Separatist Droid Army/Legends

"With these new battle droids we've built for you, you'll have the finest army in the Galaxy."

- Wat Tambor

The Separatist Droid Army was a droid army created by and for the Confederacy of Independent Systems in an effort to secure power throughout the Galaxy. It was comprised of battle droids from the Trade Federation's army and other corporations that allied themselves with Count Dooku's Separatist movement.

History
The Droid Army was an immense force comprised almost exclusively of droids. It was an enormous military, typically described as “one of the largest mechanical armies ever seen”, comprising of “innumerable” or an “uncountable” number of droids, of which the sheer number and variety were unprecedented in all of galactic history. More reasonable attempts at estimating its size put it at quadrillions or quintillions of droids in strength, of which more than a billion were thought to be droid starfighters or various droid vehicles such as the Droid Gunship,  Hailfire droid, and the Manta subfighter, to name but a few. Deployed to overthrow the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars, it was countered by the Jedi and the equally massive Grand Army of the Republic.

The Confederate army drew upon of the battle droids of the Trade Federation, Techno Union, Commerce Guild, InterGalactic Banking Clan, the Corporate Alliance, and other independent separatist factions. These groups were subtly manipulated by Darth Sidious to expand their forces in response to seemingly random attacks of piracy from groups like the Nebula Front who were also controlled by the Sith Lord. Coupled with a series of assassination (both physical and of character) led to these groups being led by a cabal of gullible and greedy patsies that Darth Sidious could control. Under his orders, these corporate giants began to purchase orders of battledroids from the millions of factories controlled by companies such as Baktoid Combat Automata, Colicoid Creation Nest, and Haor Chall Engineering over a decade before the start of the Clone Wars. While the Battle of Naboo provided an inkling of what was to come, it was not until Count Dooku deployed over one million droids at the Battle of Geonosis that the Republic understood the scope of the threat.

While the Confederacy had quadrillions of soldiers, they lacked proper military leadership. Command of the army was initially given to Count Dooku’s protégé Sev'rance Tann, whose penchant for personal combat rather then strategic oversight led to her death. General Tann was only a stopgap however, while work was completed on the true master of the Confederate forces, the Kaleesh warlord General Grievous. After proving to Count Dooku that his cybernetic “enhancements” were sufficient by defeating Asajj Ventress and Durge aboard the Trenchant space station, Grievous was formally awarded the title of Supreme Commander.

The Clone Wars
Backed by the millions of ships comprising the Confederate Navy, the Separatist challenged the rule of the Republic across the galaxy. Though initially outnumbered as of the start of 21 BBY, by the time of the Mission to Vjun in 20 BBY the Separatist forces had grown in strength to the point where Count Dooku questioned the need for continual subterfuge between the governments and thought the Separatists could simply win outright.

The strategy of the separatists could be thought of as exceptionally defensive – their deployment at the start of the war was designed to deflect any attack on their territory. While this frustrated some Republic generals such as Mace Windu, it also allowed the Republic time to muster its own forces to challenge the Separatists – exactly as the Sith Lords intended. The first offensive moves on the part of the Confederacy sought not immediate victory, but instead to deny the Republic advantages and sow fear among the civilians. They also sought to discredit or kill those on the Confederate side who would end the war too swiftly. During this time the Confederacy instead worked on projects such as chemical weapons like trihexalophine1138 and clone targeting nanovirii. However, no army wins by retreating, and the Confederacy was soon on the move, seizing planets left and right in a string of victories. After his existence was officially revealed to Republic forces at the battle of Hypori General Grievous became known as the architect of the separatist victories. He was also the author of their atrocities: on his orders the army was responsible for immense amounts of carnage and destruction. The Clone Wars saw the devastation of over a thousand worlds, including Atraken, Honoghr, and  Humbarine. That horros such as these were perpetrated by droids and alien species led to much of the prejudice that ruled the galaxy against them a generation later.

Aftermath
The Clone Wars were essentially one giant game against the galaxy, and like every game it must have a closing move. Desperate to throw the closing Jedi off his trail, Darth Sidious ordered General Grievous to carry out an attack on Coruscant. The attack was nothing of the kind however, as it was a ruse to draw Anakin Skywalker over to the dark side of the Force and eliminate Count Dooku, who Darth Sidious felt was challenging his authority. While initially successful, the battle ended in a rout when General Kenobi and General Skywalker arrived with the Open Circle Fleet and defeated the Separatist while rescuing the Supreme Chancellor. The defeat did not end there though, as days later General Kenobi killed General Grievous on Utapau and Darth Vader executed the rest of the Separatist Council on  Mustafar. After completing his murder spree, Lord Vader used the master control signal to transmit the order to stand down to all the Confederate droids across the galaxy. On planets as distant as Murkhana, the droids simply deactivated immediately when the order was relayed, much to the confusion of the commanders. The new Galactic Empire was swift to absorb the remnants of the Separatist Droid Army into their ranks. They were not, however entirely successful. Independent factions were able to seize them for their own purposes on a number of occasions, resulting in a large number of cases where the droids either found their way to the private market. Notable examples of this failure would be the battle droids that later became the famous Orange Panthacs), the slaughter of an Imperial garrison on Jaguada's moon after a group of smugglers reactivated the leftover droids there, or the use of Confederate Droids by Tyber Zann in the Galactic Civil War.  Also of concern were the Confederate holdout worlds such as Enarc, where the leadership there were able to reassert control over their droid armies and refused to surrender.  Another example would be the Geonosian Gizor Dellso also reactivated a portion of the army on Mustafar in 11 BBY, requiring the 501st Legion to storm the planet afterward.

Those droids that were captured were usually destroyed, but a number fond their way into Imperial service. The newly formed Stormtrooper Corps made use of the DSD1 dwarf spider droid, while tens of thousands of  crab droids and  Ultra battle droids found their way to the training fields of Carida. A number of feared Annihilator droids were shipped to Byss where the Imperial Department of Military Research could examine them at their leisure.

Of more interest is the number of cases where the newly manumitted droids did not shut down and instead formed their own societies. On Arzid a squad of Baron droids overthrew the existing government to rule the settlement, the surviving A-series assassin droids returned to the wilds of Kashyyyk, and several dozen Manta droids formed a somewhat symbiotic relationship with a school of Quarren on Dac.

However, a few droid units would be recovered and re-programmed by various beings, such as the Vagaari who would later use a droideka during their attempted destruction of the remains of Outbound Flight. The Geonosian Gizor Dellso also reactivated a portion of the army on Mustafar in 11 BBY, requiring the 501st Legion to storm the planet afterward.

Some of the surviving droids that didn’t shut down simply continued to follow their initial combat programming. Wedge Antilles found this out the hard way after his X-wing crashed on Geonosis during the Galactic Civil War. And during the Yuuzhan Vong War, Jedi Klin-Fa Gi along with Uldir Lochett encountered a type of drone (possible a tri-fighter on Wayland that had somehow not been deactivated.

Order of Battle
No canon order of battle has been published for the Confederate forces.

Infantry

 * Air battle droid
 * B1 battle droid
 * B2 super battle droid
 * B3 ultra battle droid
 * Battle droid assassin
 * Battle Legionnaire droid
 * Beetle droid
 * C-B3 cortosis battle droid
 * Chameleon droid
 * Droideka
 * Grapple droid
 * IG-100 MagnaGuard
 * IG-series battle droid
 * JK-13 security droid
 * Octuptarra droid
 * Pistoeka sabotage droid
 * Protodeka

Transport vehicles

 * Platoon Attack Craft
 * Multi Troop Transport
 * Speeder Platform

Ground vehicles

 * Armored Assault Tank
 * Advanced dwarf spider droid
 * AML
 * Dwarf spider droid
 * Heavy Artillery Gun
 * HAG-M
 * HAML
 * Heavy AAT
 * HHAG-M
 * OG-9 Homing spider droid
 * IG-227 Hailfire-class droid tank
 * Tri-droid
 * LM-432 crab droid
 * NR-N99 Persuader-class Droid Enforcer
 * Ground Armored Tank
 * Multi-Utility Transport
 * Annihilator droid
 * Single Trooper Aerial Platform
 * STAP-2
 * Heavy Single Trooper Aerial Platform
 * Seismic Tank
 * Tsmeu-6 personal wheel bike
 * MVR-3 Speeder Bike

Aerial vehicles

 * Heavy Missile Platform
 * LAATAK
 * Mechanized Assault Flyer

Aquatic weapons

 * Crab Cannon
 * Manta-class droid subfighter
 * Mini-Sub
 * S-AAD
 * S-HAAD
 * S-TRN
 * Trade Federation gunboat
 * Trade Federation Sub-Carrier
 * Trade Federation submarine

Appearances



 * Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
 * Star Wars: Republic Commando
 * Star Wars: The Clone Wars
 * Star Wars: Republic
 * Star Wars: Clone Wars
 * Shatterpoint
 * MedStar Duology
 * Jedi Trial
 * Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
 * Star Wars: Battlefront
 * Star Wars: Battlefront II
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Video Game