With the start of the Clone Wars, Palpatine along with his apprentice had started the beginning of the end for the Old Republic. In this installment, we will examine the first year of the conflict, with a focus on events and schemes that were of particular importance to the Dark Lord's grand scheme to implement his New Order and bring about the downfall of the Jedi.

The early months of the war, much like the Battle of Geonosis itself, were filled with the illusion of final victory as the Republic seemingly came close to annihilating the Separatists. But like Geonosis, what seemed like decisive outcomes favoring the Republic were in fact stalemates in disguise. At Geonosis, the Droid Army took heavy losses and was forced into retreat, but much of its force escaped, along with Dooku himself. Palpatine was sure to maintain an intricate balance of power which was especially crucial early on in order to ensure neither side reached victory. This is particularly evident in the fact that Palpatine ensured the Republic was unable to mass enough forces quick enough to compete with the numerically superior CIS forces. The Separatist fleet deployed along key corridors, and all the Republic could do was build up and hold the line until they were ready to commence an assault.

With both sides building entrenched defense lines on planets as well as in space, it quickly became clear that neither side would achieve a quick victory. Key space lanes, systems, even individual worlds soon became contested between Republic and CIS loyalists such as was the case with Kashyyyk. The war would go on for as long as Palpatine needed: long enough to gradually ease the Republic to an Empire, long enough to leave the Jedi weakened, long enough to diminish the power of organizations that were disloyal to Palpatine. In short, everything was going as planned.

Palpatine was also quick to ensure the galaxy itself became threatened by the scope of the war, enough to force the Jedi Order to formally become Generals in the Grand Army of the Republic. With Jedi fighting in the conflict, they would serve a two-fold purpose: many of them would die or be distracted, thus weakening the Order, and they would be put in a position of high influence and power within the Republic. It would be this precarious position Palpatine would exploit in the form of the "Jedi Rebellion" at the end of the Wars.

In the immediate months following Geonosis, Palpatine dispatched Dooku in several attempts to acquire superweapons, most notably the Dark Reaper. While the Dark Lord had no true intention of allowing the CIS to use such weapons to achieve victory, the threat of their use would distract the Jedi and draw Republic forces away from key battlefields. While the Dark Reaper was stopped, the distraction it created resulted in key territorial gains for the Separatists, who despite their massive Droid Army were still a fledgling alliance immediately following Geonosis. Palpatine ensured time was bought to enable the Separatist members to build their forces and their alliances, and he continued to perpetuate the polarizing nature of the conflict in order to draw more systems to secede from the Republic.

Of course, the Separatists could not be allowed to make too many gains and thus their power was checked by their defeat in the Battle of Kamino. Factions within the Separatists were angling to gain more power and even take Dooku's place and control the Confederacy. They believed that a direct strike on Kamino would bring the war to a quick resolution and give them the clout to usurp Dooku's power. The cloning facilities were vital to Palpatine, he needed them not only to perpetuate the war but to continue to serve his military in the coming New Order. Dooku was tasked to alert the Republic to the coming attack, and at the same time ensure faulty intelligence concerning Tipoca City's shield generator fell into the Separatist commander's hands. As a fringe benefit, to quote Palpatine himself, "Jedi will die." The stalemate was almost an act of theatre: the attack failed, the Separatist commanders were killed, and the upstarts who planned the attack and tried to wrest power from Dooku were put in their place. The war would continue, and elements that threatened Palpatine and Dooku's control were taken out.

During the course of the conflict, Palpatine and Dooku saw fit to use several agents trained in the Dark Side, most notably Asajj Ventress. While not a true Sith, she was a powerful foe and served the war effort well, being dispatched on vital missions such as the Ruul incident, where she attempted to further drive a wedge in the Jedi Order by assassinating several Jedi dissidents. Though her attempt failed, it only served to prove that the Jedi were weakening as they tried to wrap their minds around the morality of participating in the conflict.

Though Ventress had her uses, she was in fact little more than a pawn in Palpatine's plan. During the Battle of Muunilinst, she was used to draw Anakin into a trap on Yavin IV. Using Anakin's arrogance against him, she drew the young Padawan into a duel that forced him to fight for his life. But Anakin called on the fury of the Dark Side and bested his foe. It mattered little whether or not Ventress survived, though she did. She served her purpose as a test for Anakin and as a catalyst to further his journey to the Dark Side; Ventress was little more than a pawn on Sidious' dejarik board.

Meanwhile, bloody battles engineered on the Core Worlds of Brentaal IV and Esseles enabled Palpatine to tighten his grip in the center of the galaxy. Given the fact that the worlds were unstable and divided between Republic and CIS loyalists, Palpatine declared the need to make them militarized reconstruction zones following the Republic loyalist rebellions and clone attacks that brought the worlds back into the fold. It was thus that one of the first tenets of the New Order was rolled out: Regional Governors. Installing loyalists Jerrod Maclain and Griff Takel to Brentaal and Esseles, respectively, ensured Palaptine's absolute control of the worlds in the guise of the need for "security" and "reconstruction efforts."

Palpatine also began to centralize his government, installing loyalists such as Armand Isard and members of the Tarkin family to high-ranking posts. He also began COMPOR, the Commission for the Protection of the Republic, an organization comprised of loyalists and especially youth that could be indoctrinated in the ideals of the New Order. Much like all of the coming Empire, it would start small as a simple propaganda machine, but it would soon develop into a full-blown intelligence entity, dedicated to ensuring loyalty and weeding out dissidence.

As an endcap to the first year of the conflict, Palpatine dispatched his agent Kinman Doriana to the world of Cartao, where an advanced factory known as Spaarti Creations had the ability to produce clones much faster than Kamino. After waging a precise battle, competing Republic and CIS forces destroyed the factory, but not before thousands of Spaarti cloning cylinders had been extracted and moved to facilities on worlds such as Wayland, where they could be used in the service of the Dark Lord. As a bonus, the Jedi fielded the blame for the factory's loss.

The first year of the war had been a stalemate for the Republic and the CIS, but in reality it was a string of victories for Palpatine. His grip had tightened, his military had risen, and his power was increasing..............

NEXT TIME: Part X: The Clone Wars - Year Two