some of whom were disguised as Jedi themselves. To prevent more deaths, two surviving Jedi Masters, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda, infiltrated the Temple and altered the beacon, changing the message to ward any surviving Jedi away and instructing them to could go into hiding. With the operation's completion, the bodies of the slain Jedi were publicly burned in a massive pyre in front of the Jedi Temple Public Entrance.

Prelude
Since their first encounter, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (secretly Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious) had an interest in Anakin Skywalker, a boy intent on learning the Jedi ways. He positioned himself as a mentor and father figure to the boy in order to influence his decisions. Skywalker trusted Palpatine absolutely, confiding in him his greatest secrets, such as his slaughtering Tusken Raiders on Tatooine, his relationship with Senator Padmé Amidala, her pregnancy with his child, and his visions of her dying in childbirth. In 19 BBY, near the end of the Clone Wars, Palpatine invited now-Jedi Knight Skywalker to a performance of Squid Lake by the Mon Calamari Ballet in the Galaxies Opera House. There, he recited to Skywalker the The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise, telling him that there were Sith techniques that he could learn to save Amidala. Later, Palpatine admitted to Skywalker that he knew how to utilize the dark side of the Force and Skywalker realized that he was actually a Sith Lord. The Knight was shocked by this revelation and he fled to the Jedi Temple to inform Jedi Master Mace Windu, who immediately informed the Jedi at the Temple before taking a squad of Masters to apprehend the Sith.

In his office on Coruscant, Sidious was confronted by Windu's group and all but Windu were quickly killed by the Sith. Sidious and Windu continued fighting until Skywalker arrived, deciding that Amidala's life was more important to him than his commitment to the Jedi. Skywalker cut off Windu's sword arm to save the Sith Lord, and Sidious threw Windu out of a window to his death. Skywalker then pledged himself to Sidious's Sith teachings, being dubbed Darth Vader. Sidious declared the Jedi Order a threat to the Republic and Vader was assigned the task of marching through the halls of the Jedi Temple and eliminating this growing "menace." The troopers of the 501st Legion were transferred to Coruscant from the war theater of Utapau to serve Lord Vader during the mission.

While Skywalker was on his mission, Sidious enacted Order 66, a mandate that had been drilled into every Republic clone trooper across the galaxy since before the Clone Wars had broken out. It commanded them to attack and kill their Jedi commanders in the name of the Republic. Within minutes, many Jedi were killed by their formerly loyal subordinates, though some survived the order.

The battle
"You have done well, my new apprentice. Your skills are unmatched by any Sith before you. Now, Lord Vader, go and bring peace to the Empire."

- Emperor Palpatine to Darth Vader

Marching silently to the gates of the Temple with the 501st, Darth Vader was met by Gate Master Jurokk, whom Vader asked about the whereabouts of Jedi Master Shaak Ti, the current commander of the Temple. Jurokk told him she was in the Temple meditating. Vader then ignited his lightsaber through Jurokk's head before entering the building.

As the troopers dispersed throughout the Temple's vaulted halls, Vader began to eliminate the Jedi within. He took a small group of clones to capture the communication center via the Jedi Archives. There, a weary Jedi Knight named Sha Koon awoke to smoke and a battle raging in the Temple. Though surprised at clones in the halls surrounding the archive, she felt their intent through the Force and blindly fled deep into the temple.

Upon entering the Temple's library with the clones, Darth Vader ordered Jocasta Nu, the Chief librarian of the Archives, to grant him access to the communication room. Nu, already sensing something suspicious, had earlier dispatched her Padawan, Jin-Lo Rayce, to the lower levels of Coruscant with detailed maps of the planet's underbelly as a means of keeping him alive. When she ignited her lightsaber to confront the Sith, Vader used the Force to impale her with his own saber, killing her.

Koon sensed Nu's death through the Force. In tandem, she also identified Skywalker as the perpetrator of this massacre and realized that he had turned from the light and become a Sith Lord. This heightened her will to survive, which she did by utilizing the same passageways Rayce did to escape, having learned of them from him earlier.

Operation: Knightfall
"What I remember about the rise of the Empire is&hellip; is how quiet it was. During the waning hours of the Clone Wars, the 501st Legion was discreetly transferred back to Coruscant. It was a silent trip. We all knew what was about to happen, what we were about to do. Did we have any doubts? Any private traitorous thoughts? Perhaps, but no one said a word. Not on the flight back to Coruscant, not when Order 66 came down, and not when we marched into the Jedi Temple. Not a word."

- Extract from the Journal of the 501st

The clones charged into the temple foyer and met heavy resistance from Jedi and Temple Security Force personnel. Their first objective was to clear the High Council Chamber of resistance. After that succeeded, they moved to the library, where the Jedi were attempting to destroy holobooks to prevent the 501st troopers from stealing any confidential Jedi information or Sith secrets. However, the troopers managed to save a few bookcases from destruction by the Jedi long enough for a download of their contents to take place. Then, the troopers took a file from the Jedi Archives containing a sum of Sith and Jedi knowledge, delivering it to an awaiting Low Altitude Assault Transport so it could be taken away from the battle. In the ensuing carnage, one of the Jedi activated a ray shield system and hid in a shield protected room. Vader disabled the shield system and killed the Jedi before proceeding into one of the surrounding halls. As he moved into the hall, Jedi ambushed the clone attackers. Vader, at a clone's advice, toppled a large statue, crushing many of the Jedi. Using a piece of that statue, he then broke down the door into a study hall and the group proceeded to kill many Jedi students. After battling his way across an outdoor catwalk, the raid continued into the hangar bay, where Vader shot down Jedi interceptors with an anti-aircraft gun erected by the clones as they were released from the Temple hangar in an attempt to cut down the clone force.

When Darth Vader reached the top of the High Council quarter, he moved to the communication center and altered a beacon that notified all Jedi to return to the Jedi Temple because the war was over. A clone private then informed him that a Jedi, later identified as Cin Drallig, had managed to penetrate upper-level defenses. Vader told him that he would deal with Drallig and ordered the nearby clone assassins to guard the beacon with their lives.

Hunting the Masters and children
"Master Skywalker, there are too many of them. What are we going to do?"

- Sors Bandeam just before he and his clan were killed by Darth Vader

Before tracking down Drallig, Vader made his way through the First Knowledge quarter to one of the many briefing rooms, where Drallig's former apprentice, Serra Keto, confronted Vader and engaged him in a duel. Jumping on a balcony that looked over a training veranda in the Tower of First Knowledge, she cut into a pillar and Vader toppled it, using it to crush her.

As the remaining Jedi Masters realized that the Temple was lost, they began to send Knights and Padawans out through the Temple Precinct. Vader made his way to the base of the Temple where he found Drallig guarding a group of fleeing younglings in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. After murdering two of Drallig's trainees, Bene and Whie Malreaux, the Sith slashed Drallig in the shoulder, leaving him to die. The squad of clones accompanying Vader then blasted at the other Padawans Drallig was protecting, killing most of them. A Zabrak Jedi had also been assigned to protect a group of younglings. He was caught by Vader and, after a brief duel, struck down.

As the clones continued the attack, Darth Vader discovered Shaak Ti within her chambers. After dueling and disorienting the Sith Lord, she managed to lead a band of Padawans and their Masters out of the Temple and later secured a small number of her charges passage through the Undercity of Coruscant. Along with Master Ti, Council Member Even Piell fled into the depths of the planet. Leader of the Special Operations Brigade, a special forces division of the clone army, Arligan Zey had gone to the Temple upon hearing of the death of General Grievous, a Jedi hunter and Supreme Commander of the forces opposing the Republic during the Clone Wars, only to be caught in the battle within the halls of his sanctuary. He made it out of the Temple and found his way back to his offices in Arca Barracks, where his aide, the Advanced Recon Commando Captain Maze, helped him flee the planet. Among the other survivors were Jedi Kazdan Paratus, who ran away in fear; Jax Pavan, a Jedi Knight; and the last Curator of Records.

The raid continues
"I saw thousands of troops attack the Jedi Temple. That's why I went looking for Yoda."

- Bail Organa

Meanwhile, the 501st Legion secured all four Jedi Council chambers and engaged the Temple Security Force in the main hall. Darth Vader then returned from his duel with Cin Drallig and collected a holocron from the corpse of a Jedi he had killed alongside his troops. As they focused the brunt of their attack on the hall, three Jedi Masters, who had taken somewhat of a military command over the remaining Jedi, led the last of the Jedi into the main hall in a final attempt to repel the 501st. The Jedi came out in a sudden charge against the clones, although the three were eventually killed along with their allies by the insurgents.

As the Temple burned, Bail Organa, the Senator from Alderaan and a Jedi sympathizer, landed on the landing platform of one of the Council Tower hangars to investigate the fire. After being turned away by the clones guarding the hangar, the retreating Senator witnessed the execution of Zett Jukassa, a young Padawan. The clones started to fire on Bail Organa until Sergeant Fox told them to let him go.

As the fighting began to die down, Darth Sidious arrived at the Temple to check on Vader's progress. Vader kneeled before his master and was congratulated by the Dark Lord. The apprentice then traveled to Mustafar to eliminate the leaders of the Confederacy of Independant Systems, a group of planets that had seceeded from the Republic three years prior and fought the Clone War to remain so, assembled there by Sidious for "talks" to end the conflict.

The Jedi incursion
"Have we had any contact from the Temple?''" "Received a coded retreat message, we have." "It requests all Jedi to return to the Temple. It says the war is over." "''Well, then we must go back. If there are any stragglers, they will fall into the trap and be killed."

- Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, and Bail Organa

The day after the raid, two survivors of Order 66, Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, received the message ordering all Jedi to return to the Temple, immediately recognizing it as the trap it was. The two Jedi Masters returned to the Temple during an emergency Senate session, which diverted much of the clone garrison to the Senate Building. They found the Temple in shambles, fires still burning and bodies from both sides of the conflict strewn through the halls. Pillars were broken, walls were shattered, entire walkways had collapsed, and the library's bookshelves were torn to pieces.

The duo found that the Temple was still fully guarded by clones of a wide variety of clone classifications including snipers, blaze troopers, and heavy gunners alongside the standard soldiers, some of which were disguised as Jedi. After fighting his way through their former allies alongside Yoda, Kenobi was able to enter the beacon room. There, Kenobi discovered the group of Assassins Vader had left guarding the beacon and dispatched all of them before reconfiguring the beacon to ward Jedi away.

Public and non-clone military response
As the fires burned through the night, the citizens of Galactic City watched in shock as the symbol of the Jedi was engulfed in flames. Skylanes were shut down around the Temple Precinct, with all traffic being directed away from the district. Coruscant Rescue Ops were forbidden from extinguishing the fires cremating the Temple and any ship attempting to approach the Temple was assumed to be doing so with treasonous intent. The Coruscant Security Force joined the clones in tracking down fleeing Jedi and CSF officers assisted when the 501st engaged a group of Jedi trying to escape the Temple via the Shinarcan Bridge Extension.

Jedi casualties
"Not even the younglings survived.''" "Killed not by clones, this Padawan, but by a lightsaber, he was." "''Who? Who could have done this?"

- Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda upon finding a group of murdered Jedi hopefuls in the Temple

As the Temple was secured, the clones began to count the dead. Piling Jedi bodies and checking them off from the Archives rosters, the clones burned the majority of the bodies on the steps of the public entrance. During the course of the raid, Vader also personally executed an entire clan of younglings including Sors Bandeam, Shia Letap, and Jeswi Ele. Jedi Knight Yoland Fee and Master Ali-Alann were killed by clone troopers. Jedi Knight Olana Chion was presumed dead, though her body was never properly identified. In addition to the Jedi casualties, the entire security force of Jedi Knights was killed, as well as most of the Temple Security Force and Temple Caretakers.

Legacy
"With the fall of Coruscant and the elimination of the traitorous Jedi, Palpatine's rise to power was complete."

- Anonymous 501st trooper, after the conflict

Just months after the new Empire was declared, an organization surfaced on Coruscant, a resistance against the totalitarian government known as the Whiplash. These people assisted some of the survivors of Operation: Knightfall, such as the Temple workers and according to rumor Jedi Knights and Padawan learners. These political undesirables labeled "enemies of the state" were transported along a system of safe houses and shelters known as the Underground Mag-Lev and helped off-planet. Some of them even joined the organization.

Vader would later reflect on the night at the Jedi Temple. He believed that his actions were like any duty he had performed as a Jedi: he had completed it to the best of his ability and felt no remorse for any of those he killed. In fact, he felt that his mission was more righteous than anything he'd done for his former allies.

Following the battle, every official recording of the battle was erased and the Temple remained virtually untouched, with the primary exception of the Jedi library. The room's contents were stripped bare, looted, or vandalized beyond any chance of retrieval as time passed after the Operation. No battle damage or vandalism was ever repaired, and the only addition was a landing platform, made to replace the destroyed hangar, which jutted out of the side of the structure. Many pathways in the Temple were permanently sealed by debris and the building was used to store lightsabers taken from many slain Jedi, among them Tru Veld's. Rumors about the Temple being used as a Jedi prison were spread by the Empire to lure any curious Jedi to the area so they could be captured; Jedi Fy-Tor-Ana and former Padawan Ferus Olin both fell for this ruse.

Many rumors were created in the wake of the Temple massacre. One such was that, because it was not publicly known they were the same man, that Anakin Skywalker fought with the Jedi to protect the Temple from Vader and the 501st. Supposedly, Skywalker outlived all other Jedi and faced the Republic onslaught alone, eventually dying while defending a group of children. He would be considered the best of the entire Order by Nick Rostu, a man who served as an officer in the Republic army during the Clone Wars, as well as the greatest hero the galaxy had to offer by the public-at-large. Rostu felt that his death was the reason the Republic fell to Palpatine's dictatorship.

Anakin Skywalker's personal astromech droid, R2-D2, stole a brief clip of Vader and a group of clones killing Drallig and his Padawan charges. He would show it to Skywalker's son, Luke, 55 years later. During 40 ABY, Luke's nephew, Jacen Solo, was conflicted over his own decision to become a Sith Lord so, in the rebuilt Jedi Temple, he flow-walked back to the time of the raid so he could understand his grandfather's motive for the attack. Solo watched Vader murder many Jedi, but was interrupted by a clone trooper who raised his blaster rifle toward the time traveler and forced him to return to his own time.

Behind the scenes
The eradication of the Jedi Order and the turning of Anakin Skywalker was first indirectly mentioned in the original trilogy and later in The Courtship of Princess Leia though the circumstances of this event were not. It was not until 2005, with the release of the Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith novelization and the junior novelization, both before the theatrical release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, that the event was depicted. That widthstanding, the event was barely touched upon in the novel, which skipped to the scene with Bail Organa after Vader kills Jurokk. The LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game, a non-canonical video game that was released three days after the novels, contained the first visual presentation of the event. The brief scene was based upon the scene in Revenge of the Sith where Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi watch holographic security footage of Vader's actions. Shaak Ti is seen being killed in her chamber (a scene that was planned to be in the movie before being cut ), followed by Vader kneeling to Sidious as was seen in the film.

The circumstances surrounding the massacre event were further explored in Star Wars: Battlefront II and the Revenge of the Sith video game, which made the massacre playable while also revealing some of the secondary objectives of the transforming Republic, such as the acquisition of data from the Jedi library.

Cut content
Originally, Kenobi and Yoda were to be greeted by a squad of clone troopers disguised as Jedi in the movie. A promotional image of Temuera Morrison as one of these clones is on the second disc of the Revenge of the Sith DVD set, suggesting that they were considered for the movie. These clones were included&mdash;but not in the story&mdash;as playable characters in LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game and in the compilation game LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga. A group of these clones appeared in the novelization, though, making them canonical.

Non-canonical appearances

 * Evil Eyes
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
 * Republic Commando: Order 66
 * Tag & Bink: Revenge of the Clone Menace

Notes and references
de:Operation: Knightfall es:Operación: Caída del Caballero Операция «Падение рыцарей» fi:Operaatio: Knightfall