Grand Plan

"The future of the Sith no longer hinges on physical prowess but on political cunning. The new Sith will rule less by brute force than by means of instilling fear."

- Darth Plagueis

The Grand Plan, also known as the Sith imperative, was a plot by the Order of the Sith Lords that was centuries in the making. The Plan was a precise formula for dismantling the eradicating the Jedi Order, tearing down the Galactic Republic, and replacing both with a Sith-ruled galaxy. The plan was devised and commenced by the founder of the Order of the Sith Lords, Darth Bane, and carried out by all the subsequent Sith of his order's lineage.

Origins
As the New Sith Wars drew to a close in 1,000 BBY, Darth Bane identified what he believed to be the critical flaw in the Sith efforts up to that point.

Where Lord Kaan's Brotherhood of Darkness and previous Sith had failed, Bane reasoned, was in relying on numerical superiority to attack the Jedi and the Republic. The nature of the dark side demanded power through strength, a tactic Bane believed impossible in circumstances where many lesser Sith could ally to topple stronger Sith.

To wit, Bane sabotaged the last surviving members of the Brotherhood in the Seventh Battle of Ruusan; establishing himself as the sole reigning dark lord of the Sith. As the founder of the new Order of the Sith Lords, governed by the Rule of Two, he enacted a new strategy aimed at the eventual toppling of the Republic and extermination of the Jedi Order–the Grand Plan.

Blix Annon incident
During the reign of Darth Tenebrous, ardently pro-Jedi Senator Blix Annon unwittingly drew the attention of the Sith. Due to his staunch support of the Jedi Order, he unwittingly made himself a target of the Sith plan.

Tenebrous intended to advance the plan by seeing Annon abducted and removed as an obstacle to fomenting Anti-Jedi sentiment. The scheme quickly went awry, however, when Annon died of a heart attack whilst still in captivity and Tenebrous's chosen replacement was arrested in the aftermath.

Last days of the Republic
The economic zenith of the Sith plan came largely during the tenure of Darth Plagueis, a Muun Sith Lord who was more publicly known as the plutocrat Hego Damask. Throughout his reign as dark lord, Plagueis amassed significant financial leverage and allies, which he used to undermine and exacerbate the already-strained relationships between the Core worlds and the Rim.

Simultaenously, Plagueis' apprentice Darth Sidious, publicly known as Naboo noble Palpatine, amassed political influence and authority in the heart of the Republic itself–the Senate.

Together, the pair would accomplish more toward their goals than their Sith predecessors had accomplished in centuries.

Stark Hyperspace War
In 44 BBY, a seemingly small conflict between pirates and the Trade Federation in the Outer Rim proved to be a beneficial crisis to the Sith plan. Darth Sidious would ultimately play puppetmaster to much of the conflict.

Iaco Stark, pirate entrepreneur, began stealing bacta from the Trade Federation and then re-selling it to Federation markets for cheaper than it would have been sold in the first place. While turning a tidy profit for himself, this inflamed the anger of the Trade Federation–a powerful voting bloc in the Senate.

Seeking to resolve the conflict peacefully, Senator Finis Valorum brokered a diplomatic summit at Troiken. But events spiralled into open war when Stark attempted to kidnap the peace delegates.

For a number of decades prior, a Militarist movement had been developing in the Galactic Senate, which advocated repealing a number of the Ruusan Reformations and militarizing the Republic once more. When the conflict erupted after the betrayal at Troiken, Republic Militarist Senator Ranulph Tarkin intervened on the Republic's behalf, styling his personal forces the Republic Army and Navy.

Tarkin's fleet was destroyed and he himself killed, but the conflict fizzled out when Stark defected to the Republic in exchange for amnesty. The damage, however, was already done: the Trade Federation was radicalized and began demanding greater freedom in building droid armies, while the Militarist movement had gained both ground and a martyr.

In the aftermath of the war, Tarkin was declared the Hero of Troiken by newly-elected Supreme Chancellor Valorum, earning the Militarists further legitimacy and adherents. They began pushing for the commissioning of a fleet of dreadnaughts, and even non-Militarists began to advocate taking greater control of outlying systems.

The ramifications of the Stark Hyperspace War on the Republic were significant, and a significant victory toward the Sith's Grand Plan. In a conflict that lasted less than a year, the near-millennium of serene peace that the Republic enjoyed was eroded away and the process of re-militarization begun. Meanwhile, the Trade Federation–soon to find themselves puppets of the Sith–began a military buildup which would prove to be of immense import to the Sith plan in the decades that followed.

Yinchorri Uprising
Less than ten years after the Stark conflict, in 33 BBY, Plagueis and Sidious provoked another conflict in order to advance their goals. They urged the Yinchorri, themselves new admissions to the Republic, into an aggressive war which concluded with multiple victories for the Sith plan.

The Yinchorri, a race immune to mind tricks, were thought by Plagueis to be good potential hosts and trainers of a secret cloned army, which he planned to use to destroy the Jedi. Though this would not ultimately be the case, the resolution of the Yinchorri Uprising still proved to be of great benefit.

In terms of simple bloodshed, the conflict saw the deaths of seven Jedi; one of whom was a member of the Jedi Council. But of greater long-term value, the telepathic manipulative-immune Yinchorri were eliminated as a threat to the rise of the Sith by seeing them defeated and isolated to their own world.

But perhaps most significantly, the Yinchorri incident critically undermined the Chancellorship of Finis Valorum. This created the circumstances necessary for Palpatine–Darth Sidious–to ascend to political supremacy in the Republic.

Political ascendancy
Darth Sidious began to push for further and larger-scale fighting in 32 BBY, using both his good public name and his secret Sith identity to incite conflict between opposing factions.

As Palpatine, he urged Chancellor Valorum to levy taxes on Outer Rim trade routes controlled by the Trade Federation, thereby inflaming the now-militarized economic giant. Simultaneously, as Darth Sidious, he ordered the Federation to blockade and invade Naboo in protest.

The invasion, paired with Valorum's inability to act on the crisis, precipitated a sequence of events which would prove paramount to the success of the Plan. Valorum's Chancellorship was ended in a vote of no-confidence, while Palpatine's rising popularity propelled him into the position as leader of the Republic.

One of the most important victories of the Grand Plan was seeing a Sith Lord ascend to the highest political office of the Republic. While many of the achievements of the Plan to date had contributed in some way, the election of Palpatine allowed the Sith to operate on a level of political authority unprecedented in their order.

A secret army
Shortly before Sidious' election as Chancellor, Plagueis was able to advance the Plan a leap forward in what would prove to be his final contribution. As Hego Damask, he attended a high-society gathering, and while there spoke with Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas.

Years earlier, the two had conversed on the rising unrest throughout the galaxy and the Senate's evident incapability of bringing the situation under control. Plagueis suggested the cloners of Kamino as a good potential for raising an army capable of maintaining galactic order and offered to finance the operation with his own funds, which were of course the product of centuries of Sith acquisitions.

Sifo-Dyas eventually agreed and placed the order, and with the militarization of the economic cartels and the Rim in general, the stage was set for a galaxy-wide war of the Sith's making.

The Clone Wars
A decade passed before war would erupt, but the Sith had not been idle. Fallen Jedi Master Dooku, now secretly apprenticed to Darth Sidious and dubbed Darth Tyranus, had positioned himself as the charismatic leader of the Separatist movement.

In 22 BBY the clone army was discovered by Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, but the discovery came too late to halt the imminent outbreak of war. At Geonosis, the Republic and the newly-declared Confederacy of Independent Systems went to war. The Clone Wars, masterminded on both sides by the Sith Order, had begun.

The war dragged on in near-stalemate for three years. The benefits of the war to the Sith Plan were multiple. Sidious' position as a capable wartime leader was solidified, and he was able to 'accept' increasingly centralized authority. The horrors of war significantly broadened support for militarization, eventually facilitating the Sith's plot for galactic dominion.

Meanwhile, the Jedi Order was diminished both physically and morally. Each Jedi slain in battle was a victory for the Sith Plan, but the real victory over the Jedi was philosophical. Not only were the Jedi forced to abandon their traditional role as keepers of the peace, but they assumed command of an increasingly disgruntled slave army.

Order 66
"It's so flawed that it looks as if all they're trying to do is to maroon as many generals in as many stupid places with inadequate support as they can."

- Republic Commando Corr, commenting on the overall strategy of the Clone Wars

As the increasingly violent war approached its conclusion, very few had any idea how sudden and vicious its resolution would prove to be.

Shortly before the outbreak of the war, Tyranus revealed to a captive Obi-Wan Kenobi that his Sith master had control of the Galactic Senate. Dismissed as a lie to sow discord as hostilities commenced, Tyranus was indeed being truthful.

Tyranus' master Sidious, as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, held control over much of the war. One of his greatest victories would prove to be an obscure emergency contingency order drilled into the clone army. Lost amongst 149 other emergency orders, Order 66 stipulated the immediate termination of all Jedi officers should they be found to be acting against the Republic, and the immediate transferral of military authority to the office of the Chancellor–and the order had to be issued directly from the Supreme Chancellor.

Sidious' opportunity came after revealing his identity to the Jedi Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker. Upon learning the truth, a contingent of Jedi Masters led by Mace Windu attempted to place Sidious under arrest. A furious lightsaber battle in the Chancellor's office ensued, and following a fateful intervention by Skywalker, the Jedi were killed.

The intervention of Skywalker, long schemed and hoped-for by Sidious, resulting in his turn to the dark side as Sidious' newest apprentice–Darth Vader.

With a Jedi attack on his person now a matter of fact, the time for the revenge of the Sith had come. Sidious commanded his new apprentice to lead an assault on the Jedi Temple and kill all within, while he personally commanded Order 66's execution galaxy-wide.

Nearly simultaneously across the galaxy, the Sith Plan against the Jedi came to fruition. Thousands of Jedi, spread thin on many war fronts, were mercilessly cut down by the troops they had commanded only moments earlier. With the Jedi Order torn asunder, half of the Grand Plan was complete.

Appearances

 * Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
 * Darth Bane: Rule of Two
 * Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil
 * Star Wars: Darth Plagueis
 * Star Wars: The Wrath of Darth Maul
 * Republic: The Stark Hyperspace War
 * Restraint
 * Jedi Council: Acts of War
 * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
 * Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
 * Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Order 66: A Republic Commando Novel
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope