Kalani (super tactical droid)

"This is Kalani. I assure you he will succeed where you have failed."

- Count Dooku to King Sanjay Rash

Kalani was a super tactical droid and general in service to the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars. During the Onderonian Civil War, he was sent by Count Dooku to aid King Sanjay Rash of Onderon in defeating the resistance movement against the Separatist occupation. However, after continued resistance, Kalani and Dooku came to the conclusion that the fighting on Onderon was not worth the time and resources required, and as such, Dooku ordered the Confederacy to abandon the planet and relocate to Agamar. With the retreat in motion, Kalani executed Rash before departing. Long after the Clone Wars, the Ghost crew with Captain Rex arrived on Agamar in search of proton bombs, only to be captured by Kalani, who wanted to end the Clone Wars on his terms.

Onderon
"The terrorists are no longer a nuisance to Onderon, but a threat to it." "It is only a matter of time until they are eliminated."

- King Sanjay Rash and General Kalani

When the pro-Separatist king Sanjay Rash of Onderon reported to Count Dooku on the rebels' attacks, Dooku decided to send General Kalani to deal with the situation, along with reinforcements. Following the capture of rebel leader, Saw Gerrera, Kalani interrogated him alongside Royal Militia General Tandin. However, Tandin objected to torturing Gerrera for information. Kalani saw that Tandin pitied.

Later, Rash ordered the former king of Onderon Tendup to be executed, in the hopes of stopping the rebel attacks in the kingdom. Against his wishes, the rebels almost managed to rescue the king, but were stopped by the droid reinforcements. With all the major rebels captured, Rash continued the former king's execution but were stopped by the Royal Militia and General Tandin, who took Rash as hostage. As the others made their escape, Kalani ordered the battle droids gun down the General as soon as he released Rash. However, before he could do that, Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano jumped out of the crowd and used the Force to push down the droids for their escape. The public realized the Separatists were their true enemy, which started mass riots in the kingdom.

With the rebels having their leader back and them gaining a new base of operations in the distant mountains, Rash was growing desperate. Kalani soon ordered his droid army to push on the rebel base along with his new droid gunships, that were extremely effective against them. Despite all this, the Separatist forces were lost due to the superior tactical advancement of the rebels.

With the battle lost and the public against the Separatist occupation, Count Dooku saw no reason to fight against the public, so he had Kalani to withdraw the last remaining forces back to a Confederacy base on Agamar. Just as Rash could speak a word about his protest against this, Kalani shot the king dead and proceeded with his new orders. What was left of the droid army retreated to the Agamar system, where they would remain for almost 20 years.

End of the Clone Wars
Eventually the Clone Wars ended with Order 66 and the Jedi Purge. After executing the entire Separatist Council on Mustafar, Darth Vader issued a shut-down order that deactivated most of the droid forces scattered across the galaxy; bringing the war to a rapid conclusion. These events coincided with the transformation of the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire. Kalani however, accurately deduced that the shut-down order was a Republic trick, and overrode the command signal for the battle droids under his command.

Kalani and his garrison therefore survived the end of the Clone Wars and were indeed unaware that they had ended. They were left marooned at their base on Agamar, where they waited for retrieval during the next seventeen years. Kalani's remaining garrison consisted mostly of B1 battle droids and a few droidekas, though they lacked any heavy vehicles or starships capable of leaving the planet. Nonetheless the munitions depot they were protecting at the base kept Kalani and his droids well-provisioned enough to still remain reasonably functional for almost two decades without resupply.

Making peace with adversaries
"Well it doesn't matter how it ended, the war is over, let us go!" "Negative, Captain. I calculate that this will be my only opportunity to end the Clone Wars as I planned. With a victory for the Separatist Alliance."

- General Kalani to Captain Rex

About two years before the Battle of Yavin, the Agamar base was visited by several members of the Phoenix Squadron including the former Clone Captain Rex, the Jedi Kanan Jarrus, his apprentice Ezra Bridger, and the Lasat Garazeb Orrelios. Kalani's forces, led by B1-268, captured them alive so he could play a live "war game" to the death: the final battle of the Clone Wars on his terms. After learning about the end of the Clone Wars, Kalani was upset that the Separatist Droid Army lost. Based on his calculations, he had estimated that the Separatists' chance of defeat was only 23.6% had the "shut-down" order not been sent.

Rex, for that matter, also felt let down at how the war suddenly ended instead of the clone troopers finishing their mission on the battlefield like they were trained to do. Nonetheless, Rex and Kanan insisted that the war was over and refused to participate in Kalani's war game. When Zeb objected, Kalani agreed with the Lasat, since his species had not participated in the Clone Wars. Instead, he designated Zeb as the hostage that Rex and the Jedi would have to rescue. In the end, Rex and Kanan agreed to Kalani's terms at the insistence of Ezra; who convinced Kalani to free Zeb and to allow them to take the proton bombs if they won. Kalani accepted Ezra's terms and ordered his droids to prepare for battle.

Kalani's simulation involved the Jedi and Rex fighting their way through Separatist droid forces back to the command center in order to free Zeb. Kalani deployed battle droids, which the rebels quickly scattered since many of the droids were old and were in need of repair. The rebels then made their way into the hangar. However, Kalani had anticipated their moves after spending years studying past battles against the Jedi and Clone troopers. Kalani deployed droidekas against them but Ezra used the Force to collapse a catwalk on top of them. In addition, the rebels' astromech droid Chopper also sent a distress signal that was intercepted by Imperial Governor Arihnda Pryce, who dispatched Imperial forces to Agamar.

After defeating Kalani's droidekas, the rebels made their way into the super tactical droid's command center. When Rex argued that he had won, Kalani countered that he had won the "simulation" of which side would have truly won the Clone Wars had the shut-down order not gone out. Kalani added that the droid army "at the time" would not have malfunctioned. Ezra then intervened and pointed out that this was all irrelevant because both sides had lost; the Galactic Empire was the only true winner since Palpatine had played the two sides against each other. According to Ezra's reasoning, the shut-down order was always  meant to go out, the droids were always meant to lose, and the Clone Troopers were never meant to beat the droids but their own Jedi commanders. Rex and Kalani were grieved by this but the droid general could not deny Ezra's logic.

Ezra asked Kalani why he fought in the war at all and the tactical droid concluded that the Separatists were fighting against what they perceived as the tyranny of the Republic. Ezra pointed out that the Republic had become the Empire, which was now openly tyrannical. In the end, Kalani agreed that they now shared a common enemy. Their base was then assaulted by Imperial forces who had been dispatched by Governor Pryce. After B1-268 and several battle droids were disintegrated, Kalani and the remaining droids joined forces with the rebels to fight the Imperials and to escape in three Neimoidian escort shuttles; that had been repaired by Chopper.

Working together, Kalani and the rebels rolled several proton bombs into the path of an advancing AT-AT walker. With the Imperials momentarily distracted, Kalani, the battle droids, and the rebels escaped in the Neimoidian escort shuttles. One of the shuttles carrying battle droids was shot down but Kalani and his remaining droids along with the rebels managed to flee into space. Once in space, Ezra said that their escape was a victory. While Kalani initially disagreed, he accepted Rex's reasoning that the youth had "ended" the Clone Wars. Kalani declined to join the nascent rebellion however as he calculated that they had a less than 1% chance of ever successfully overthrowing the Empire.

Characteristics
Kalani was a cold and logical super tactical droid who was programmed by the Separatists to be a military commander. He was a competent battle tactician who had single-minded obsession in securing victory and producing results. Kalani believed in using overwhelming force to defeat his opponents. Kalani was willing to torture the Onderonian rebel leader Saw Gerrera for information and was programmed to lack empathy. Kalani recognized that General Tandi was the leader of the Onderonian resistance and was willing to kill him. After the Onderonians rose up in revolt against the Separatists, Kalani accepted Dooku's reasoning that it was not worth holding on to the planet. When King Rash protested, Kalani executed him without hesitance.

As a super tactical droid, Kalani was familiar with Separatist military strategies, tactics, and protocol. When the shutdown order was issued, Kalani suspected that it was Republic trick and countermanded the order. During the Age of the Empire, Kalani led a Separatist holdout on the planet Agamar. He was ignorant of the fact that the Clone Wars had ended and became obsessed with ending the conflict as a Separatist victory; not knowing that the former Separatist Alliance had ceased to exist. He spent years studying countless battles with Jedi forces and Clone troopers in order to devise a battle plan.

Despite the depleted status of his battle droid forces, Kalani believed that he could triumph over the former Clone Captain Rex and the Jedi Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger. While obsessed with achieving victory, Kalani was pragmatic enough to consent to Ezra's offer that the rebels get to keep the proton torpedoes if they won. Though Kalani's forces outnumbered and outgunned the three rebels, he underestimated the decrepit status of his forces and the ability of his rebel opponents to develop counter-tactics. Kalani's logical mindset led him to disbelieve the fact that the rebels had won.

Kalani however buried his antagonism towards the rebels when the Empire arrived on Agamar. After realizing that the Empire's intentions towards his battle droids were hostile, he developed an improvised escape strategy with the help of Ezra and Rex. Ezra managed to win over Kalani by pointing out that the Empire was the successor to the Old Republic. When Rex claimed that desperate strategies were the source of the Republic's victories, Kalani defensively claimed they didn't always work. Kalani initially did not regard the retreat from Agamar as a victory until Ezra and Rex pointed out otherwise. He was grateful to Ezra for convincing him to end hostilities with Rex, who represented the Republic. However, Kalani was pessimistic that the rebellion would succeed against the Empire and parted company with the rebels.

Behind the scenes
Kalani first appeared in fifth season of the animated television series Star Wars: The Clone Wars in October 2012. Following a cameo appearance in "Front Runners", Kalani appeared as the main antagonist in the episodes "The Soft War" and "Tipping Points". He was voiced by Gregg Berger, who later reprised his role in the Star Wars Rebels episode "The Last Battle"; which premiered on Disney XD on October 22, 2016.

In the Rebels Recon featurette for "The Last Battle", Henry Gilroy said that he thought in the near future Kalani would hire out his services as a military advisor to various groups such as the Hutt Clan because he believed that the nascent Rebellion did not have a realistic chance of defeating the Empire. Gilroy went on to say however that he thinks that the destruction of the Death Star at the Battle of Yavin (about two years after Kalani leaves Agamar) will change his mind, proving that the Empire isn't invincible and that the rebellion has a real chance of winning.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Galactic Defense