Galactic Civil War/Legends

The Galactic Civil War (approx. 1 BBY - 19 ABY) was a major galactic conflict fought between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance. It finally ended in 19 ABY when the remnants of the Empire signed a peace accord. The war led to the establishment of the New Republic, and was preceded by the Clone Wars and the Great Jedi Purge.

Origin of the Galactic Civil War
The collapse of the Old Republic in 19 BBY led to the establishment of the Empire under former Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, a scheming Sith lord. Taking the title of Emperor, he established a dictatorial regime that quickly exterminated major resistance, including the ancient protectors of the Republic, the Jedi Order. Of the several thousand Jedi, only two, Jedi Masters Obi-wan Kenobi and Yoda survived the Great Jedi Purge.

The Emperor's Sith apprentice, Darth Vader was integral part of the Purge and the establishment of the Empire. Before he turned to the Dark Side of the Force, he was known as Anakin Skywalker, a Jedi Knight and apprentice to Obi-wan Kenobi. Darth Vader (titled Dark Lord of the Sith and Supreme Imperial Military Executor) "helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi knights", according to Kenobi. His deceased wife Padmé Amidala had bore him two children, whom he thought had died along with her. These two children, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa would later become leaders of the Rebel Alliance. Luke was taken to Tatooine and hidden with his uncle Owen Lars and Leia was adopted by Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan.

After the Empire was established, the Galactic Senate was reorganized into the Imperial Senate. However, it quickly became a rubberstamp assembly. Another event known as the Ghorman Massacre made it clear that the Empire had no regard for human rights. When this development became clear, a small group of senators, including Bail Organa and Mon Mothma, formed the Rebel Alliance. They issued their Declaration of Rebellion to legitimize their fight against the Empire and list their grievances. Thus began the Galactic Civil War, which was to rage over 20 years.

The Civil War heats up
From the beginning, the Rebel Alliance was vastly outmanned and outgunned by the much more powerful and better organized Imperial Navy, supplied with powerful warships by the Kuat Drive Yards. The secret defection of the Incom Corporation added badly needed capital ships to the Alliance. However, the Rebels were still forced to rely on hit and run tactics, which were orchestrated primarily to harass Imperial shipping and operations. Leia Organa, adopted daughter of Bail Organa, became an Imperial Senator for Alderaan and used her diplomatic immunity to conduct secret Rebel missions aboard her corvette Tantive IV.

The Rebel Alliance operated an efficient and widespread intelligence network of Bothan spies. Through this network, the Alliance learned of the construction of the Death Star I, an extremely powerful space station capable of annihilating planets with its superlaser. The spies managed to obtain a technical readout of the station and transmit it to Leia Organa aboard her ship. However, Imperial forces discovered the plot and Star Destroyers under the command of Darth Vader captured the Tantive IV in a space battle above Tatooine, where Leia had been trying to reach. She hoped to enlist the help of Obi-wan Kenobi, who was in hiding on the planet and was watching over the young Luke Skywalker.

As Vader's forces entered her ship, Leia Organa made a last desperate gamble and hid the plans of the Death Star aboard the astromech droid R2-D2. R2-D2, along with C-3P0 used an escape pod to travel to Tatooine, where they were purchased from the Jawa scavengers who found them by Owen Lars, uncle of Luke Skywalker. Skywalker soon discovered a portion of the message in R2-D2 and became interested. However, R2-D2, operating under programming included with the plans, escaped and tried to find Obi-wan Kenobi. Skywalker, who conveniently met up with Kenobi in the Dune Sea, tracked him down. R2-D2 then played back for them Leia Organa's desperate plea for help. The two discovered that Imperial Stormtroopers had attacked the Jawas who had sold them the two droids in a search for the plans. Luke returned to his home to find his aunt and uncle slaughtered at Imperial hands. He then accompanied Kenobi to Mos Eisley, where, evading Imperial troops, the two chartered space pirate Han Solo and his first mate Chewbacca to take them and the plans to Alderaan aboard the Millennium Falcon.

Meanwhile, Darth Vader had taken Leia Organa to the Death Star, which was under the control of Grand Moff Tarkin. He had also been the perpetrator of the Ghorman Massacre. When she refused to provide them with the location of the Rebel base or the whereabouts of the plans, and after the failure of torture to provide results, Tarkin destroyed Alderaan in an attempt to force her to confess, which she did, albeit falsely. The Millennium Falcon arrived in the midst of the destroyed planet, after having barely escaped Imperial clutches above Tatooine. There, the Death Star's massive tractor beam captured the freighter. However, they managed to disable the tractor beam and free Princess Leia through an elaborate series of tricks. As they were escaping however, Darth Vader confronted Kenobi in a lightsaber duel that ended in Kenobi's death. The Millennium Falcon escaped, only to be tracked by Imperial troops to the Rebel base on Yavin IV. There, the technical readouts of the Death Star were analyzed for a weakness, and the rebels sent ships to destroy the Death Star, which was attempting to obliterate the Rebel base. Luke Skywalker managed gain a direct hit on a thermal exhaust port, which caused a chain reaction and destroyed the battle station at the last second.

Rebels on the run
The Rebel Alliance fled to the ice world of Hoth. Vader meanwhile, who had escaped the destruction of the Death Star by luck, became obsessed with finding Skywalker and used imperial probe droids launched from his command ship, the Executor of the Imperial Death Squadron, to seek him and the Rebel Alliance out. The rebel base on Hoth was discovered and the rebels fled while they fought a last ditch stalling effort, which would become known as the Battle of Hoth. After much pursuit, Darth Vader captured Skywalker's friends on Cloud City, where they had been hoping to seek temporary asylum from Han Solo's friend, Lando Calrissian. Luke, under the advice of the Force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi, had traveled to Dagobah and had become a Jedi apprentice to Jedi Master Yoda. Through the Force, he became aware of his friend's suffering and despite the pleas of Yoda and Kenobi to stay, left Dagobah for Cloud City in an attempt to save his friends, who ended up saving him after he confronted Darth Vader. Vader also revealed to Luke in their battle that he was his father. At the last second, the friends escaped aboard the Millennium Falcon, though Han Solo was taken in carbonite to the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine by the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

The Rebels triumph
After freeing Han Solo on Tatooine, Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian (along with the droids R2-D2 and C-3P0) met up with the Rebel Alliance near the system of Sullust. The Rebels were amassing their entire fleet for a new strike. The Bothan spies had reported that the Empire has begun construction on a new space station, the Death Star II, which would be much larger and much more powerful. The Rebels had determined to destroy it by launching a last ditch attack against it before it could be completed. The sense of urgency was heightened by the fact that the Emperor himself would be aboard the station, making a shot at the head of the Empire himself possible.

The Death Star was protected by force field generated from the forest moon of Endor. Han Solo, Chewbacca, Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker, R2-D2, and C-3P0 led an expedition to disable the shield and allow the attack to occur. Once on Endor however, Luke turned himself in to Darth Vader, his father, hoping to rescue him from the clutches of the Emperor and the Dark Side of The Force. Vader took him aboard the uncompleted Death Star and before the Emperor, who attempted to lure him to the Dark Side by placing him in combat with Vader, whom he defeated. However, instead of killing Vader, he renounced the Dark Side. Palpatine then attempted to kill him with a shower of deadly Force lightning, but Darth Vader threw him into a reactor core shaft, killing the Emperor. At this same moment, the Rebels managed to deactivate the shield. The resulting Battle of Endor led to the destruction of the Death Star, although Skywalker escaped with Vader's body. The Emperor was dead and the main Imperial fleet was defeated.

Aftermath of Endor
Like in most rebellions, the last battle did not end the civil war. The Empire quickly began to disintegrate into sectors controlled by rival warlords. However, various members of the Inner Circle attempted to reassert control. The first was Sate Pestage, who was largely successful until he was betrayed to the Rebels by Ysanne Isard. In the end, the Rebels captured Coruscant (Imperial Center), the galactic capital world, and signed a peace accord with the remains of the Empire, the Imperial Remnant, in 19 ABY.

Legacy of the Galactic Civil War
The Rebels formed the New Republic after the Battle of Endor, which eventually encompassed much of the galaxy. It included a new Senate and a more powerful chief executive, the first of which was Mon Mothma. However, it was hampered by both fear of dictatorship and corruption, proving that the Galactic Civil War had not completely succeeded in its quest to restore the Old Republic. The New Republic ended with the invasion of the alien Yuuzhan Vong, when it was reorganized several times.

Politics of the Civil War
Many different species and planets supported the Rebel Alliance's bid to overthrow the Emperor, including the fishlike race the Mon Calamari and Bail Organa's own home planet of Alderaan. Although early on the Rebels used positions in the Imperial Senate to gain influence and took advantage of the diplomatic immunity provided, the Senate was abolished in 0 BBY and many Rebel Senators were discovered. Mon Mothma, leader of the Rebel Alliance, barely escaped capture by the Imperial Security Bureau, the Empire's ruthless secret police force.

The Empire continued to erode freedoms during this period, using the conflict as an excuse. Under Tarkin's suggestion, the Emperor mandated the Tarkin Doctrine, which stated that the Empire would use fear of force rather than force itself to control dissent. This culminated in the construction of the first Death Star. It's use at Alderaan was to be one of its only uses; it's purpose was to demonstrate Imperial power, not to eliminate countless worlds. The Emperor also began to come under the influence of what became known as his Inner Circle. These men, including the devious Sate Pestage, eventually took control of the day-to-day operations of the Empire. Although evil enough in his own right, Palpatine allowed his bureaucracy to grow exceedingly large and corrupt under the influence of these men. The Empire also instituted a system of xenophobic racism, which left only human beings in control of most Imperial operations. This encouraged species like the Mon Calamari to support the Rebel Alliance.

Timeline of Major Events

 * 19 BBY - Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, in the wake of the Clone Wars and in response to an alleged rebellion by the Jedi, declares the formation of the Galactic Empire with himself as Emperor for life.
 * 1 BBY - The Rebel Alliance takes shape.
 * 0 BBY - Battle of Yavin The Rebel Alliance achieves its first large-scale victory against the Empire with the destruction of the first Death Star, marking a turning point in both the war and galactic history.
 * 3 ABY - Battle of Hoth The Empire discovers the Alliance's secret base on the fourth planet of the Hoth System and launches a successful attack on the Rebel base, with many Rebel casualties.
 * 4 ABY - Battle of Endor Lando Calrissian, Wedge Antilles and Nien Nunb destroy the second Death Star. Admiral Piett dies when the Executor crashes into the Death Star. Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker is redeemed to the Light Side of the Force by the efforts of Luke Skywalker. Anakin Skywalker destroys Palpatine, saving his son's life, and dies on the Light Side of the Force. The Empire as the galaxy knows it is brought to an end and begins to tear itself apart through warlordism.
 * 4 ABY - The Truce at Bakura The Rebel Alliance and the Imperial garrison on Bakura negotiate a temporary truce in order to repel an invasion by the Ssi-Ruuvi.
 * 6 ABY - Battle of Coruscant The New Republic recaptures Coruscant from Imperial Intelligence director Ysanne Isard.
 * 7 ABY - The Krytos virus - an artificial virus created by Evir Derricote - begins killing most of Coruscant's alien population. This starts the small yet important conflict known as the The Bacta War.
 * 8 ABY - The Hapan Consortium forms an alliance with the New Republic. The Nightsisters are defeated in Dathomir. Zsinj is killed.
 * 9 ABY - Grand Admiral Thrawn begins his campaign against the New Republic. The long lost Katana Fleet is rediscovered. The Noghri turn against the Galactic Empire. Thrawn is slain by the Noghri Rukh onboard his flagship Chimaera.
 * 10 ABY - Emperor Palpatine returns in a series of clone bodies and begins terrorising the New Republic. Coruscant and several other key Core Worlds are reconquered by the Galactic Empire.
 * 11 ABY - The reborn Emperor is finally destroyed. Carnor Jax takes over the reins of the Empire. Luke Skywalker starts the Jedi Academy and begins training a new generation of Jedi Knights. Kyp Durron, under the influence of the Sith Lord Exar Kun, destroys the Cauldron Nebula and Carida.
 * 12 ABY - Roganda Ismaren locates the Eye of Palpatine and tries to use it against the New Republic. Durga the Hutt] constructs the [[Darksaber superweapon in an attempt to start an empire. Admiral Daala returns and tries to destroy the Jedi Academy on Yavin 4.
 * 13 ABY - The Empire under Admiral Daala and Gilad Pellaeon regroups.
 * 14 ABY - The Crystal Star
 * 16-17 ABY - The Black Fleet Crisis
 * 18 ABY - The Corellian Trilogy
 * 19 ABY - The New Republic and the last fragment of the Empire sign a peace treaty ending all legalized conflict between the Empire and the New Republic. At this time the Imperial Remnant, led by Grand Admiral Gilad Pellaeon, consisted of 18 backwater sectors bordering the Unknown Regions in the Outer Rim.