Fanfic / Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K

The Chosen One strikes an Angel of Death. Commissioned artwork by Jdsarte.

Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K is a fan-made crossover audio drama based on a popular versus debate between Warhammer 40,000 and Star Wars. Despite basically being fanfiction, this work is formatted as a visualized audiobook and is posted on YouTube, as opposed to the more mainstream fanfic sites like FanFiction.Net and SpaceBattles.com. It's mostly a single-cast performance by AFanWithTooMuchTime, though guest voice actors are brought in from time to time (mostly in the specials and a few of the later episodes). The series debuted with its first episode "Emperors and Dark Gods" on May 15, 2020.

The premise of the story is that a massive sector-wide Imperial fleet got thrown off course in the Warp and got sent to the Galaxy Far, Far Away during the last month of the Clone Wars, and, through a mixture of underhanded actions by Darth Sidious and overall misunderstandings from both sides, has launched the Galaxy into a new galactic war, one that is more devastating and brutal than that of the Clone Wars.

There are currently four seasons as of January 2024. The first season consists of Episodes 1 to 9. The second season consists of Episodes 10 to 31. The third season consists of Episode 32 to 44. The fourth season begins with Episode 45 and is currently ongoing.

The series was eventually adapted as a Series Fic and transcribed onto FanFiction.Net in June 2021 under the title An Empire Arises, An Imperium Arrives. The first book Reign of Ignorance covers the first season (Episodes 1–9). The second book Masters of Pain covers the second season (Episodes 10–32), though remains incomplete as of December 2023 for an unknown reason.

Now has an extensive character sheet and an episode guide.

All spoilers for Season 1 will be unmarked!

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This audio series shows examples of:

Tropes A to B

• Abandon Ship:
  • In Episode 5, Jedi Knight Renphi orders a retreat to the escape pods after his flagship Honor Hound is boarded by the Skywatch's Third Company during the Battle of System K749. Only Dr. Shina actually makes it inside an escape pod and gets out alive; the rest of the crew are all killed by Space Marines.
  • Terrinald Screed issues the order to abandon ship after his Mandator II-class star dreadnaught Bulwark of Duro is sheared in half and left heavily irradiated by the destructive power of the Ironclad's Wave-Motion Gun in Episode 39.
• Absolute Xenophobe: The Imperium of Man has absolute xenophobia as a matter of official policy, and the Imperial Cult preaches the supremacy of mankind and the extermination of all non-human races. Such policies are shown in all their horror with the Imperial conquest and occupation of the Axum System.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The combat knives used by the Imperial Guard were created from an STC that makes their blades extremely sharp. In Episode 40 Part 3, when Rex lightly kicks away an Imperial Guardsman's combat knife, the knife slides over to a nearby metal wall and becomes embedded in it as soon as the blade makes physical contact.
  Rex: How the frag do they get their knives that sharp?
• Actually a Doombot: It turns out that in the aftermath of the Battle of Hypori, both Sidious and Dooku grew worried that Grievous would grow out of their control so they put him in storage and replaced him with a more controllable Kaleesh warrior who took the name Grevious. This explains why the Grevious we see in The Clone Wars cartoon is much less dangerous and cunning than the one from the original 2003 cartoon.
• Adaptation Title Change: The version of this story that is posted on FanFiction.Net is instead titled An Empire Arises, An Imperium Arrives.
• Adaptational Context Change:
  • In Star Wars canon, Padmé's death was due to a combination of Anakin force choking her and the despair of seeing both the latter fall to the Dark Side and the Republic she loved be destroyed from within. Since neither of those things has happened here, it's implied to be the result of Dark Side shenanigans caused by Palpatine.
  • In Legends, Depa Billaba fell to the Dark Side after being exposed to the horrors of war while on a mission to Haruun Kal. Here, her fall to the Dark Side comes about as a result of overusing Vaapad while battling a Space Marine Librarian.
  • In canon, Mace Windu has his right arm chopped off by Anakin to stop him from killing Palpatine after Mace bests the Sith Lord in a duel. Here, Mace also eventually loses an arm but this time it's his left arm that gets sliced off during his duel with Samael and Hecate at the Basilica of Salvation.
• Adaptational Species Change: The Togruta in this fic are a near-human species descended from baseline humans like the Chiss and Twi'leks. This contrasts both Star Wars canon and Legends, where the Togruta are an entirely separate species of Rubber-Forehead Aliens whose resemblance to humanity was purely due to convergent evolution. This change was made primary so Ahsoka could gain the trust of the Imperials fighting in the Second Battle of Axum by allowing them to scan her blood, proving that she is what the Imperials would consider an "abhuman" and make them believably willing to entertain her request for a ceasefire negotiation.
• Adapted Out: In the Legends continuity, Kuat Drive Yards was run by a woman named Onara Kuat around the time of the Clone Wars. Here, no mention is made of Onara and her position as head of KDY is taken up by her nephew, who canonically doesn't hold that position until the pre-Endor period of the Galactic Civil War.
• Agri World: Yevan Secundus was an Imperial Agri-World from the Xek-Tek Sector until a Stupid Evil planetary governor decided to turn it into a Hive World as a vanity project. He ended up destroying Yevan's ecosystem and causing a global famine that drove the masses to revolt and start sacrificing members of the nobility to a made-up fertility god. It took the intervention of a Space Marine squad for order to finally be restored.
• Alien Autopsy: The author mentions in the Q&A segment for Episode 17 that the Imperials do their best to recover the bodies of any Jedi that they manage to kill so they can dissect them and study their connection to the Force. This was the fate of Ki-Adi-Mundi after he was KIA at the Blue Massacre. Because Mundi came from a race of Rubber-Forehead Aliens, the Imperials initially mistook him for some sort of mutated human and were shocked to discover that he was an alien.
• Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: Downplayed. While the Republic does have the blaster-version of a gatling gun, they apparently never invented a gatling gun that shoots bullets. During the Second Battle of Axum, a Republic character describes the Imperium's rotor guns as being an imitation of "proper" rotating blaster cannons.
• All There in the Manual:
  • Beginning with Episode 21, some episodes would be followed by an after talk video where the author would answer fan questions, provide updates on the progress of his story, and occasionally give his opinions on recent events regarding Star Wars and Warhammer 40,000.
  • In addition to the series' episodes and after-talks, the author has also released Extra Talk videos where he discusses his takes on the lore for the Star Wars setting and how that will be applied in the story. As of November 2023, there are two of these videos: "The Truth of the Dueling Darksides" and "The Power of Palpatine".
• All There in the Script: The late Season 1 and early-to-mid Season 2 episodes frequently featured "after talk" segments at the end of the episodes where the author would provide updates on the story's progress, provide information on future plot points, and answer fan questions.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Season 1 features two examples.
  • Episode 8 ends with Mace Windu and Obi-Wan ordering the Republic's forces to evacuate from Anaxes — a major fortress world where the Republic Navy's primary fleetbase, reserve shipyards, and most prestigious war college are located — after the Crimson Razors take over Trench's flagship and hijack control of his planet-cracking bomb set to destroy Anaxes. The Imperials have no intention of using the bomb (the Techmarine who finds it immediately has it disarmed), but they nonetheless use this opportunity to conquer Anaxes with little resistance.
  • In between Episodes 8 and 9, the Imperials under Thune's leadership launch a full-scale invasion of Axum — one of the Core Worlds that originally founded the Republic — and easily crush the planet's Jedi and clone defenders in an offscreen Curb-Stomp Battle, forcing the Republic to flee from the Axum System entirely. Following this, the Jedi and their clone troopers spend the next two seasons trying to retake Axum from the Imperial garrison left behind to occupy the planet after the main Imperial invasion fleet moved on.
• Alliterative Title: Some of the episodes and specials have alliterative titles like "A Storm of Sabers", "Soldiers of the Storm", "Warriors, War Machines, WAR", and "Shifting Sands".
• And Now for Someone Completely Different:
  • Most of Episode 19 is told from Anakin's perspective until near the end, where the POV switches to R2-D2 as the droid sneaks around Tahr Whyler's warship in search of Anakin after the Jedi Knight is captured by a Sister of Silence.
  • About half of Episode 39 is told from the viewpoints of Gilad Pellaeon and Terrinald Screed, characters from Star Wars Legends who had no involvement in this story up until that point and are left indisposed by the end of the episode.
  • Episode 43 has POV segments focusing on Coleman Kcaj and Oppo Rancisis, characters who hadn't made any previous appearances or even been mentioned at any point in the story. In the actual Star Wars canon, they are members of the Jedi Council who are voiceless extras in the Prequel Trilogy and The Clone Wars TV show.
• Anti-Radiation Drug: Drugs which can treat and even outright cure radiation poisoning appear to be commonplace within the Galactic Republic. A private citizen like Kuat of Kuat is shown carrying a pill case in his pocket which contains portable medications for radiation poisoning. The Republic Navy includes anti-radiation pills in the standard emergency kits on all their starships; Captain Screed swallows a handful of these in Episode 39 after his Star Dreadnaught is hit by the Ironclad's Wave-Motion Gun, which fired a massive energy beam so hot that it irradiated the entire ship. In fact, Ahsoka's narration in Episode 17 mentions how shocked and near-traumatized she was from learning that the Imperium didn't have access to easy cures for radiation poisoning.
• Arc Words: "Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment..." pops up throughout the series. It's used in the description for the "Dark Transmission" video used as a trailer for Season 2, half of the phrase is the title for Episode 29, Saphran whispers the phrase as his Last Words to Jocasta Nu at the end of Episode 30, and the phrase gets uttered by Samael at the end of Episode 40 Part 4.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Crosshairs loses his left leg to a Space Marine in Episode 8.
  • 1313 gets his left arm shot to pieces by Clone blaster fire, requiring him to get it amputated by a Tech-Priest.
  • Jaro Tapal gets one of his hands sliced off by Depa Billaba's lightsaber in Episode 28 when he grabs her shoulder to restrain her after she falls to the Dark Side from overusing Vaapad while fighting Saphran.
  • Space Wolf Yannick loses his entire right arm while dueling a rogue Jedi aboard a hijacked spice train in Episode 33.
  • Commissar Terrandor gets one of his arms cut off at the bicep by Rahm Kota in Episode 35.
  • At one point during Mace Windu's fight with Samael and Hecate in "Mortal Fall Part 3", Mace gets restrained by Hecate and Samael takes advantage of this by using his Energy Blade to cut off Mace's left arm.
• Armies Are Evil:
  • Unsurprising that the Imperial forces are portrayed as this, after all, any faction that comes from Warhammer 40K would easily be the main villain in any other franchise and story. Not to mention the trope on top of the Imperium clearly takes the cake for evil armies in this story.
  • Same thing could be said for both the Republic and CIS armies, especially from the viewpoints of neutral worlds. Whether it's justified or not, often times the local populace would see both armies in a bad light and not want to be part of the galaxy-wide war.
• Armor Is Useless: Slightly subverted here; back home, the standard flak armor of the Imperial Guard was next to useless against the traditional enemies of the Imperium. However, in the Star Wars galaxy, the flak armor actually does provide better protection as Star Wars blasters are actually weaker compare to lasguns which allows the flak armor to be somewhat more useful, though of course after getting shot more than twice or a direct hit is still enough to penetrate the flak armor. Clone Trooper armor, while effective against blasters, appears to be not as effective against the Imperial Guard lasguns and bayonets, as Imperial Guard forces are able to score one or two-shot kills against the Clones, and their bayonets are able to crack Clone armor relatively easily. Played straight, however, when it comes to the armor Republic warships have as it usually folds after a single hit from an Imperial ship.
• Armored But Frail: As the author has noted, Star Wars ships tend to be this when compared to their Imperial counterparts. They rely almost entirely on their Deflector Shields for defense and have laughably weak hulls compared to Imperial ships, meaning that they are pretty much screwed if anything can break or bypass their shields.
• Armored Villains, Unarmored Heroes: The Jedi serve as the heroes of the story and they largely wear robes. The Imperials serve as the main villains of the series and some of their most elite units wear power armor including the Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, Sisters of Silence, and the Custodes.
• Artificial Limbs: Shown in massive numbers in the Imperium, coming from a galaxy in perpetual war, many soldiers have replaced their limbs with mechanical parts due to past injuries or to personally enhanced their fighting capabilities. Special notice goes to the Adeptus Mechanicus and their religion where everyone is expected to replace a majority of their bodies with mechanical parts. Individuals within the Republic also have their fair share of mechanical limb replacements with characters like Echo and Anakin Skywalker, however, such practices in the Republic are far more humane and less pervasive compared to those found in the Imperium.
• Ascended Extra: The planet Axum gets this treatment in the story. In Star Wars Legends, Axum is recognized as one of the Republic's founding worlds but tends to get overshadowed by its sister planet Anaxes and most of the information about Axum comes from old reference books. Here, Axum takes center stage as the setting for Seasons 2 and 3 where it is the center of a large-scale battle between the Republic and the Imperium.
• At Least I Admit It: According to the author, this is going to be an Imperial attitude towards the Republic, which isn't exactly wrong since by the time the Imperials arrived in the Galaxy, the Republic was essentially a dictatorship dominated by humans (human Chancellor, human army, the most influential worlds in the Republic are all human, human supremacist views are growing) just like the Imperium.
• Atrocity Montage: In the prelude to the Second Battle of Axum at the start of Season 2, Hondo Ohnaka shows the Jedi footage of an Imperial death camp on Axum. The narration describes a gruesome scene with men, women, and children of every age (mostly nonhumans, though some anti-Imperial human dissenters could also be seen) being enslaved and abused by the Imperials while forced to work in an all-purpose death camp. After cutting to the horrified reactions of the Jedi, the scene then goes back to describing a sequence of various execution methods being used in those camps against the Axumite prisoners including firing squads, gas chambers, and mass drownings.
• Attack Pattern Alpha:
  • The ending of the "Davik Thune and the Droids" mini episode has the titular Chapter Master tell his fleet to use "Attack Pattern Sins of Charity" while ordering the Orbital Bombardment of Raxus Secundus.
  • Episode 22 has Alouicious Cynder tell this to the Tempestus Scions under his command as they prepare for for their mission to extract Major Lazarus and the Columbian 503^rd Assault Regiment from the battlefield.
    Cynder: Men of the Empire, prepare for battle. Pattern Sigma Prime, deploy and counter assault with extreme aggression.
  • At the end of Episode 42 Part 2, Samael tells Hecate to use "Combat Doctrine Warlock Prime" as they prepare to fight Mace and Obi-Wan. Hecate mentions in Part 3 that this attack plan is typically used when fighting Eldar. At it's most basic level, the attack plan is basically for Hecate to attack the opponent head on and draw their attention while Samael acts as her support.
  • Later in Episode 42 Part 4, Samael and Hecate find themselves getting overwhelmed by a recently fallen Mace Windu. Samael tells Hecate "Observe Autarch Delta...or Custian Sigma" which has Samael and Hecate switch roles with Samael now being the main fighter while Hecate is his support.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Whilst the Imperium's elite military forces and gear outclasses what the Republic or the Separatists have available, they often have potentially crippling drawbacks, primarily in that most of those same forces are essentially impossible to replace due to the refugees being cut off from the wider Imperium's supply network.
• Back from the Dead: Much like his namesake from The Bible, this happens to Lazarus, who is resurrected as a Saint after being killed by a corrupt commissar.
• Bad Boss:
  • Dooku shows just how little he actually cares about the Confederates he rallied to his cause when he leaves the Separatist Council to die on Raxus Secundus simply for not agreeing with him about the truce with the Republic.
  • Jabba the Hutt is mentioned by Boba to execute any of his musicians who stop playing at his parties for any reason unless given permission. Even when Jabba's palace comes under direct assault by a squad of Space Marines, his musicians refuse to stop playing out of fear of Jabba killing them until Bib Fortuna explicitly gestures for them to quiet down.
  • Grievous is mentioned by Jag and Warthog to regularly fire on his own men as part of his battle tactics. Granted, Grievous is doing this with battle droids... usually.
  • Commissar-Captain Shadrick deliberately tries to get the Imperial Guardsmen under his command killed during the early stages of the Battle of Axum just so he could politically one-up a Sister of Battle he was feuding with. Later, he offhandedly shoots a subordinate dead simply for interrupting an argument he was having with another Sister of Battle.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Season 1 sees both the Sith and the Imperium of Man come out on top. Palpatine's False Flag Operation successfully sabotages First Contact between the Republic and the Imperium, provoking the Imperials into declaring war. Unprepared for the sheer level of brutality that the Imperium fights their wars with, the Jedi and their clone troopers suffer a series of curb-stomp battles that result in dozens of Jedi being killed. The first season ends with the Republic having lost two of their founding planets, their primary fleet base, their most prestigious naval academy, and the shipyards which they need to build their reserve fleets.
• Badass Army: The Republic has the Clone Army and the Jedi while the Imperium has the Imperial Guard, Sisters of Battle, Skitarii, and the Space Marines.
  • The clone legions that followed the Jedi in the counterattack in the Axum system are some of the most elite legions in the Republic from the 501^st Legion to the 327^th Star Corps. Opposing them are also elements of some of the most elite regiments produced by the Imperial Guard including the Death Korps, Cadians, and the Skitarii Legions.
• Badass Boast:
  • When Dr. Shina finds herself cornered by a Space Marine during the Skywatch's boarding of the Venator Honor Hound, she asks the Marine What the Hell Are You? through her datapad's translator and the Marine responds:
    Space Marine: I am an Angel of Death. And I have come to render judgement.
  • Obi-Wan delivers one to the Crimson Razor Librarian Saphran during their battle in Episode 21.
    Saphran: You've defeated Space Marines in the past?
    Obi-Wan: Not as such, no. But I've defeated men made for war, men who were embraced by both foul sorcery and technology to become killers. Men made by dark masters to be insurmountable in the field of battle, and I've bested each one, and I best them every time.
  • Followed by Saphran giving one of his own boasts.
    Saphran: But Jedi, you do not yet understand the kind of war I was created to fight. For you, fighting for minutes, hours, even days at a time are skills to be remarked, to be honed. To you and to most of your order, today has brought you to the pinnacle of your strength and perhaps, beyond it. Am I wrong? [Beat] To me, Jedi, this "war" is just another Xenocide. Not only is all you see before you the definition of routine, but if I had to point out an aspect of this conflict that makes it notable, I would be forced to concede that the only novelty I've felt in this fight before now is how pathetically unprepared this Republic was for a true, determined enemy.
  • Saphran delivers one to Jocasta Nu in Episode 28 after he reveals himself to be Not Quite Dead.
    Saphran: Cut my heart out? Pierced my lungs? Did you really think something like that would stop me? I am a Crimson Razor of the Emperor of Mankind. Pain cannot lay me low, for I am it's lord, and it is my strength. I can feel no fear, nor bend beneath it, for I am Fear Incarnate. What are you but a broken sword, and an old woman to stand behind it?
  • Canoness Superior Ishtara Ordane responds with one in Episode 36 when mockingly asked by Kit Fisto if she's come to surrender.
    Ishtara: The mountains cannot bend themselves and the stars cannot but burn. So how can the Imperium be made to submit, when it stands taller than any mountain, and shines brighter than any star?
• Badass in Distress:
  • Aayla Secura briefly becomes this in Episode 16 when she gets defeated and telekinetically restrained by a Xanthite Inquisitor who tries to mind rape her into becoming his Manchurian Agent inside the Jedi Order. Thankfully, it never comes to pass as Aayla's own clone forces come to her rescue in the nick of time.
  • Anakin Skywalker in Episode 19 when he gets caught and incapacitated by a Sister of Silence while infiltrating an Imperial warship. He is then Bound and Gagged and left hanging upside down inside the ship's secret prison, which was designed to suppress psyker abilities. Fortunately, he's found and freed by R2-D2 only two episodes later.
  • During the later stages of the Battle of Axum, Quinlan Vos and 400 other Jedi are knocked out by a daemonhost and taken captive by Tahr Whyler, who starts torturing Quinlan in a Torture Cellar. Quinlan and the other Jedi are saved by Aayla, who tracks them down and frees them.
• Badass Normal: The Sisters of Battle do not have access to the Warp/Force nor are they enhanced like the Space Marines are. Despite this—as the Republic is discovering—their training, equipment, and sheer zealotry make them extremely formidable opponents even to experienced Jedi.
• Bait-and-Switch: The ending of Season 1 sets things up so that it looks like Davik Thune is going to strike at Coruscant next as it's explicitly stated that Tasleon was able to extract the coordinates for Coruscant during his Mind Rape of Echo while the Jedi and Republic characters receive word that Thune's Imperial fleet has departed the conquered Axum System (which guards a major hyperspace lane leading straight to Coruscant) en masse, leading to Palpatine recalling the entire Republic military back to defend Coruscant. Season 2 then reveals that Thune's Imperial forces were actually leaving Axum to attack the Separatists with Raxus Secundus being the fleet's actual destination.
• Battle Cry: In response to the Imperials' frequent battle cry "For the Emperor!", the Axum Resistance uses their own battle cry of "Death to the Emperor!" during their siege on the Basilica of Salvation in Episode 40. The Jedi and Clones are also fond of crying out "For the Republic!" as they charge into battle.
• Big Bad Ensemble: For the most part, the role of main antagonist is split between the Imperium of Man and the Sith Order.
  • Among the Imperium's leaders, the two most prominent are Orion Phatris and Davik Thune, both Chapter Masters of their respective Space Marine Chapters. Orion was appointed overall leader of the Imperial refugees by Roboute Guilliman due to his seniority, though he mostly concerns himself with consolidating power and influence over the Imperium's various sub-factions. Thune is a General Ripper who broke off from the main Imperial fleet so he could wage his own genocidal campaign targeting the aliens and droids of the Star Wars galaxy. Thune is largely responsible for the Imperium's aggression, having led the initial invasion of the Republic's Axum System, and it's mostly his forces which the Jedi and clone troopers fight throughout the second and third seasons. Orion eventually wins out, using his influence over the Imperial sub-factions to cut off Thune's forces from being able to resupply unless Thune bends the knee to him.
  • Chancellor Palpatine/Darth Sidious is the Dark Lord of the Sith and the one responsible for starting the war between the Republic and the Imperium as part of a ploy to amass more political power. Per canon, he seeks to destroy the Jedi and turn the Republic into a galaxy-spanning dictatorship that he can rule over with an iron fist.
  • Later, a third Big Bad candidate is added in the form of a rogue General Grievous, who has grown sick of being used as a pawn by Dooku and Sidious to the point where he now hates the Sith more than the Jedi. He cuts all ties with Dooku at the end of Season 2 and forms his own Renegade Splinter Faction of the CIS.
• The Big Bad Shuffle: Played with in that it's less of a Big Bad Shuffle and more of an Arc Villain Shuffle. The story has different characters assume leadership over the Imperial forces fighting in the Second Battle of Axum. Initially, the commander of the Axum occupation is Marshal Doven. However, he gets the bridge dropped on him pretty quickly when Quinlan's Jedi strike force captures Doven's headquarters offscreen between Episodes 12 and 29. This leaves Ishtara Ordane, Canoness Superior of the Adepta Sororitas, to replace Doven as the overall leader of the Imperial ground forces until she gets hospitalized from her battlefield injuries and later dies in a Heroic Sacrifice. Following her hospitalization, Inquisitor Samael Whyler takes over as the focus antagonist of the Axum arc while Saint Lazarus leads the Imperials defending the Basilica of Salvation, the final Imperial stronghold on the planet. In Episode 43, Samael gets replaced by Sebastian Vondrel, the de facto Chapter Master of the Tempered Hands, who leads his Chapter to battle against Coleman Kcaj's Republic forces laying siege to the Basilica. And while all this is going on, you also have Inquisitor Tahr Whyler running around in the background causing mayhem as he acts with his own separate agenda.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The siege on the Basilica of Salvation in Episodes 40 to 42. You first have the Axum rebels charging towards the Basilica's walls and breaching its defenses to battle the forces of the Imperial Guard and Adepta Sororitas. They are then joined by an army of Jedi and clone troopers led by Mace Windu and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
• Bigger Is Better: Imperial ships are much larger than their Star Wars counterparts and are far more effective and powerful.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The conflict between the Republic and the Imperium is set up this way.
  • The Republic during the Clone Wars was a failing democracy with many flaws, not the least of which being that their current chancellor is a secret Sith Lord scheming to impose a military dictatorship. Their armed forces use cloned humans as slave soldiers and are led by officers (including Jedi generals) willing to commit outright war crimes to achieve victory. Then there's the bureaucratic dumpster fire that is the Galactic Senate, which has been democratically backsliding and increasingly embracing authoritarianism — and this is how they were like before their war with the Imperium drove them to desperate measures. Also, the whole war was started because a Republic warship (secretly acting under the chancellor's orders) rammed an unarmed Imperial refugee vessel during first contact, causing the deaths of countless innocent civilian passengers. That said, the Republic's own civilians are generally portrayed as good people, some of their senators are honest politicians who sincerely wish to improve their constituents' lives, and their society as a whole at least tries to uphold the values of peace and justice it was founded upon.
  • The Imperium contrasts this by openly being a regressive, totalitarian police state led by crazed religious fanatics who explicitly want to conquer the galaxy and slaughter every single non-human and droid they encounter. Throughout the story, the Imperium casually massacres defenseless civilians (including children), destroys populated planets on a whim, and wages unprovoked extermination wars against neutral nations over petty ideologies. Even the Imperial viewpoint characters that the fic tries to portray as sympathetic anti-villains are still 100% A-OK with committing mass genocide against Innocent Aliens. There's no doubt that if the Imperium had their way, the entire SW galaxy would be transformed into a dystopian hellscape the likes of which would make the Galactic Empire seem like a beacon of liberty by comparison.
  • However, this slowly seems to be turning into Grey-and-Gray Morality as we begin to see that things with the Imperium aren't as clear cut as first led to believe, with many Imperial characters showing their more noble side and their leader being a Reasonable Authority Figure. Even Imperial citizens were willing to temporality put aside their hatred for aliens if it meant surviving (albeit as a last resort after every other option has been exhausted).
• Black Site:
  • Rothana is an industrial world located Off the Grid in the Outer Rim under the control of Kuat Drive Yards. Its location is kept top secret with only those at the very top of KDY and the Republic's government knowing about it. KDY uses the planet to house their secret projects and shipyards, the latter of which produced most of the military vehicles used by the Republic in the Clone Wars. It also coincidentally happens to be the nearest planet to Pzob, where First Contact between the Republic and the Imperium occurs in Season 1. Both Renphi and Shina are amazed when a massive starfleet from Rothana answers their call for reinforcements given how they are on the very outskirts of the galaxy far from civilized space.
  • The Luminous Reign is a mobile black site belonging to Inquisitor Tahr Whyler. On the surface, the Luminous Reign seems like your typical Imperial Navy Escort. However, there is a cordoned-off section of the ship which is used as a secret Inquisitorial prison meant to hold enemies of the Imperium considered too valuable to execute but too dangerous to be held anywhere else. Most of the ship's crew are unaware of this and the prison area is highly restricted with only Tahr and authorized members of his retinue having access.
• Blade Lock:
  • While fighting aboard Trench's flagship in Episode 8, Anakin tries locking the blade of his lightsaber against Brother Hastus's power sword. Hastus is a Space Marine wearing Power Armor, while Anakin is an unarmored baseline human Jedi. It goes about as well as you'd expect with Anakin getting overwhelmed by his opponent's Super-Strength and pinned against a wall. Only the sudden intervention of Wrecker prevents Anakin from getting sliced in half with his own blade.
  • At the start of their duel in Episode 33, Yannik locks the blade of his combat knife against A'Sharad Hett's lightsaber, the latter managing to match the Space Wolf's Super-Strength by using the Force to enhance his own.
  • Quinlan Vos and Commissar Terrandor lock blades during their duel in Episode 35; Quinlan's lightsaber against Terrandor's adamantium-tipped chainsword. Their lock is eventually broken by Rahm Kota, who slices off Terrandor's arm and kicks him away.
• Blind Jump: In the Imperials' backstory, the Xek-Tek evacuation fleet made a risky, blind Warp jump straight into the Great Rift in a desperate attempt to avoid an incoming Tyranid Hive Fleet. This led the entire sector-wide Imperial fleet to get transported across time and space to right outside the Star Wars galaxy.
• Boarding Party:
  • There's the Space Marine boarding of the Venator Honor Hound during the first contact battle between the Republic and Imperium. The Space Marines wipe out nearly the entire crew in a one-sided slaughter with Dr. Shina being the only survivor.
  • In Episode 7, Brother Araknus leads a fireteam of Crimson Razors aboard Trench's Providence-class dreadnought during the Battle of Anaxes, easily taking the bridge and capturing the Separatist admiral.
  • The Battle of Axum features three separate boarding actions by the Jedi. Mace and Obi-Wan lead a force of 2,000 Jedi to board the Imperial cruiser Hellsmasher, Anakin and the Bad Batch infiltrate an Imperial destroyer belonging to Inquisitor Tahr Whyler, and Ahsoka leads the 501^st in an assault on Trench's former flagship which is in the process of being stripped down by the Adeptus Mechanicus.
  • During the Crimson Razors' scouring of Raxus Secundus, Davik Thune personally dons Terminator armor and embarks on a one-man boarding action of the CIS flagship Confederate Pride.
  • In Episode 31, Grievous personally leads a boarding party aboard a disabled Imperial Cruiser in order to capture the ship and claim its technology for the Separatist cause. Unfortunately for him, this is all according to Davik Thune's plan as a Techmarine stationed aboard the ship detonates its Warp core after Grievous has fought his way to the bridge, killing the droid general in the ensuing blast.
• Boarding Pod:
  • Space Marines use boarding pods with drill tubes to board enemy spacecraft. The Skywatch use boarding pods to assault the Venator Honor Hound during the first contact battle in Episode 5. During the Battle of Anaxes, Brother Araknus's fireteam uses one to enter the bridge of Trench's Providence-class dreadnought.
  • The Jedi make heavy use of Droch-class boarding pods in their counter-invasion of Axum. Originally, these were pirate assault pods belonging to the Ohnaka Gang until the Jedi purchased them all from Hondo. Mace Windu and Obi-Wan lead a task force of two thousand Jedi in an attack on the Imperial cruiser Hellsmasher using these pods. Ahsoka and the 501^st also use these pods to assault Trench's former flagship Invulnerable. Anakin and the Bad Batch board Tahr Whyler's warship Luminous Reign using one of these pods, though they are quickly forced to abandon it while evading the ship's security.
• Break the Haughty: Happens a lot of times when the Republic and the Separatists engage Imperial forces.
  • Special notice goes to Mace Windu. He was assured in the Jedi superiority in the Force against the Imperial only to find out that the Imperial are just as able to if not more skilled in the usage of the Force. And that Imperials are just using it as a tool and nothing more but still able to compete or overcome the Jedi only further infuriate and humble him considerably. The loss of his former apprentice, Depa Bilaba, as well as Jedi Master Jaro Tapal, as a result of her abusing the dangerous lightsaber technique known as Vaapad to try and defeat Saphran (leaving the Order without two of its finest warriors and Depa and Jaro's padawans, Caleb Dume and Cal Kestis without their mentors) further reinforces to him just how unprepared the Jedi are for this kind of enemy.
• Breather Episode:
  • Episode 6 takes place after the Republic's devastating first contact battle with the Imperium in which numerous prominent named original characters were killed in battle by Space Marines. The episode itself takes a break from all the action to focus on the internal politics of the Imperial refugee fleet.
  • The Tatooine subplot from Episodes 32 and 33 is one, taking a break from the grim and serious War Arc on Axum in order to focus on a comparatively lighthearted adventure starring Boba Fett and the Space Wolves as they stop Tusken Raiders from stealing a spice train. This is also after Episode 31, which saw Grievous turn against Dooku and go rogue.
• Bring My Brown Pants:
  • In Episode 21, Imperial Guard officer Javrick releases his bowels in fear upon realizing that Tahr Whyler intends to feed him to his pet daemonhost after their Just Between You and Me moment.
  • Following the extreme stress of Kombirr's first battle in Episode 23, the young Axumite rebel ends the scene by looking around the inside of the building he had used as his sniper's nest, muttering "Gotta be a change of pants somewhere up here..."
  • In Episode 41 part 1, Farnus regains consciousness after being taken as a prisoner by Ahsoka and Rex a few episodes prior, and finds himself strapped down to a chair inside a medical tent full of Clones being tended to by medical droids. The realization that he's been captured by the enemy (potentially a Fate Worse than Death in the 40K universe depending on the faction) combined with the sight of the droids (which the Imperials hate and fear as Abominable Intelligences) causes him to have a panic attack and piss his pants out of sheer terror.
• Broken Record:
  • When Brother Hastus is seemingly defeated by Anakin, Rex, and the Bad Batch in episode 8, he lays on his back laughing before repeating a phrase in Imperial Gothic. Tech translates Hastus's words as "To serve the Emperor's will... That we fight and die... It is our duty..."
  • In episode 41 part 1, Ahsoka's initial attempts to question Farnus and get him to cooperate hit a roadblock as the terrified Imperial Guardsman responds to everything she says by simply repeating his name, military ID number, and regiment. The sheer panic in his voice and the way he stutters his words implies that this is just as much of a Survival Mantra for him as it is Imperial military protocol for captured soldiers.
• Bullet Dodges You: In this fic, it's possible to do this using the Force/Warp. Anakin does it in Episode 8 when he uses the Force to send the Bolter rounds that Brother Araknus fired at him veering off course. Tahr also does this in Episode 16 by using his Warp abilities to alter the trajectory of incoming projectiles so that they miss him.

Tropes C to D

• Capital Offensive:
  • Subverted. Echo is paranoid that the Imperium is going to launch an attack on Coruscant after they conquer Axum and Anaxes. Palpatine and Tarkin take his concerns seriously enough that they recall almost every military asset back to defend Coruscant as soon as they receive reports of the Imperial fleet departing from the Axum System. However, it turns out that the Imperials were actually departing to attack the Separatists.
  • Davik Thune's first move in his crusade against the CIS is to have his entire fleet launch a direct assault on the Confederate capital of Raxus Secundus, taking the Separatists by total surprise as they had not been expecting such a brazen attack in the heart of their territory. After smashing through the Separatist home defense fleet, Thune has his ships orbitally bombard the planet until the entire surface is a smoldering ruin.
• The Cavalry:
  • A two-fold example in Episode 28. First, the Republic finally sends a massive armada of warships numbering in the thousands to the Axum System to aid the Jedi in their counter-invasion. At the same time, the Imperials occupying Axum receive naval reinforcements from Orion Phatris, who sends the entirety of Battlefleet Xek-Tek under Rollah Sendurran's command, which exits the Warp into the Axum System mere moments after the Republic's counterattack armada is detected jumping out of hyperspace.
  • In Episode 29, Sando's clone force is about to be routed by the Sisters of Battle when they are saved by reinforcements from the main column of the 327^th Star Corps being personally led by Aayla Secura herself.
  • In Episode 35, the tide of battle has turned against the 327^th Star Corps and they take heavy losses against a combined force of Imperial Guard and Sisters of Battle. Seeing no other option, Aayla begins to sound a retreat...only to get interrupted by none other than Mace Windu, who has arrived on the battlefield alongside hundreds of Jedi via Drop Pods to reinforce Aayla's troops.
  • In Episode 40 Part 4, the Space Battle over Axum has seemingly turned unsalvageable for the Imperial Navy due to them being heavily outnumbered by the Republic's counterattack armada and the Lord Admiral in charge is in the process of ordering a full retreat when one of her sensor officers suddenly detects the arrival of Imperial reinforcements in the form of three fleets—one from the Adeptus Mechanicus, one from the Tempered Hands, and one from a Rogue Trader dynasty. This gets played with as the commanders from each fleet make it clear that they are only here at the behest of Orion, who had to call in a lot of favors to get them to show up. And even then, they are only willing provide support for one hour, though that's still enough time to convince the Lord Admiral to have her battlefleet continue their efforts to evacuate the Imperial garrison on Axum.
  • In Episode 42 Part 4, Saint Lazarus and the other Imperials are struggling to defend the Basilica of Salvation from an assault by a combined force of Jedi and clone troopers led by Mace and Obi-Wan. They are saved when backup arrives in the form of Imperial ground reinforcements led by Commissar Leerose and the Tempered Hands Chapter Fleet entering the atmosphere above the Basilica. The sight of this causes Obi-Wan to call for a Tactical Withdrawal from the Basilica.
• Charge-into-Combat Cut:
  • When the Electro-Priest appears in Episode 11, the scene cuts to black right as he and his Skitarii begin their attack on Ahsoka and her clone troopers.
  • Used several times during the battle between the Jedi and Saphran throughout Season 2.
  • Episode 41 Part 4 ends right as the fight between Tahr Whyler and the 400 Jedi led by Aayla and Quinlan is about to begin.
• Child Soldier: 1313 is a 15-year-old boy and it's implied that many of the other soldiers of the Death Korps of Krieg are children as well.
• City Planet:
  • The planet Axum is a major Core World depicted as an ecumenopolis analogous to Coruscant with multiple layers built on top of one another. It's no surprise that when the Imperium took over, they deployed Imperial Guard regiments that specialized in urban warfare to occupy the planetwide city.
  • Deconstructed with Yevan Secundus. Hive Worlds in the 40K universe are overpopulated and overpolluted, usually requiring several Agri Worlds to constantly supply them with food for life to be sustainable on them. Yevan Secundus was originally one such Agri World until the planetary governor decided to transform the planet into a Hive World as part of a vanity project with no real plan for how he was going to feed his people. Naturally, this created a widespread famine and irreparably devastated the planet's ecosystem so no crops could ever be grown on the surface.
• Cliffhanger: The series makes heavy use of cliffhangers in the endings for its episodes' subplots.
  • Episode 3 has Captain Kraken prepare to hyperspace ram his Venator into an Imperial refugee ship under Palpatine's orders during First Contact, then ends right as he activates his ship's hyperdrive.
  • Obi-Wan's subplot in Episode 12 ends with him and his strike force charging in to attack a Space Marine Librarian.
  • Dr. Shina and Bucket's subplot in Episode 24 ends with Padmé suddenly going into labor during their secret meeting after they reveal to her that Palpatine was responsible for causing the first contact disaster that led to war with the Imperium.
  • Episode 25 ends with the Traitor Astartes that Anakin freed from an Inquisitorial prison revealing himself to be Iskandar Khayon.
  • Episode 32 ends with Boba Fett and Yannik boarding the hijacked spice train and preparing to battle the leader of the Tusken Raiders responsible for the heist, who is revealed to be a rogue Jedi.
  • Quinlan's subplot in Episode 35 has Tahr Whyler unleashing his daemonhost upon the Jedi. The scene ends with the daemonhost attacking Quinlan from behind and wrapping its talons around his face.
  • Episode 41 Part 4 ends with Tahr Whyler about to fight Aayla, Quinlan, and hundreds of other Jedi as he reveals himself to be an Alpha-Plus Psyker.
  • Episode 43 has Aayla's subplot end on a massive cliffhanger in the form of Darth Sidious himself arriving on Axum and confronting Tahr Whyler.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Quinlan Vos gets subjected to this when he is captured by Tahr Whyler during the Battle of Axum. This includes getting a Traumatic Haircut, being hung from a ceiling by hooks digging into his skin, having his eyelids cut out, and being left with cuts all over his body.
• Colony Drop: At the end of Episode 21, the Imperial warships over Axum begin to fire on Trench's Providence-class dreadnought due to no longer needing it, which is bad news for the heroes since Ahsoka and the 501^st are still aboard. In a bold move, Echo pilots the Separatist dreadnought into Axum's atmosphere, gambling that the Imperial ships won't fire after them and risk hitting their own temples on the planet's surface. He then sets the ship on a crash course into the Basilica of Salvation, intending to use Trench's flagship as a giant makeshift battering ram to assist the Republic forces laying siege to the Basilica. His plan ultimately fails as the ship gets shot down before it can reach the Basilica's walls, though the dreadnought does end up crashing on top of the Imperial Knight which Nerva and Farnus had been piloting, and nearly kills the Basilica's Canoness Superior.
• Color Motif: Axum appears to have the color blue as its motif (Azure City, Azurite Shipyards, Sapphire Spires, Blue Massacre, etc.).
• Conflict Killer: The sudden introduction of the Imperium of Man to the Star Wars galaxy proves to be one for the Clone Wars as both the Republic and CIS suddenly face simultaneous invasions by the Imperium, forcing the two warring governments to put their own conflict on hold as they recall nearly all of their military assets to defend their territories from this new threat.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Internally lampshaded when Saphran battles Mace Windu and Jaro Tapal. The Librarian is frustrated and confused at the fact that these two individual Jedi Masters are giving him such a hard time when previously he was able to singlehandedly defeat dozens of Jedi Masters and Knights with ease. This is justified by the fact that both Windu and Tapal are both considered to be among the Jedi's greatest warriors, even among the other Jedi Masters, whereas Saphran had been previously fighting mostly average Jedi with the exception of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Cin Drallig.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Boomer from the Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Republic Heroes video game appears during the 501^st's assault on Trench's former flagship where he battles against the Ad Mech forces alongside Rex and the other clones before getting killed by a Mechanicus weapon.
  • When Orion Phatris goes to meet with the Circle of Vigilants (the Skywatch's version of a Librarius) in Episode 24, the doors leading to the Circle's inner sanctum have the words "Knowledge is Power. Guard it Well" embedded on them. This is also the battle cry of the Blood Ravens Chapter, which Orion himself acknowledges and resents.
• Contrived Coincidence: In Episode 10, it's revealed that out of all the star systems in the entire Star Wars galaxy, the one most analogous that of the Milky Way Galaxy's Sol system is none other than the Tatoo system, home of the desert planet Tatooine.
• Cornered Rattlesnake: In Season 3, the Republic learns the hard way that fighting a cornered Imperium is a terrible idea. When they manage to encircle the Imperium at the Basilica, they find the Imperials fighting harder than ever, turning the whole battle into a meatgrinder and eventually forcing them to withdraw.
• The Corruption: After witnessing the firing of a vortex grenade in Episode 22, at least one legion of clones fighting on Axum shows the signs of being corrupted by Chaos.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: In Episode 42 Part 1, Ahsoka is trying to convince a captured Farnus to deliver her message requesting a ceasefire to his commanding officer. However, the Guardsman initially refuses due to her ceasefire terms having been typed onto a Data Pad, which he considers heretical xenotech and is Improperly Paranoid about being booby-trapped. When Farnus requests for her to instead write down her terms using pen and paper (which are rarely used in the Republic outside of museums), Ahsoka is unable to find any ink and resorts to biting into her finger and using her own blood as ink. This winds up being important in Episode 44 Part 2, as Saint Lazarus and the other Imperials at the Basilica are able to scan Ahsoka's blood and use DNA tests to verify Ahsoka's claims about her species being abhumans rather than xenos. This discovery is pretty much the deciding factor that causes Lazarus to agree to attend Ahsoka's ceasefire talks.
• Crash in Through the Ceiling:
  • Aquila Squad's Big Damn Heroes moment in Episode 16 sees them come to Aayla's rescue by using breaching charges to blast open the ceiling right above where Tahr Whyler had Aayla restrained and was about to Mind Rape her into being his slave. The squad's clone commandos then descend into the room below and open fire on Tahr, forcing him back and allowing Aayla to break free.
  • The Tempestus Scions make their dramatic entrance into the Republic's command center on Axum in Episode 37 by using explosive charges to cave in holes through the roof of the room where the Jedi and Axum rebel leaders were having their meeting. The Scions then drop flashbangs and smoke bombs into the room before rappelling down and opening fire on everyone present.
• Culture Clash:
  • Over the issue of the Force/Warp. The Jedi revere the Force as a benevolent Sentient Cosmic Force, dedicate their lives to serving its will, and teach themselves to channel the Light Side while rejecting the Dark Side. By contrast, the only exposure the Imperials have ever had to the Force/Warp was with The Dark Side, so as far as they are concerned, the Warp is purely malevolent and anyone who claims to serve the Force's will is no different from a Chaos worshipper.
  • The differences in how both sides treat prisoners of war is a major source of misunderstandings during the Second Battle of Axum. The Republic and Jedi view capturing enemy soldiers instead of outright killing them to be a merciful act following the rules of war and they generally treat their POWs humanely. The Imperium comes from a galaxy where the rules of war don't exist and most factions brainwash or torture their POWs, so being captured by the enemy is seen as a Fate Worse than Death while killing enemy soldiers that surrender is considered a form of mercy. Oftentimes, attempts by Jedi to convince an Imperial commander to surrender with promises of sparing the lives of their troops only ends up strengthening that commander's resolve to be Defiant to the End.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Both sides take turns curb-stomping each other, though at this time the Imperium has largely been more successful compared to the Republic.
  • The first Space Marine boarding action of a Republic Venator-class Star Destroyer at the Battle of System K749. The entire crew was annihilated with zero losses from the Space Marines, though one did lose an arm to the Jedi Knight in command of the ship. The Space Marine returns the favor by murdering the Jedi Knight and taking his lightsaber as a trophy.
  • In every naval battle to date, the Imperial Navy has shown itself to be able to overwhelm and annihilate entire Republic and CIS fleets despite being heavily outnumbered in every engagement. On a ship-to-ship comparison, Imperial warships outperform their counterparts in both long and short-range battles. In addition, the sheer size and tonnage of Imperial ships — with their smallest warships being around 2km in length — makes even their escorts an extremely difficult target to take down by the Republic and CIS navies. In fact, the disparity is so great that Republic naval ships oftentimes will just collapse and break apart when Imperial captains opted to simply ram through their enemies. During an evaluation of battle performance, a Clone captain noted that the size of the Imperial ships have made it extremely difficult for them to know where exactly to target to bring down just one Imperial warship.
  • The initial offscreen Imperial invasion and conquest of the Axum System, known in-universe as the Blue Massacre. The Space Marines from the Crimson Razors deployed in force and managed to annihilate both the CIS and Republic forces on the planets Anaxes and Axum. To emphasize the event, the Axum System was heavily stalemated by both the CIS and the Republic, with neither being able to drive the other out, then the Imperials came in and drove both out in a matter of days.
  • The Jedi taking part in the counter-invasion of Axum are both on the receiving and giving end of this. They have thus far smashed through all the regular Imperial forces that confronted them, but tend to be on the receiving end of this trope when faced with the Imperium's elite metaphysical warriors. The Space Marine Librarian Saphran straight-up annihilates two Jedi strike force teams by himself. Inquisitor Tahr Whyler managed to wipe out Aayla's entire Vanguard force, mind raped Aayla and her surviving clone commando squads, and forced them to retreat and end their assault deep into Imperial lines. A Sister of Silence aboard Tahr's warship easily overpowerd and captured Anakin when she found him snooping around the ship's secret prison.
  • Dooku manages to defeat Brother Araknus without too much difficulty; though in Araknus's defense, he was up against one of the greatest swordsmen in the Galaxy with only his combat knife, whilst his opponent's lightsaber was comparable to an Imperial power weapon.
  • Episode 43 has Tahr Whyler being ganged up on by around 400 Jedi Masters and Knights, all of whom are supremely pissed at him for torturing Quinlan. The Jedi never stood a chance as Tahr's Alpha-Plus psyker abilities lets him run circles around them effortlessly while shrugging off everything they try to throw at him.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: The first contact battle between the Republic and the Imperium, also known in-universe as the Battle of System K749. On the Republic's side are about 1,000 starships from the vaunted Kuat Drive Yards defense fleet, responsible for protecting the very shipyards that manufacture most of the Republic's war machines. On the Imperium's side are just over 200 warships consisting of the combined might of two whole Space Marine Chapter Fleets and three-quarters of an Imperial Navy sector battlefleet. Despite being outnumbered five-to-one, the Imperials easily massacre the KDY fleet with only 25 of the Republic's ships managing to escape in one piece. However, it's not a total rout for the Republic as they still manage to destroy about a dozen or so Imperial ships thanks a particularly imaginative and cunning clone captain.
• Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain: The planet Axum gives off a lot of Cyberpunk for Flavor vibes with its Layered Metropolis, futuristic technology, grand architecture, and neon signs everywhere. Rainstorms are also apparently rather frequent, calling this trope to mind.
• Darker and Edgier: Played with. By the standards of Warhammer 40,000, the story's violence and gore as well as its exploration of dark subjects like genocide, death camps, and War Is Hell are par for the course and nothing new. However, by Star Wars standards, the story is far darker and edgier compared to the movies and The Clone Wars TV series. There's also plenty of swearing and characters are killed in gruesome and bloody ways that get explicitly depicted.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Commander Bly is a clone trooper serving under Aayla Secura who survives the Clone Wars in canon and went on to serve the Galactic Empire in the Legends continuity. Here, he is crushed underneath the foot of an Imperial Knight being piloted by Nerva and Farnus in Episode 23, while the Clone Wars were still technically ongoing.
  • The Separatist Parliament gets Killed Offscreen between Episode 24 and 31 during the orbital bombardment of Raxus Secundus by Thune's fleet after they are abandoned by Dooku, who lied to them that everything was under control and told them to remain on the planet while he secretly escaped on a stealth ship. While the canon Separatist Parliament did get dissolved after the Clone Wars ended, there's no EU or Legends material which indicates that the Galactic Empire had them all killed like the Imperium does here.
  • Warthog and Jag are clone pilots serving under Plo Koon who both survive the Clone Wars in canon with the latter even taking part in Order 66. Here, the two of them sacrifice themselves in order to take out an Ironclad Battleship during the Space Battle over Axum.
• A Death in the Limelight: Whenever a significant named character gets Killed Off for Real in this series, there is a likely chance that their death scene is going to be told from the perspective of said soon-to-be-dead character. The odds of this increases the more important that character is. So far, the list of characters who have died during their POV segments includes Kraken, Borvant, Shaak Ti, Gaksian Krell, Bly, Kallak Norn, Araknus, Saphran, the fake Grievous, Kuat of Kuat, and Ishtara Ordane.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: The Imperial Refugees risk this fate against the Galactic Republic. Their individual arms, armor and troops may be higher quality than the Republic's as a general rule, but the Republic has vastly greater reserves of supplies and manpower it can draw upon, with the Imperium having the added weakness that their most powerful forces are either literally or practically irreplaceable — whilst facing off against a foe that innovates and builds much faster than they do. As a result, the Imperium forces face a genuine risk of being slowly bled dry over a prolonged conflict.
• Decapitation Strike:
  • Davik Thune marks the beginning of the Crimson Razors' crusade against the Separatists for their use of droids (which the Imperium views as an abomination) with an all-out surprise attack on Raxus Secundus, orbitally bombarding the Confederacy's capital world into molten slag. This results in the deaths of most (if not all) of the Separatist Council and Parliament who had been on the planet when it came under attack. When General Grievous's fleet comes to Raxus Secundus's defense, Thune successfully baits Grievous into a trap that seemingly succeeds in killing the droid general alongside many of the Confederacy's tactical droids. The sudden loss of both their civilian and military leadership leaves the Separatist Droid Army in total disarray and unable to coordinate an organized defense, enabling Thune to divide his fleet into many battlegroups which he disperses throughout CIS space to destroy their most important worlds while barely facing any opposition.
  • During Mace's meeting with the heads of the Axum Resistance inside the Republic's Axum command center in Episode 37, their meeting gets interrupted by a surprise attack from the Tempestus Scions, who try to assassinate everyone at the meeting in an attempt to take out their enemy's leadership in one fell swoop.
• Decomposite Character:
  • It's eventually revealed that there are two General Grievouses. The Grievous from Legends (specifically the 2003 cartoon) is the true Grievous whereas the weaker canon version is an imposter that Sidious and Dooku brought in to replace the real Grievous, who they feared had become too powerful and hid away in cold storage.
  • According to an Extra Talk video, The Dark Side itself is this as a response to its inconsistent portrayals throughout Star Wars media. There is the standard Dark Side, representing the dark side of nature and the spirit, and the "new" Dark Side, which is what you get if you take the natural tendencies of the Dark Side beyond the limits set by reality (i.e. proto-Chaos). Darksiders may dabble in the New Dark Side, but most draw the majority of their power from the normal one. Those that really begin to use the New Dark Side like Palpatine, Nihilus, or Tenebrae/Vitiate, gain power unfathomable even to other darksiders, but by still making use of the True Dark Side, cause the two forces to war within them, slowly destroying their bodies.
• Defiant to the End: For the most part Imperial forces would rather die fighting than surrender, even when the situation is futile for them.
• Dehumanization:
  • Vinorra in "The Cost of Honor" does this to the Imperials while pleading with her husband to not join the Axum Resistance due to fearing the Imperium's retribution.
    Vinorra: These men, the Imperium, those are not human men! Not like you and Kombirr!
  • Captain Rex also does this to the Imperials in "Mortal Pinnacle Part 3" after voicing his doubts at Ahsoka for wanting to peacefully resolve things with the Imperium.
    Rex: With all due respect Commander, we know enough! [The Imperials] came here and started killing, indiscriminately. They are speciesists, imperialists, and warmongers! They are animals!
• Delaying Action: The large-scale Space Battle between the Republic and Imperial Navies from Episodes 34 to 39. Even with a trio of Mandator II-class star dreadnoughts, the Republic battle group is clearly outgunned and seems to be fighting a losing battle against the Imperial battlefleet. However, the Imperials are merely facing a vanguard fleet whose purpose is to stall them long enough for the main Republic armada to reposition itself in an adjacent star system and spring a Hyperspeed Ambush.
• Didn't Think This Through: At the end of Season 1, Tarkin requests for Palpatine to recall the entire Republic Navy back to defend Coruscant due to Dr. Shina and Echo's assumption that the Imperium is going to strike at the Republic's capital next. The beginning of Season 2 reveals that Palpatine not only followed Tarkin's advice but took it a step further, recalling almost the entire Republic military. While this does turn Coruscant into the most heavily defended planet in the galaxy, both Palpatine and Tarkin seem to have overlooked a glaring problem with this strategy, namely the fact that the Clone Wars were still ongoing. Sure enough, recalling nearly every military asset back to Coruscant forces the Republic to abandon vital areas of the galaxy which almost immediately come under attack by General Grievous's forces, resulting in the Separatists conquering huge swaths of the Outer Rim with no one to stop them.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation:
  • In canon, Admiral Trench dies from being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Anakin's lightsaber during the Battle of Anaxes. Here, he dies via Mind Rape from Brother Tasleon when the Techmarine forcibly hacks into the alien admiral's cybernetic brain and Trench winds up shredding apart his own mind while struggling against the intrusion.
  • Canonically, Ki-Adi-Mundi is gunned down by his own clone troopers in the middle of a battle on Mygeeto when Order 66 is issued by Palpatine. Here, he is Killed Offscreen by Astartes from the Crimson Razors during the Imperial invasion of Axum.
  • In canon, Shaak Ti is killed by Darth Vader during the Jedi Temple massacre in Revenge of the Sith (though this has been highly variable throughout Star War history). Here, she is killed by a grenade activated by Sister Rajulia as part of a Taking You with Me during the opening stages of the Jedi's counter-invasion of Axum.
  • Instead of getting massacred by Darth Vader on Mustafar under Palpatine's orders at the end of the Clone Wars, the Separatist Council are among the billions that perished when the Crimson Razors rained fire down upon Raxus Secundus from orbit as part of Davik Thune's crusade against the Separatist Alliance.
  • In canon, Depa Billaba is killed by her own clone troopers on Kaller during Order 66. Here, she dies aboard the Hellsmasher in orbit over Axum from injuries inflicted by Saphran.
  • In canon, Jaro Tapal dies during Order 66 when he sacrifices himself to hold off the clone troopers so his Padawan can escape. Here, he succumbs to a lightsaber wound inflicted onto him by Depa Billaba after she fell under the Dark Side's influence from overusing Vaapad while fighting Saphran.
  • In the Legends continuity, Kuat of Kuat dies around the time of the Battle of Endor when he carries out a suicide bombing of his company's own shipyards due to having lost control over his company and being unwilling to let anyone else lead Kuat Drive Yards. Here, he dies around the time of the Clone Wars when the Mandator II-class dreadnought he was commanding is destroyed during the Second Battle of Axum.
  • In canon, Agen Kolar dies fighting Palpatine after he, Mace Windu, Kit Fisto and Saesee Tiin confront him for being a Sith Lord and attempt to arrest him. Here, he dies to Ishtara Ordane after she cuts him off from the Force, douses him with promethium borne flame, then finishing him off by slicing him in half.
• Diverting Power:
  • In Episode 11, the narration mentions that the abandoned Verpine asteroid colonies used by the Jedi to stage a counter-invasion of Axum had all power diverted to their shields in order to withstand the barrage by the Hellsmasher's capital-grade weaponry.
  • In Episode 39, Terrinald Screed orders his Mandator II-class dreadnought to divert all power to its Deflector Shields in an attempt to tank a direct shot from the Imperial Ironclad's Wave-Motion Gun. This utterly fails and the Ironclad's primary cannon easily blasts Screed's dreadnought in half with one shot.
• The Dog Bites Back: Grievous, after having been kept asleep for three years by the Sith, is awakened by Dooku. However, he regains all his memories and — realizing that Dooku and Sidious had attempted to remove his memories of Ronderu lij Kummar, and that he was nothing but a pawn to them — goes rogue and has come to despise the Sith even more than the Jedi.
• Draw Aggro: This is basically the strategy employed by the Republic Navy when it has its rematch with the Imperial Navy at the Second Battle of Axum. The Republic fleet brings a trio of Mandator-II-class dreadnoughts, which are heavily shielded and comparable to Imperial Battleships in size, that they use to draw fire from the Imperial battlefleet and soak up all the damage while swarms of smaller Victory and Venator-class Star Destroyers slowly whittle down the Imperial warships one-by-one.
• Dressing as the Enemy:
  • Downplayed in Episode 19. Anakin, the Bad Batch, and R2-D2 put on makeshift badges and hastily-put together sigils of the Imperium's double-headed eagle while trying to sneak through Tahr Whyler's warship. Much to the surprise of the heroes, their Paper-Thin Disguise actually works.
  • Episode 29 has Quinlan Vos disguise himself as an Imperial comms officer in order to get close to Tahr Whyler and assassinate him while he has his guard down. He's foiled by one of the actual comms officers, who pushes the Inquisitor out of the way of Quinlan's lightsaber at the last second.
• Drop Pod: Used by both sides during the Second Battle of Axum's mid-to-late stages in Season 3.
  • In Episode 35, Mace Windu and the surviving Jedi from the failed assault on the Hellsmasher use their Boarding Pods as repurposed landing craft and travel to the planet below to reinforce Aayla and the 327^th Star Corps just as they were about to be routed by the Sisters of Battle.
  • At the end of "Mortal Fall Part 4", the Tempered Hands Chapter finally make their official debut by landing around the Basilica of Salvation in drop pods deployed from their Battle Barge. They are seen from afar by Obi-Wan, who initially thinks that the Battle Barge is doing an Orbital Bombardment with oversized bullets due to how fast the drop pods came crashing down.
• Dual Boss:
  • At the start of Episode 35, Quinlan Vos is fighting Tahr Whyler and Commissar Terrandor simultaneously.
  • In Episode 42 Parts 3–4, Mace Windu ultimately ends up facing Inquisitor Samael Whyler and Hecate in a two-on-one duel all by himself after Obi-Wan gets separated from him in the chaos of the surrounding battle.
• Dwindling Party:
  • When the Second Battle of Axum begins, we're introduced to a squad of Imperial guardsmen led by Sergeant Kallak Norn. Half of his squad dies in the initial clone attack. The rest are gradually whittled down over the course of Season 2. Eventually, Farnus is the only member of the squad to still be active as the rest either die or are put out of action over the course of the battle.
  • A villainous example with Tahr Whyler's Inquisitorial retinue, who get picked off one by one throughout the Battle of Axum. First, Major Flecken, Tahr's mole in the Imperial Guard, gets assassinated offscreen by Shaak Ti early in the battle. Then, the Rogue Trader who pilots Tahr's personal Gun-Cutter gets shot down and burns to death in the craft's wreckage. Next, the captain of Tahr's Inquisitorial warship Luminous Reign gets killed alongside thousands of his naval armsmen by an Adeptus Custodes. After that, Tahr's personal Magos Omni-Kraiden is Force-choked to death by Darth Sidious.
  • Episode 33 features the surviving Astartes under Force Captain Vordran's command after their ship crashed on Hypori two episodes ago. First they split up with Sergeant Kandrin and his two unnamed Marines getting Killed Offscreen by the true Grievous. Then the Librarian Dendran gets shot in the head by a droid sniper wielding a stolen Bolter. Next, Brother Gorginon gets ambushed by the true Grievous, who drags him away into the darkness of the wrecked ship and rips his head off. After that, Terradin is shot in the neck with a Bolter by a commando droid and dies shortly thereafter from blood loss. Finally, Vordran is left alone and is presumably killed offscreen in a duel with the true Grievous, who has him surrounded, outnumbered, and outmatched.

Tropes E to H

• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Episodes 2, 5, and 10 all begin with the iconic Star Wars Opening Scroll that catches the viewers up on what's going on in the story so far. This type of intro is never used again after the tenth episode.
  • From the start of Season 1 to about halfway through Season 2, the thumbnail cover art for each episode used Roman numerals when denoting the episode number. Starting with Episode 21, this changes as every episode from that point would have their thumbnail cover art use regular numbers instead of the Roman numeral equivalent.
  • Also up until halfway through Season 2, the author would include his after-talks/Q&As in the same videos as the episodes themselves, formatting them as post-episode segments. This all changes starting with Episode 21, which divides the episode and its after-talk into their own separate videos.
• Easily Conquered World: Anaxes, despite being the site of the Republic's reserve shipyards and their most prestigious military academy, offers little-to-no resistance when the Imperium invades at the end of Season 1. This is justified because the Republic military ordered their forces to abandon Anaxes to the Imperials because they had been led to believe that the Imperials had control over a planet-destroying bomb on Anaxes.
• Eaten Alive:
  • When the Crimson Razors carry out a genocide of Utapau in Episode 32, they spare some of the native Pau'ans and take them as captives. After Utapau has been otherwise cleansed of nonhuman life, the Razors gather up their terrified Pau'an captives and eat them alive head first as part of their victory feast.
  • While going on his anti-alien rant to Ahsoka in Episode 41 Part 1, Farnus mentions having seen the Dark Eldar eat their human slaves while they were still alive.
• Elite Army: The Jedi deploy the full might of their order at the Second Battle of Axum, sending nearly all of their Masters and Knights with the exception of Yoda, who remains at the Jedi Temple to watch over the Padawans and younglings. All in all, there are about 5,000 Jedi in total fighting at Axum against an enemy that numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Against regular Imperial forces, the Jedi are shown consistently winning battles where the enemy has them significantly outnumbered. As an example, Episode 12 shows Obi-Wan's strike force of fifty Jedi easily cutting down hundreds of naval armsmen without taking a single casualty.
• Elites Are More Glamorous: During the Second Battle of Axum, most of the focus (when it's not on the Jedi) is on characters who are part of the elite and special forces units of the Republic and Imperium. On the Republic's side, you have famous soldiers like Captain Rex, Commander Bly, the Bad Batch, Delta Squad, and several named ARC troopers. As for the Imperials, their viewpoint characters include Sisters of Battle, Inquisitors, a Space Marine Librarian, an Imperial Saint, a Tempestor Prime, a Primaris Psyker, an Electro-Priest, and soldiers from renowned Imperial Guard regiments like the Cadian Shock Troops and Death Korps of Krieg. This is downplayed a little since there is one Axum storyline that focuses on two guardsmen from an average regiment and a low-ranking Tech-Priestess. However, that is the exception to what is otherwise a collection of the Republic and Imperium's best soldiers.
• Enemy Civil War:
  • Following the destruction of Raxus Secundus and the deaths of the Separatist Council, the Confederacy splinters into two warring factions while also simultaneously fending off the Imperium. One faction is led by Dooku and is The Remnant of the original CIS, while the other is a newly-formed Renegade Splinter Faction led by the true Grievous.
  • We see this played straight in Episode 41 Part 3 with the Imperials defending the Basilica of Salvation. On one side is Commissar Shadrick and his Storm Troopers attempting to blast their way to the Basilica's Virus Bomb. On the other side are all the Vastellens, Cadians, Colambians, and Death Korpsmen sent by Saint Lazarus to arrest Shadrick.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Subverted. Palpatine and Dooku try their best to get the Republic and the Confederacy to form The Alliance to combat the Imperium of Man. However, after years of bitter war, there is simply too much bad blood between the two governments for either side to be willing to consider even a temporary ceasefire. Dooku's proposal for a temporary alliance with the Republic was laughed out by the Separatist Parliament. Likewise, it's implied that the Galactic Senate was equally unreceptive to Echo's suggestion for an alliance with the Separatists.
  • Season 2 has a small-scale example of this between the Bad Batch and Qvo-84, a Magos clone created by Belisarius Cawl. For context, Qvo-84 had been secretly kidnapped by Tahr Whyler's men and imprisoned aboard the Escort ship Luminous Reign for reasons unknown. During the Second Battle of Axum, Qvo is able to use the chaos from that battle to escape from the brig and bumps into the Bad Batch, who had been infiltrating the ship as part of a Republic military mission. Seeing as how they share a mutual enemy in the form of Tahr's agents and the ship's crew, Qvo agrees to help the Bad Batch with their mission in exchange for helping him rendezvous with some like-minded Tech-Priests who had already been planning to break Qvo out.
• The Enemy Weapons Are Better: As both sides continue to engage each other it became extremely clear that Imperial weapons are far superior to the Republic's; as such in order to even the battlefields, and for their own survivability, the clones of the 501^st have opted to use the weapons of the fallen Skitarii instead of their standard issued blaster rifles. In addition, the far greater rate of fire of lasguns means that Jedi have a much harder time deflecting them than they do with blasters.
• Ensemble Cast: Throughout the second and third seasons, there is no one singular protagonist. Instead, there is an ever-growing cast of POV characters who each get their own individual storylines that occasionally intersect. Among the cast are various Jedi, clone troopers, Imperials, Axumites, and others who all receive roughly equal focus as the Battle of Axum rages on.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • According to Dr. Shina, hyperspace ramming is considered so dangerous that both the Separatists and Hutt Clans have incredibly strict laws against the maneuver. Downplayed with the ancient Sith, who weren't above carrying out hyperspace rams, but still frowned on the maneuver and avoided doing it when they could.
  • Hondo Ohnaka—being a pirate, thief, and kidnapper—is no stranger to the darker aspects of life, but even he is shocked and horrified by the genocidal actions of the Imperium of Man.
  • Senator Saam is a Corrupt Politician motivated by War for Fun and Profit and one of the Separatists' moles in the Galactic Senate. During the Clone Wars, he actively conspired with other Separatist-aligned senators to sabotage Padmé's attempt at opening peace talks between the Republic and CIS. That being said, he seemed to be just as horror-struck and mentally shaken as the rest of the Senate upon being shown footage of the Imperium's death camps on Axum, which were used to carry out a planet-wide genocide of anything not human (as well as human dissenters). When Yoda uses the footage to justify the Jedi's unsanctioned counter-invasion of Axum, Saam tries to stutter out a half-hearted argument against Yoda, but he clearly doesn't believe his own words and gives up mid-sentence.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • For all the Galactic Senate's corruption, stagnation, and inefficiency, they ultimately have their limits for what sorts of atrocities they are willing to tolerate and turn a blind eye to. When Yoda shows them footage taken of the Imperium carrying out a mass genocide of Axum's non-humans, the entire Senate chamber falls into Stunned Silence as every Senator struggles to process what they are seeing. This, more than anything else, is what ends up convincing the Senate to get its collective act together and end their weeks-long deadlock which had prevented the Republic's military from striking back at the Imperial invaders.
  • Upon meeting an Imperial garbage cleaning servitor — a lobotomized human brutally augmented with disfiguring, clunky cybernetics to become a mindless automaton — Anakin Skywalker's astromech droid R2-D2 disapprovingly notes that the servitor is "less than a droid".
  • At the end of Episode 12, it's shown that Padmé's pregnancy has become an Open Secret among the Galactic Senate since her pregnant belly is visible even while wearing a harness. However, Palpatine's POV narration notes that not even Padmé's most bitter political opponents are bringing this up to try discrediting her due to the entire Senate recognizing that the Imperial occupation of Axum is a serious matter of life and death, and this is not the time for Skewed Priorities by discussing something as comparatively trivial as a secret pregnancy.
• Evil Is Bigger: Just about everything in the Imperial arsenal is bigger compared to the Republic and the Separatists, from their ships to the very guns that their soldiers use.
• Evil Versus Evil: In addition to fighting the Republic, the Imperium is also warring with the Separatists.
  • As of Episode 31, there is now a three-way war in Separatist space between Thune's invading Imperial forces, the remnants of the CIS led by Dooku, and a rogue CIS faction led by the true Grievous.
  • The conflict of the Tatooine subplot from Episodes 32 and 33. On one side is a Villain Team-Up between the Imperium and Jabba's criminal empire. Opposing them are a band of ruthless Tusken Raiders led by A'Sharad Hett (the future Big Bad of Star Wars: Legacy).
  • Episode 44 Part 2 sees Arc Villain Tahr Whyler come to blows with Darth Sidious in a climatic duel that sees both opponents driven to their limits in a fight for their lives. Sidious is eventually proven to be the victor while Tahr just barely escapes to the Luminous Reign using Omni-Kraiden's teleporter.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • As a whole, the Imperium is by far a much deadlier enemy by multiple factors compared to the CIS that the Republic is used to fighting. When the Imperials go on an anti-droid crusade against the Confederacy, they bring the entire CIS to its knees within mere weeks by easily destroying the Confederate capital world of Raxus Secundus and seemingly killing General Grievous. Though the latter achievement is immediately undone as the scene after Grievous's death reveals that the Grievous killed was an inferior Legacy Character of the original, who is brought out of cold storage by Sidious and Dooku as a Hail Mary to save the CIS. Note that it canonically took the Republic several grueling years to do something similar.
  • Conversely, the Imperium is on the receiving end of this from the Sith. Despite their brutality exceeding that of the Sith, the Imperials aren't being willfully malicious or cruel, just deeply misguided and misinformed after being tossed into an unfamiliar setting that operates on different rules from their own. Yes, the Imperials are explicitly trying to conquer the Galaxy Far Far Away and commit a bevy of atrocities along the way, but they only do so out of the genuine belief that it's necessary to survive and keep humanity safe. By contrast, the Sith are fully aware their actions are evil and causing harm to innocents — and either don't care or actively get a sick thrill from it. Unlike the Imperium, the Sith seek galactic domination not because they think it's in anyone's best interests, but primarily to massage their own egos. So far, there have been two instances in the series where the Sith have actively joined the battlefield — Dooku vs. a squad of Crimson Razors on Raxus Secundus and Sidious vs. Tahr Whyler on Axum. In both instances, the Sith win handily and defeat their Imperial opponents.
• Exact Words:
  • Right before his duel with Aayla Secura in Episode 16, Tahr Whyler told his daemonhost Jackal to not interfere, stating that this is just between him and Aayla. When the clone troopers of Aquila Squad and the Vanguard force later intervene and rescue Aayla before Tahr can Mind Rape her into becoming his sleeper agent, Tahr demands to know why Jackal stood idly by and let this happen. Jackal replies by repeating Tahr's previous words about how this reckoning would be between Tahr and Aayla alone. When Tahr points out that he didn't include the clones in that order, Jackal merely shrugs.
  • When Ahsoka decides to try and capture Bofin-337, Nerva's servo-skull which she found wandering around the streets in Episode 40 Part 1, Rex reminds her that Windu harshly forbade her from capturing any more Imperial soldiers. Ahsoka replies that Bofin isn't a soldier but a piece of technology, thus reasoning that Windu would want her to recover it from the battlefield.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The title says it all: it's the Star Wars universe vs. Warhammer 40K, specifically the Imperium of Man.
• Exploring the Evil Lair: Anakin, R2-D2, and the Bad Batch spend the entire Second Battle of Axum sneaking through and exploring Inquisitor Tahr Whyler's personal warship while the Inquisitor is away on Axum to enact his Uriah Gambit.
• Extra-Long Episode:
  • Most episodes in Season 1 are around 20–30 minutes long. The Season 1 finale "Dark Horizons" is nearly 50 minutes long minus the after-episode commentary. This is also the episode where nearly all the storylines in Season 1 converge, and sets up the Battle of Axum arc, which becomes the main focus for Seasons 2–3.
  • Episode 23 is the longest episode out of Season 2 at over 1 hour and 54 minutes in length. This is also a pretty significant episode as it kills off Kallak and Bly, and introduces Kombirr, the Axum Resistance, and Samael.
  • Season 3 has Episode 43, which is over three hours in total length, making it by far the longest single episode out of the entire series. This episode is also rather significant as it sees the battlefield debut of the Tempered Hands Chapter, which had been hinted at and built up over the course of the season. It also resolves several plot threads and cliffhangers from previous episodes.
  • Episode 44 Part 2 is the second longest episode out of the entire series at 2 hours and nearly 40 minutes long. This episode serves as the finale for Season 3, sees the fighting on Axum's surface wrap up, and features the long-awaited duel between Tahr Whyler and Darth Sidious, revealing that Sidious is far more powerful than the Jedi and Imperials initially thought.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The Battle of Axum arc (episodes 10–43+) happens over the course of half a day at most.
• Eye Scream:
  • Tarkin was one of the Republic's commanders fighting in the offscreen First Battle of Axum where the Republic and Jedi were dealt a devastating defeat by the Imperium's forces. When Tarkin shows up to Windu's emergency military conference at Rothana, which takes place after the aforementioned battle, he is sporting several combat injuries including a bloody bandage over his left eye.
  • As part of his Cold-Blooded Torture, Tahr Whyler uses his scalpel to slice off Quinlan's eyes so he will be Forced to Watch it all.
  • Samael spits acid into Mace Windu's eye during their duel in "Mortal Fall Part 4".
  • In Episode 44 part 1, Captain Fordo manages to kill a Tempered Hands Space Marine by stabbing his vibro-knife into the Marine's eye. The vibrations from the knife proceed to turn the Marine's brain into mush, lobotomizing him instantly.
• False Flag Operation: Palpatine sabotages First Contact between the Republic and the Imperium by remotely activating the control chip of a clone captain in the Republic fleet and forcing him to ram his Venator into an Imperial refugee ship at lightspeed, ultimately resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Imperial civilians. From the Imperium's perspective, it seemed as though the Republic had just attacked and killed a ton of their civilians unprovoked, so they responded by waging all-out war upon the Star Wars galaxy.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The Imperials absolutely loath and fear all non-human species and kill every single alien they meet on sight. They also despise droids as Abominable Intelligences and Force-users as witches.
  • Omega mentions in her POV narration in Episode 40 Part 4 that the Spaarti-created clones are subjected to this by the regular clone troopers and the Kaminoans, who treat them like biological droids due to their accelerated creation process making them Empty Shells with no individuality.
• Fantastic Radiation Shielding: It is possible in this fic to use the Force to shield oneself from radiation. While finishing off a Skitarius armed with a blade bathed in radiation in Episode 17, Ahsoka uses the Force to fend off the gamma waves coming off the Skitarius's body.
• Fascist, but Inefficient: Axum becomes this under the Imperium's occupation. The Imperials spend more time Crushing the Populace than they do governing the planet or combatting crime. The Imperial Navy's gargantuan warships used to blockade Axum, while effective at battling large capital ships, prove woefully insufficient at stopping the smaller and more nimble freighters favored by smugglers, leading to a massive increase in smuggling compared to when the more democratic Republic was in charge. Hondo's gang of Space Pirates were not only able to infiltrate the occupied planet, but they even managed to gather valuable military intel on the Imperial occupation as well as sneak into their death camps and record an entire Atrocity Montage. Hondo himself admits that the only reason he was so successful at this is because the occupation had stretched itself thin from dedicating most of their resources and manpower to exterminating all the nonhumans who lived on Axum. Later episodes in Season 2 show that the Imperials didn't even do that good of a job at purging Axum's nonhumans as a large chunk of the Axum resistance is revealed to consist of alien civilians who evaded the global genocide. That's likely hundreds of thousands if not millions of nonhuman Axumites that the Imperials missed. Deconstructed as its revealed that the inefficiency was on purpose as the forces placed there were meant to be purged as a powerplay by Macharion.
• Faux Horrific: Played for Drama as its meant to display how disconnected the Imperium is with the Republic.
  • Farnus has this reaction upon seeing Ahsoka's physical appearance for the first time in Episode 40 Part 3. Ahsoka looks like a teenage Orange-Skinned Space Babe, yet he reacts as though he's come face-to-face with a rabid Rak'Gol. He stutters in fear before suddenly drawing his laspistol and wildly shooting at Ahsoka while screaming at her to die.
  • Then there's Farnus's overreaction when he wakes up in a Republic medical tent in Episode 41 Part 1 and sees 2-1B medical droids tending to him and the injured clone troopers. Admittedly, these specific droid models do have a bit of a SkeleBot 9000 look going for them, but Farnus reacts like he's about to be tortured by the Dark Eldar. Upon seeing one of these medical droids approach him, he lets out a bloodcurdling scream before pissing his pants from sheer terror.
• Fictional Document:
  • The written version of Episode 4 on FFN contains an additional scene in the form of a last testament written by a Skywatch Force Commander who is preparing to undertake a Suicide Mission to assassinate an Archmagos as part of Orion's fleet-wide purge of Imperial leadership.
  • Episode 19 ends with the reading of an in-universe letter addressed to Warmaster Macharion II by his adjunct Pius Gorthank. The letter updates Macharion on the Imperial forces deployed to occupy Axum and reveals to the audience that the entire occupation is one big Uriah Gambit to get rid of any "undesirable" regiments in the Imperial Guard.
• Fictional Geneva Conventions: Hyperspace ramming (known in canon as the Holdo maneuver) is seen as a big no-no in the galactic community and has been outlawed by just about every faction for thousands of years. When Kraken's Venator does it on an Imperial refugee ship at First Contact, the rest of the Republic fleet reacts with a combination of Mass "Oh, Crap!" and Stunned Silence.
• Final Solution:
  • When Davik Thune gave the Imperial forces under his command the order to conquer Anaxes, he explicitly stated that they would cleanse the planet of all xenos and AI before moving on to conquer Axum next.
  • During the Imperium's occupation of the Axum System, most of their time and resources are spent on a large-scale genocidal campaign targeting Axum's non-human population. Hundreds of all-purpose death camps are set up across the planet, each used to round up thousands of aliens and kill them en masse. Those who aren't killed outright are put into forced labor while spending their free time being tortured in just about every way imaginable.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • In Episode 33, when Force Captain Vordran and Brother Terradin arrive at the location where Sergeant Kandrin told them he was waiting at over the radio, they see a Thunderhawk gunship seemingly ready to take off. For context, Vordran and his men had been stranded on Hypori after the true Grievous outwitted them during a Space Battle and forced their ships to crash-land on the planet. Terradin wonders what Kandrin is thinking since any Astartes with half a brain would know that the Thunderhawk isn't equipped for FTL travel or long voyages through space, making it almost useless for escaping the hostile planet they are currently stranded on. When Vordran informs Kandrin over the radio that they are at the meeting place, Kandrin's voice replies "Roger roger." A second later, the two Astartes get ambushed by commando droids who had been imitating Kandrin's voice in order to lure them into a trap.
  • During a meeting with the Axum rebel leaders in Episode 37, Mace and the other Jedi in the room all suddenly pause and become alert as they feel the Force trying to warn them about something. Mace suddenly Force pushes everyone away from the meeting table. Mere seconds later, the roof above the table explodes, followed by the Tempestus Scions dropping in and firing on everyone inside.
• Foreshadowing: Episode 37 starts with Sando and his men being sent out by Obi-Wan to track down an Axumite Rebel Leader, a man named Samael, due to hearing rumors that the Axum resistance was being led by a supposed undercover Jedi. This foreshadows the revelation in Episode 42 that Samael has a Laser Sword and Psychic Powers, making it understandable how the Axum rebels could have mistook the undercover Inquisitor for a Jedi.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: The fic has a massive cast and multiple plot lines running through it concurrently, which are constantly being juggled between, while others are put on hold for multiple episodes at a time only to be brought up at a later moment.
• Fusion Fic:
  • There are hints throughout the story that there's some overlap between the Warp and the Force. When the Imperial Fleet first tried to enter the Warp while in the Star Wars universe, they ended up traveling through the Netherworld of the Force.
  • In the after-talk for Episode 21, the author explains that the Dark Side in this fic is actually caused by nascent daemons gestating in the Force.
  • In Episode 39, it's revealed that the material in 40K adamantium is the same as that found in Mandalorian beskar.
• Gambit Pileup:
  • As it stands, there are currently six major players involved in the war:
    • The two most prevalent to the story are of course the Republic and the Imperium; the latter wishes to impose their xenophobic dogma upon this new galaxy, and the Republic of course do not want this and are fighting for defense of their home.
    • The Confederacy of Independent Systems is still fighting for secession against the Republic, but are now also fighting for their lives against the Imperium, and with the main leadership dead, what remains of their forces are basically just struggling to survive.
    • The Order of the Sith Lords comprising Darth Sidious and Count Dooku are struggling to keep galactic affairs working in their favor to complete the Sith's Grand Plan of toppling the Republic and eradicating the Jedi, but the arrival of the Imperium has stymied a good portion of their plans.
    • A rogue CIS faction led by the real General Grievous are working behind the scenes to continue the CIS' original goals, but without the aid of the Sith.
    • The Tyranids are now involved in the war via a Genestealer Cult that was unwittingly brought into the Star Wars galaxy by the Xek-Tek fleet. As an extragalactic force, it is very much possible that the Tyranids may become a new player in full.
  • The Second Battle of Axum is an excellent microcosm of this, involving a variety of different factions with differing agendas that don't necessarily align with each other.
    • First, you have the Jedi Order, Clone Army, and Republic Navy fighting to liberate Axum from the Imperium.
    • Second, you have the majority of the Imperial forces occupying Axum, who were ordered by Davik Thune to defend their newly-conquered holdings while he and his forces are off invading Separatist space on the other side of the galaxy. These Imperials mostly consist of Imperial Guard, Adepta Sororitas, and some AdMech elements.
    • Third, is a conspiracy between Imperial Guard leader Tyranus Macharion II and renegade Inquisitor Lord Tahr Whyler to deliberately sacrifice the Imperials on Axum as part of a Uriah Gambit to purge the Guard's ranks while also creating false martyrs to rally the rest of the Imperium behind their cause so they can usurp Orion's Imperial Council.
    • Then you have various smaller factions running around creating mayhem such as the civilian-led Axum Resistance, Chaos-corrupted clone troopers, and a Genestealer cult, which are all fighting the Imperium's forces on Axum while acting separately from the Republic and Jedi.
    • There are also multiple separate factions of the Inquisition at the battle. Tahr's faction is aiding the aforementioned conspiracy and trying to sabotage the Imperial defenders. Samael's faction is trying to aid the Imperials defending Axum by going undercover among the Axum rebels while simultaneously hunting for the above-mentioned Genestealer cult. Midway through Season 3, a third faction gets involved led by Inquisitor Udama, who has come to Axum to investigate her fellow Inquisitor Tahr Whyler for crimes of sedition with the assistance of a member of the freaking Adeptus Custodes.
    • By the time of the battle's late stages, the Imperial Council finally gets involved when they send the majority of their naval forces and the Tempered Hands Chapter to Axum, not to reinforce the defenders, but to instead forcibly evacuate the Imperials occupying the planet whether they like it or not since the Council sees Axum as a lost cause.
    • Ahsoka and the 501^st Legion also start trying to negotiate a ceasefire with the Imperials behind their superiors' backs near the end of the battle.
    • Finally, the Sith get involved in the battle when Palpatine personally travels to Axum to confront and/or eliminate Inquisitor Tahr Whyler due to him seeing Tahr (who is revealed to be a secret Alpha-Plus psyker) as a rival darksider who poses a genuine threat to the Sith's mastery over the Dark Side.
• Generic Federation, Named Empire: The primary conflict of the story is between the Galactic Republic and the Imperium of Man. The former is a multi-species, democratic union while the latter is an authoritarian, theocratic human empire. There's also the Confederacy of Independent Systems fighting for their survival against the aforementioned Imperium.
• Glass Cannon: The Adeptus Mechanicus happens to fill this category, despite being a much better-equipped force compare to those in the Imperial Guard, and sporting weapons that are of much higher quality compared to Republic forces. They however found that their mechanical enhancement and anatomy make them extremely susceptible to Republic weaponry. After spending years fighting against a mostly mechanical army, the Republic military arsenal has become heavily anti-droid oriented, which makes Ad Mech forces extremely vulnerable to Clone weaponry.
• Godzilla Threshold: Eventually, an entire Chapter of Space Marines are sent to Axum to drive back the Republic in Season 3.
• Good Hurts Evil: Word of God is that if a Warp daemon from 40K were to cross universes to the Star Wars galaxy, they would not be able to survive in the Force since it is the inverse of the Warp, representing order to the Warp's chaos. While a Greater Daemon might be strong enough to not get instantly obliterated by the light side, they would still be critically weakened and need to seek shelter in areas tainted by the dark side.
• Good Republic, Evil Empire: The series is mainly about a war between the Galactic Republic and the Imperium of Man. The Republic is a union of sovereign planets united to bring democracy across the cosmos, while the Imperium is a galaxy-conquering empire that seeks total dominance over the stars. The Republic is presented as a very flawed democracy, but still comes across as far more ethical and morally right when compared to the Imperium, which regularly carries out acts of extreme evil that sicken and horrify even the Republic's most corrupt and jaded politicians. To further reinforce this trope, the Imperium gets nicknamed "the Empire" by many of the Star Wars characters in-universe.
• Graying Morality: Downplayed. The series starts out with a largely Black-and-Gray Morality, portraying the deeply flawed yet still democratic Republic and the noble Jedi warring against the (from the Star Wars perspective) extremely oppressive and genocidal Imperium of Man. However, as the Second Battle of Axum carries on, the story introduces various sympathetic Imperial characters who are portrayed as hardworking, devout men struggling to survive in what they perceive as a strange and hostile alien environment. It probably helps that most of the overtly malicious Imperial leaders on Axum seem to have been either Killed Offscreen early in the battle, sidelined, or put Out of Focus in favor of the more Reasonable Authority Figures taking the reins. At the same time, the Republic is shown increasingly discarding their noble traits in a desperate drive to defeat the Imperium (such as not taking prisoners, killing helpless enemy combatants, and employing increasingly brutal tactics), turning it into a Gray-and-Grey Morality.
• Grenade Hot Potato:
  • During the 327^th's assault on an Imperial encampment in Episode 11, one of the Clones throws a grenade that lands near Farnus's squad. Farnus panics and chucks the grenade away from himself, accidentally throwing it towards one of his fellow guardsmen, killing her.
  • During the Crimson Razors' assault on Raxus Secundus's planetary shield generators in Episode 24, B1 battle droids try to Grenade Spam Brother Araknus, who manages to catches one grenade and pitch it back, then kick two other grenades that landed nearby back towards the droids as well.
• Grenade Spam:
  • During Ahsoka's The Cavalry moment in Episode 11, she uses her lightsabers to cut a hole directly in the ceiling above where the AdMech forces are shooting at Rex and his half of the 501^st from. Ahsoka's half of the 501^st then drop tens of EMP grenades down the hole right on top of the AdMech soldiers.
  • Early in Kallie Delta's fight with Commander Bly's clone troopers in Episode 23, the Clones pull out and throw EMP grenades "by the hundreds" at her, which Kallie manages to avoid.
  • While assaulting one of Raxus Secundus's shield generators in Episode 24, Brother Araknus is faced with an army of battle droids. All the B1 battle droids in the formation immediately draw grenades from around their waists and toss them all simultaneously at Araknus, who destroys most of them by shooting them mid-air with his Bolter, and then throwing and kicking back the grenades that he missed.
• Had to Be Sharp: Many Imperial Guard regiments hail from worlds that would be considered nightmarish and suicidal to live on, as such in order to prosper on them, many of its inhabitants are brought up to be stronger, more hardened, and resourceful compared to the inhabitants of more peaceful worlds in the Republic. Space Marines members are also examples of this as many Chapters favor recruits that originated from worlds that produced hardened humans who are able to stand and survive in extreme conditions.
• He Who Fights Monsters: One of the overarching themes of the story is about how the Jedi are starting to lose themselves in their war with the Imperium and are slowly becoming just as savage as their enemies. During the Battle of Axum, we see this happen to Depa Billaba and Mace Windu, both of whom fall to the Dark Side while fighting the Imperials.
• Help Mistaken for Attack: Occurs during the Galactic Republic's First Contact with the Imperium of Man after a Brainwashed and Crazy Clone captain hyperspace rams his Venator into an Imperial transport carrying refugees. Almost immediately after this happens, the Jedi Knight commanding the Republic fleet sends rescue parties to save as many people as they can from the damaged Imperial transport. Unfortunately, when the rest of the Imperial armada arrives, they assume the Republic is slave raiding their refugee ship and attack, sparking off a war.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In order to save Padme, Luke, and Leia from Palpatine, Yoda seems to have undertaken this, though it does not appear to have been lethal to him yet.
  • In Episode 39, Warthog and Jag fly their Y-Wing directly into the barrel of an Ironclad's fusion cannon to prevent it from firing on the Republic's last surviving Mandator-II dreadnought. This causes a chain reaction that destroys the cannon and permanently cripples the Ironclad, forcing the ship to withdraw and enabling the Republic's vanguard fleet to hold out long enough against the Imperial Navy for reinforcements to finally arrive.
  • A villainous example with Ishtara Ordane, who ends up sacrificing her life to prevent the Basilica's Virus Bomb from destroying Axum, channeling her faith in the God-Emperor so that the Emperor performs a Divine Intervention which transforms Ishtara's dying body into a fiery inferno which consumes the bomb and its payload before it can detonate.
• History Repeats: The Clone Wars began with the Battle of Geonosis, during Mace Windu led an army of Jedi against the Separatist Droid Army, only to lose dozens of Jedi and nearly be killed until they received reinforcements from the Republic's then-new Clone Army. The Battle of Geonosis was also a bloodbath with many clone troopers getting killed due to the Jedi's inexperience in commanding a battle. The Second Battle of Axum is in many ways similar. While not the first battle, it seems to mark the point where all-out war between the Republic and Imperium really begins as opposed to the Republic being on the defensive. The initial battle includes Mace Windu leading thousands of Jedi (and clone troopers) against the Imperial occupation force on Axum, only to be unprepared for the Imperium's brutality and capabilities in the Warp/Force, leading to many Jedi being killed. Like with Geonosis, the Jedi receive reinforcements from the Senate later in the battle consisting of an armada of warships ferrying legions of clone troopers. Tons of clone troopers are also killed during this battle. This is lampshaded in-universe with several Republic characters outright comparing the Second Battle of Axum to the Battle of Geonosis and even claiming that Axum was much worse.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Palpatine's efforts to polarize and divide the Senate as a stepping stone to reform the Republic into an Empire bite him in the ass when he tries to rally their aid against the Imperium. The author has also confirmed that Palpatine's subtle encouragement of human supremacy views in preparation for his Empire will in fact be very beneficial to the Imperium who are human supremacists of the highest order.
  • During Anakin and the Bad Batch's fight with a Space Marine aboard Trench's ship in Episode 8, the Marine at one point pulls out a frag grenade and lobs it at the clones, but Crosshairs uses his Improbable Aiming Skills to shoot the grenade right as it is thrown, causing it to instead blow up in the Marine's face while only mildly injuring the other clones.
  • During the Jedi's boarding action of the Hellsmasher in Episode 12, some voidsmen try to shoot plasma guns against the Jedi, only for the Jedi to use the Force to catch the plasma projectiles mid-air and send them flying back at the shooters, killing those voidsmen with the plasma fired from their own guns.
• Hope Spot:
  • Happens to Mace Windu and the other Jedi aboard the Hellsmasher in Episode 28. Just as it seems as though they have defeated Saphran after a long and difficult battle, Depa Billaba falls to the dark side from overusing a Dangerous Forbidden Technique and goes crazy, attacking and fatally wounding one of her fellow Jedi Masters. Then, Saphran reveals himself to be Not Quite Dead and gets back up for round 2.
  • Episode 43 has two examples of hope spots:
    • Shadrick is seemingly dead and 1313 has stopped him from deploying the Basilica's Virus Bomb. Then, as the Cadians and Kriegers celebrate, Shadrick turns out to be Not Quite Dead and shoots the chain holding up the Virus Bomb, causing it to plummet down a shaft leading to the lowest levels of Axum.
    • Aayla, Quinlan, and the other Jedi with them are getting their asses handed to them by Tahr Whyler, who has revealed himself to be an Alpha-Plus psyker. In a last ditch attempt to kill him, Aayla and some of the other Jedi all surround Tahr and try a Combination Attack where they all stab him at once in unison. For a moment, it seems to have worked as Tahr is seemingly impaled on all sides by multiple lightsabers. However, much to the horror and despair of the Jedi, this is quickly revealed to just be an illusion by Tahr, who has tricked the Jedi into stabbing each other.
  • Season 4 opens up on an uncharacteristically optimistic note as despite the Republic and Jedi's losses during the Second Battle of Axum, the Imperials have experienced even worse losses with their ground forces on Axum practically decimated and the remnants led by Major Lazarus having reluctantly agreed to negotiate an official ceasefire with Ahsoka Tano on behalf of their respective governments to stop any further unnecessary bloodshed. Then Captain Rex starts leaking Tears of Blood and Hearing Voices in his head, revealing to the viewers that he was unknowingly corrupted by Chaos during the battle.
• Hostage Situation: Episode 42 Part 1 features an extremely unusual heroic version of this trope. After Ahsoka's previous attempts to get Farnus to cooperate are largely unsuccessful, she reluctantly resorts to indirectly threatening Nerva's life, revealing the comatose Tech-Priestess in a bacta tank and explaining that Nerva's cybernetics are failing her. The Republic lacks the knowledge of how to repair Nerva's cybernetic parts and their medical droids say that she only has hours left to live. Ahsoka says she is more than happy to give Nerva back to the Imperium to get her cybernetics fixed if Farnus delivers her message requesting a ceasefire to Major Lazarus. With Nerva's life on the line, Farnus reluctantly agrees. Nerva being a prisoner of the Republic becomes an important plot point in Episode 44 Part 2 as the knowledge Nerva has of the Imperium's technologies makes retrieving her a top priority for the AdMech, who pressure Lazarus into agreeing to the ceasefire talks solely because Ahsoka promised to release Nerva if they did.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: In a galaxy full of millions of different alien species, all the main villains in this story are humans (both the Imperium and Sith Order), not to mention the fact that both the Clone Wars and the Republic's new war with the Imperium were directly caused by the scheming of Palpatine, a human Sith Lord. The Imperium explicitly believes in human supremacy and exterminating all non-humans, while even the Sith Order has always historically learned towards being human-dominated with their original founders and current members being humans.
• Humans Are Warriors:
  • The Humans from the Imperium completely fit in this. Clone Commander 65 acknowledged that the martial prowess of the Imperials far outstripped most races in the galaxy by a huge margin.
  • It can also be said the same for the Humans of the Star Wars galaxy as well since, out of the hundreds of thousands of different alien races out there, it is the human race that is chosen to be the template for the clone armies of the Republic.
• Hyperspeed Escape: Both Captain Spikes's Venator and the Venator which picks up Dr. Shina's Escape Pod during the first contact battle in Season 1 manage to escape the Imperial Fleet by jumping into hyperspace.

Tropes I to O

• Idealist vs. Pragmatist: Ahsoka Tano is the Idealist to Mace Windu's Pragmatist. Ahsoka believes that the Jedi should be doing more to live up to their ideals as peacemakers, while Mace believes that the Jedi need to become more aggressive and militaristic in the response to the threat posed by the Imperium.
  • While planning the Jedi counter-invasion of Axum in episode 10, Ahsoka thinks that the Jedi should prioritize saving as many civilians from the Imperium's death camps as they can, while Mace believes that it's better to focus on defeating the Imperial garrison first and considers liberating the Axum death camps a "secondary objective".
  • Later on in Episode 37, Ahsoka and Mace have an argument over the issue of Imperial POWs; Mace disapproves of taking prisoners from the battlefield since that would require diverting more clone troopers to guard them and he views that as a waste of manpower. Ahsoka, however, thinks that it's not the Jedi way to kill enemy combatants when capturing them alive is still a possibility.
  • This is also shown in how Ahsoka and Mace try to resolve the Battle of Axum. Ahsoka honestly believes that it's still possible to reason with the Imperials and attempts to negotiate a ceasefire, while Mace is of the opinion that the time for diplomacy has long since past and becomes increasingly more ruthless in his pursuit of victory.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming:
  • Episodes 40 to 42 are all titled "Mortal ______" with the second word relating to falling from a height (Pinnacle, Precipices and Fall).
  • Episodes 44 to 46 all share the title "The Light _____" with the blank space being filled in with a word relating to a light's visibility.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • Depa Billaba stabs Jaro Tapal through the chest with her lightsaber in Episode 28 after falling to the Dark Side from Vaapad overuse during her battle with Saphran.
  • Sando is able to kill one Sister of Battle in Episode 29 by impaling her through the chest with her own power sword.
  • Mace Windu impales Samael Whyler through the chest with his lightsaber during their duel in Episode 42 Part 4. But it doesn't kill him
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite failing to disarm Trench's planet-cracking bomb and the Republic losing Anaxes to the Imperium, Echo still ends up becoming a member of the Bad Batch.
  • Jedi Masters Depa Bilaba and Jaro Tapal still die, though during the battle with a Space Marine Librarian as opposed to during Order 66 at the hands of clones, leaving their respective Padawans, Caleb Dume and Cal Kestis without their mentors, as in canon.
• Inconsistent Episode Lengths: The runtimes for this series' episodes are all over the place. Episodes 1, 2, 3, 6, and 7 are in the 18-26 minute range, while episodes 4, 5, 8, and 9 are in the 37-50 minute range; and that's just in the first season alone. Season 3 has one episode that's only around 20 minutes long ("Mortal Precipes Part 4") and another episode that runs for approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes ("Libra Nos").
• Infinite Supplies: While starting off in a very disadvantaged position compared to the Imperium, the Republic, still being in their home turf, has access to a far greater amount of resources and can sustain the losses the Imperials will inflict on them, despite immediately having massive advantages in weapons, supplies, and troops, and without establishing a power base for resupply and resources, the Republic, in the long run, will start to bleed the Imperium dry in a war of attrition.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • The Republic initially referred to the Imperials as "Outsiders" due to their extragalactic origins.
  • The Jedi and Axumites sometimes refer to the Imperium of Man as "the Empire".
  • The Imperials call the Republic's clone troopers "Replicae".
  • The Imperial Navy's Nova Cannons are designated as "star bombs" by the Republic and "star launchers" by the Separatists.
  • Aayla initially internally refers to the Imperium's psykers as "Imperial Sith", though later stops calling them that after concluding that the Imperial psykers channel the Warp/Force in a way that is profoundly different from how the Sith do it.
  • While infiltrating Tahr Whyler's ship, the Luminous Reign, during the Second Battle of Axum, the Bad Batch manages to befriend a waste disposal servitor that Anakin had mind-tricked into helping them, which Wrecker affectionately nicknames "Trashy".
  • Imperial psykers refer to the Jedi's use of Vaapad as "Warp-eating" and call Vapaad users "Warp Eaters".
  • The Imperials fighting on Axum eventually refer to the Jedi as "Witch Knights/Lords" due to viewing their Force-sensitivity as Warp abilities.
• Inspirational Martyr: Invoked. Tahr Whyler's plan is to kill every Imperial on Axum by prematurely detonating the Exterminatus bomb that the Imperium left behind as a last resort. He believes that creating such a tragic loss will motivate the other Imperials to put aside their differences and start working together to conquer the Star Wars galaxy.
• Intermission: Beginning with Season 3, many episodes have one intermission during an Act Break (usually around the halfway point of the episode) around 3–7 minutes long, where the author either has a mini After-Talk or a Q&A session.
• Invading Refugees: What the Imperials essentially are.
• Irony: One of the Space Wolves on Tattooine adopts a female wyrwulf, a six-legged lupine-looking alien creature, after finding it seemingly abandoned at a scene where a four-armed alien gunslinger had been killed. Fans of slightly obscure Star Wars lore will recognize that wyrwulves are the larval form of the Codru-Ji race — the Space Wolf's "pet" is a fully sapient alien, the gunslinger's daughter specifically, and will eventually metamorph into a four-armed humanoid herself.
• Ironic Name: The Basilica of Salvation houses an Exterminatus virus bomb set to destroy all of Axum as a last resort should the Republic somehow retake the planet.
• It Only Works Once: During first contact between the Imperium and the Republic, Kraken's Venator was able to take down an Imperial ship via hyperspace ramming. However, said Imperial vessel was a civilian freighter already heavily damaged and with its void shields down. When Captain Torch tries the same maneuver in Episode 36 against the shielded Imperial flagship, all he accomplishes is carrying out a Senseless Sacrifice that supercharges the Imperial flagship's shields and teleports Torch's Star Destroyer straight into the Warp.
• It's Raining Men: How the 327^th Star Corps launched their counter-invasion of Axum. Originally, the Imperials expected a frontal assault from the invading Republic forces. Instead, the 327^th launched an aerial insertion of drop ships and jetpack troopers, and dropped on top of the unsuspecting Imperials. To say the Imperial Guard was unprepared for this would be understating the situation.
• Kansas City Shuffle: When Davik Thune ordered his fleet to orbitally bombard Raxus Secundus, he took his time and made no effort to stop any of the planet's outgoing distress calls from reaching Grievous's fleet. Grievous, having used a similar tactic during a prior military campaign, realizes that the attacking Imperials want him to hear the planet's cries for help to bait his forces into recklessly charging in to save as many people as they can from their besieged world, thereby leaving the would-be rescuers vulnerable to a waiting Imperial ambush. So rather than make a beeline for Raxus Secundus as the Imperials expect, Grievous instead gathers his fleets at a neighboring system before entering the Raxus System with all his ships in an organized formation, catching the Imperials off guard as they had been expecting Separatist reinforcements to be panicked and disorganized. After his counter-strategy seemingly succeeds in driving away Thune's fleet, Grievous—needing more information about the Imperials—boards a disabled enemy cruiser only to be Lured into a Trap. It turns out that the whole thing had just been a ploy to assassinate Grievous by tricking him into coming aboard a ship rigged to explode, killing the droid general and wiping out a good chunk of the Separatist fleet in the blast.
• Kill the Lights:
  • During the 501^st Legion's battle against the Adeptus Mechanicus aboard Trench's captured flagship during the Second Battle of Axum, a Fulgrite Electro-Priest marks the beginning of his duel with Ahsoka by slamming his electroleech stave into the floor and absorbing all the electricity in the hallway they were fighting in, plunging the entire corridor into darkness as all the lights go out.
  • At the start of their duel in Episode 19, the Sister of Silence uses her power sword to strike at the fluorescent lights illuminating the hallway she and Anakin were standing in, bathing the entire area into pitch-black darkness. This was primarily to prevent Anakin from being able to see and pick up his lightsaber from where it was lying on the floor after he had dropped his weapon from the shock of suddenly being unable to feel the Force due to the Sister's Anti-Magic field. This also served as a psychological tactic intended to unnerve Anakin and cause him to be more prone to making mistakes out of panic and fear.
• Killed Offscreen:
  • Renphi, the Jedi Knight placed in charge of the Republic fleet sent to make First Contact with the Imperials, is insinuated to have been killed during the Skywatch's boarding of his Venator. The last Dr. Shina saw him, he left to confront the Space Marine boarders. Shortly thereafter, she is cornered near the escape pods by a Space Marine who is holding Renphi's lightsaber and missing an arm.
  • Ki-Adi-Mundi is mentioned to be among the Jedi who were killed during the Blue Massacre, which occurs offscreen between the eighth and ninth episodes.
  • The Space Marine squad that Brother Araknus led in his assault on one of Raxus Secundus's shield generators in Episode 24 all get killed by Dooku offscreen. When Araknus gets defeated by Dooku, he tries to contact his squad over his comms to warn them, only for Dooku to reveal that he had already killed them all.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: By Episodes 43 and 44, despite the arrival of the Tempered Hands Chapter, the Battle of Axum has become unsalvageable for the Imperials. The majority of their troops are either captured or dead, they have only a single stronghold left which is currently under siege, and their leadership has been reduced to just three people (a sergeant-turned-major-turned-saint, a colonel-commissar, and a Canoness). Even before Shadrick activates the Basilica's Virus Bomb and Samael reveals that Warmaster Macharion had set them all up to fail from the very start, there is no conceivable way for the Imperials to turn this battle around. Lazarus concedes that the battle is lost and orders a total evacuation of all remaining Imperial forces from the planet.
• La Résistance: Inspired by Rahm Kota's Rousing Speech in Episode 12, the people of Axum form a resistance movement against the Imperials occupying their planet and join in on the Jedi's counter-offensive to retake Axum. The Axumites even take to calling the Imperium "the Empire" just in case the whole "rebels vs. evil empire" trope wasn't obvious.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: During the Battle of Axum, some of the Jedi who are mind raped by Imperial psykers resort to using a Force technique called flashburn to temporarily erase their traumatic experiences from their short-term memory in order to be able to keep fighting.
• Layered Metropolis: Axum is an ecumenopolis similar to Coruscant with several layers stacked on top of one another. Each layer is built around a series of massive columns/towers referred to as the Axumite Spires.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!:
  • In Episode 19, Anakin ends up parting ways with the Bad Batch while sneaking through Tahr Whyler's warship, though not by his choice. For context, Anakin had managed to bluff some guards into thinking that he was a Torture Technician sent by the Inquisitor to interrogate the ship's prisoners. However, the prisoners were being held in a heavily restricted area of the ship and the guards refused to let anyone else tag along. Not wanting to press his luck, Anakin reluctantly splits up with the Bad Batch and assigns them to find the ship's central computers while he allows himself to be escorted to the ship's prison block.
  • At the end of Episode 31, Vordran and the other Crimson Razors that survived their Strike Cruiser crash-landing on Hypori decide to split up into two groups. One group led by Vordran will attempt to see if any of the psykers aboard their ship managed to survive and use them to send a psychic message to Davik Thune informing him of their mission's failure and the need for rescue. The other group led by Sergeant Kandrin will scour the wreckage of their ship to find the Cyclonic Torpedo it had been carrying and attempt to reactivate it. This makes them even easier for the true Grievous to pick off.
• Lower-Deck Episode:
  • Episode 24 takes a look at what the rest of the galaxy was doing while the Battle of Axum was raging on. All of this episode's viewpoint characters play a tertiary or minor role in the second and third season, and are uninvolved with the Axum conflict. This includes Boba Fett, Rollah Sendurran, Dr. Shina and Bucket, Brother Araknus, and Count Dooku.
  • Episode 34 downplays this. Half of the episode is told from the perspective of secondary antagonist Rollah Sendurran, but the other half is split between the viewpoints of Nala Se and Kuat of Kuat.
  • Downplayed with Episode 39, the latter half of which is told from the perspective of Plo Koon, who had been otherwise a very minor character in the Axum arc.
  • Episode 44 is another downplayed example. Half of the episode is told from the perspective of minor clone character Captain Fordo as he leads his combined Clone/Jedi forces against the Tempered Hands.
• Made of Indestructium: Anything that is made out of adamantium, which is the 40K equivalent to Mandalorian beskar (the stuff that can shrug off blaster bolts like they're nothing and resist lightsaber strikes).
  • Commissar Terrandor's chainsword is able to resist Quinlan Vos's lightsaber due to the teeth of the chainsword being made out of adamantium, whereas an unnamed commissar who tried to use a non-adamantium chainsword against Aayla Secura in Episode 16 got his chainsword easily sliced through by Aayla's lightsaber.
  • The Death of Defiance is an Imperial Ironclad Battleship made out of adamantium. It doesn't have any void shields because its armored hull is just that durable, allowing it to divert most of its power to its massive Wave-Motion Gun.
  • The Faithful Flame is a Knight Mechanicus which is also made of adamantium. It remains intact even after being subjected to a Colony Drop by Ahsoka and Echo crash-landing a hijacked Confederate dreadnought. When Ahsoka later tries to save the mech's pilots who were trapped inside due to its access hatch being damaged by the aforementioned starship crashing down on top of it, her attempt to cut a hole into the Imperial Knight hits a dead end as the Knight's armor is so tough that even her lightsabers are rendered ineffective against it.
• The Main Characters Do Everything:
  • After the Republic's initial battles with the Imperium all end in defeat, Palpatine orders Mace and Obi-Wan to form a special task force consisting of experts and witnesses who were present at those battles to examine what they know about the Imperials and brainstorm ways to better combat them. In the next episode, we're shown this "special task force" consists of just seven people: Anakin, Rex, Echo, Spikes, Shina, Bucket, and Tarkin. With the exception of Tarkin, all of these people are either POV characters or played a supporting role to a POV character in Season 1. Bucket's inclusion is especially strange since he is a lowly clone trooper, yet he gets openly encouraged to give his two cents at a high-level military meeting with officers who hold a dozen ranks over him.
  • Per canon, Anakin Skywalker often personally partakes in high-risk missions with little-to-no backup despite being a prominent Jedi General commanding an entire clone legion. In Season 2, the Republic military team sent to infiltrate the Inquisitorial warship Luminous Reign consists of Anakin, R2-D2, and the Bad Batch. While the Bad Batch at least make sense since they are an elite special forces unit typically deployed behind enemy lines, Anakin is supposed to be leading the 501^st, the same legion which is actively participating in the Second Battle of Axum. Yet instead of commanding his troops, Anakin parts ways with them and leaves Ahsoka in charge while he personally leads a clone commando squad on this highly-risky infiltration mission aboard an enemy warship filled with thousands of armed hostiles with no real extraction plan.
• Martyrdom Culture: The Imperium is one of the greatest examples of this in Science Fiction. Plenty of Imperial units show absolutely no regard whatsoever for their lives and in fact, consider dying in the Emperor's service to be the highest honor and duty.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • Every single Navigator aboard the Imperial refugee fleet collectively shares this reaction upon arriving in the Star Wars universe as they get cut off from the Astronomicon, leading them all to conclude that the God-Emperor has died and then have a fleet-wide Freak Out, resulting in them either being imprisoned or executed by the crews of their ships.
  • The Republic fleet making first contact with the Imperium all have this reaction in Episode 4 upon witnessing the Imperial refugee vessel Atlas of Steel explode. Captain Spikes describes everyone around him looking stunned, shocked, and horrified.
• Master Swordsman:
  • Any Space Marine who uses a sword is this by default.
  • Dooku and Obi-Wan's lightsaber skills are also shown when they manage to hold their own and in Dooku's case defeat a Space Marine in a one-on-one duel.
  • The Imperial Inquisitors also seem to be this. The two Inquisitors most prominently featured in the story are Samael and Tahr Whyler, both of whom are absolute masters of swordplay. Tahr is mentioned to know literally hundreds of different swordfighting techniques and is repeatedly shown to be more than a match for master lightsaber duelists like Aayla Secura, Quinlan Vos, and even Darth Sidious with Tahr actually managing to draw first blood in his duel with Sidious. As for Samael, he is shown holding his own in a lightsaber fight against Mace and Obi-Wan (two of the Jedi Order's greatest duelists) at the same time, something that his character profile foreshadows by listing sword practice as one of his favorite hobbies.
• Mathematician's Answer:
  • When the Electro-Priest C-82 asks Ahsoka in Episode 17 how many Jedi there are in the Republic, Ahsoka laughs and shrugs before replying "Somewhere between a thousand and a million." C-82 mentally acknowledges that her answer is vague and dubious, even if she's seemingly telling the truth.^note The usual number thrown around in canon for the number of Jedi there were during the Clone Wars is around ten thousand. Played with in that while the information Ahsoka gave C-82 was deliberately unhelpful, she at least gave him an actual numerical range which he could work off of.
  • When Cadian corporal Ameliana asks Krieg guardsman 1313 in Episode 40 Part 3 whether he is really as calm and stoic as he looks or if he was just trained to be that way, 1313 simply says "Yes" with a blank expression on his face.
• Mêlée à Trois: The Battle of Anaxes was initially just between the Republic and CIS, who had fought each other to a stalemate for weeks across multiple battlefields all over Anaxes. Near the end of the battle, an Imperial armada led by Davik Thune exits the Warp near Anaxes and invades the planet while the battle is still ongoing, resulting in a three-way clash between the Republic, CIS, and Imperium. The Imperials ultimately win, completely crushing the Separatists and forcing the Republic to order a total retreat from the planet.
• Mighty Glacier: The Imperial Fleet is virtually unstoppable being able to easily overcome a Republic fleet more than four times its size. Their method of Faster-Than-Light Travel, however, is much much slower than Star Wars hyperdrives. As Dr. Shina states, they are unstoppable but not inescapable.
• Mind Rape: By far the most devastating psychic attack that Imperial Psykers would use against the Jedi. The Imperial Psykers actually never used any specific mental abilities against the Jedi, just showing the memories of their home galaxy and their experiences ultimately is enough to traumatize Jedi masters, and turn Padawans and less skilled Jedi Knights into a gibbering mess.
• Mirror Universe: It's strongly hinted that Star Wars is a mirror universe of 40K in this fic with Word of God even stating that "the will of the Force has been inverted in the Warhammer universe."
  • Both the Warp and the Force are a Sentient Cosmic Force, but whereas the Warp is corruptive and malevolent, the Force is genuinely benevolent and harmonious.
  • Aliens Are Bastards who prey on the Puny Earthlings in the 40K universe. In the SW universe, Humans Are the Real Monsters with the majority of non-humans being Innocent Aliens who are often left politically and economically disadvantaged.
  • In the 40K galaxy, you have Abominable Intelligences, while the SW galaxy instead has droids who are mostly happy to serve their masters.
  • Anakin Skywalker is treated as a Composite Character of Archaon and Horus Lupercal; the Everchosen of Chaos is replaced by the Chosen One of the Force.
  • Palpatine is the SW equivalent of the Emperor of Mankind and is even given a Merger of Souls origin story similar to the one the God-Emperor had in 40K's early editions. But while the God-Emperor is the Messianic Archetype in the 40K verse, Palpatine is The Antichrist of the SW verse.
• Mistaken for Aliens:
  • Inverted. When the Imperials conquered Anaxes and Axum, they initially mistook Ki-Adi-Mundi and many of the other Rubber-Forehead Aliens they killed for mutated humans. It wasn't until the Imperials performed some autopsies of the dead that they discovered the truth.
  • Played straight in Episode 35 where Mace Windu has mistaken a trio of Navigators^note Mutated human psykers with three eyes that the Imperium uses to navigate their ships through the Warp. that the Jedi captured during their failed boarding action of the Hellsmasher for Imperial aliens from a Force-sensitive Slave Race. This is not surprising as the Star Wars galaxy is chock-full of near-humans — Rubber-Forehead Aliens that look almost indistinguishable from baseline humans.
• Mistaken Identity:
  • The Imperium of Man gets mistaken for the Pius Dea by the Republic and Jedi due to the Imperium sharing many similarities with the Dea like their human supremacy, theocratic society, skull motifs, and cathedral-shaped warships.
  • During Ahsoka's fight with the Electro-Priest in Episode 17, a Skitarii Vanguard trooper mistakes Ahsoka for a Slaaneshi Daemonette he had encountered in the past. Ahsoka could tell from reading that Skitarius's dying thoughts that there was no difference between her and that Daemonette in his mind.
  • Clone Commander 65 from the "Soldiers of the Storm" special initially mistakes the deployment of Ogryn shock troops for Space Marines. Later in Episode 40 Part 4, Kombirr and the Axumite rebels make the same mistake when they encounter Ogryns while assaulting the Basilica of Salvation.
  • The Sith, in the rare instances they get physically involved on the battlefield, are mistaken for abnormally powerful Jedi by the Imperials.
• Mook Carryover:
  • According to Word of God, after losing Ki-Adi-Mundi and the majority of the 21^st Nova Corps in the First Battle of Axum, the surviving Galactic Marines were absorbed into the 501^st Legion at the insistence of Anakin, who was eager to have clone troopers with prior experience in fighting the Imperials among his men. About a quarter of the 501^st fighting in the Second Battle of Axum are actually former Galactic Marines who had previously fought in the first battle.
  • In Season 3, the Tempestus Scions who were originally serving under Commissar-Captain Shadrick switch their allegiance to Shadrick's rival Saint Lazarus after Shadrick makes his Exit Villain, Stage Left with a teleporter in Episode 43 following his activation of the Exterminatus Bomb on Axum. Justified as those Scions were brainwashed by the Inquisition into being loyal towards whoever had the highest authority should they lose contact with Shadrick, and that just happened to be Lazarus.
• Mook Depletion: When the Second Battle of Axum began, the Imperials significantly outnumbered the Republic's counter-invasion force with one notable engagement seeing the clone troopers outnumbered 12-to-1. By Episode 36, the Imperial ground forces occupying Axum have gone through a series of setbacks, assassinations, and defeats which have decimated their ranks. Numerous Imperial Guard regiments are mentioned by supplementary material to have experienced losses of upwards 95% and at least one regiment is shown cannibalizing its own squads to compensate. It gets even worse by Episode 43, where the ragtag collection of exhausted Imperial Guardsmen and worn-down Sisters of Battle defending the Basilica of Salvation is all that's left of the initial planetary occupation force, now hopelessly outnumbered by the Jedi and Clones who have been bolstered by reinforcements from the main Republic armada. If the Tempered Hands hadn't showed up to bail them out, the Imperials defending the Basilica would've been completely overrun.
• Mook Horror Show: Several of the fights against the Space Marines are like this:
  • Episode 5, told from the perspective of Dr. Shina, depicts the Space Marines as something out of a slasher movie, with several commentators noting how the scenes play out like something out of a horror movie.
  • Episode 8 sees Anakin and the Bad Batch go up against a Space Marine, putting the poor bastard through a Rasputinian Death, and everyone being horrified over how this thing will not stay down.
  • Episode 19 has Anakin's fight with a Sister of Silence, with his opponent being treated like a Humanoid Abomination.
  • Episode 33 has the Space Marines on the receiving end of this for once. We're shown the perspective of Force Captain Vordran as he and the Crimson Razors under his command are stalked and hunted across the wreckage of their crashed voidships by the true Grievous, who picks them off one by one. Grievous at one point leaps out of the darkness, grabs a Battle-Brother, and drags him away into the ship's bowels kicking and screaming.
• Motive Misidentification:
  • Upon learning that the Imperials have seized Trench's flagship, the Jedi assume that they seek to gain remote control over the planet-cracking bomb that Trench left on Anaxes. In reality, the Imperials only wanted Trench's flagship so they could have the Adeptus Mechanicus strip it down and try reverse-engineering its technology. They have every intention of destroying the ship once they're done, something Ahsoka and Echo only realize when the Imperials start to scuttle the ship with them still aboard.
  • During the Crimson Razors' surprise attack on Raxus Secundus, the Separatist admiral in charge of Raxus's defense assumes that the Imperials have come to conquer the planet given its importance as the Separatist capital. When the admiral defiantly proclaims to Davik Thune's face that the Imperial occupation of Raxus Secundus will be short-lived, Thune bursts out laughing before nonchalantly executing the admiral and telling his fleet to proceed with their orders to destroy the planet via Orbital Bombardment.
• Multi-Part Episode: Season 3 episodes "Mortal Pinnacle", "Mortal Precipice", and "Mortal Fall" are all broken up into four parts each released separately from the other. "The Light Flickers" is also a two-parter and serves as the third season's finale.
• Murder by Cremation: During the Imperial occupation of Axum, the death camps they built to genocide the planet's non-humans included rooms which were basically giant cremation ovens. Non-humans would be locked inside and then incinerated until only ashes remained. Jevona herself is nearly killed this way in Episode 30 until she is rescued by the Axum Resistance.
• Mythology Gag: Has its own page.
• Nepotism: Early in Season 2, Padmé introduces a proposal to the Senate to reinstate the rank of Supreme Commander^note The head of the entire Republic military. and appoint a military officer to replace Chancellor Palpatine as the Republic's commander-in-chief so that the Republic can better direct its war effort against the Imperium without continuing to give Palpatine more emergency powers or being hindered by senatorial obstruction. The person that she selects and successfully gets voted to be given this position is none other than Anakin Skywalker, Padmé's secret husband and the father of her unborn children.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The "A Dark Transmission" video released between Episodes 12 and 13 was intended to serve as a trailer for what to expect in Season 2, setting up a supposed future story element in the form of humans from the Republic forming cults worshipping the God-Emperor and defecting to the Imperium. That doesn't happen anywhere in Seasons 2 or 3. In fact, the story shows the exact opposite happening with the humans living on Axum absolutely loathing the Imperium to the point of specifically making "Death to the Emperor!" their Battle Cry.
• New Neo City: On the 40K side, the story is set after the Fall of Cadia. After the Imperials invade and occupy Axum at the end of Season 1, the former Republic City Planet is renamed New Cadia by its occupiers in honor of the original Cadia that was destroyed during the 13th Black Crusade in their home galaxy.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • After Kraken hyperspace rams his Venator into the Atlas of Steel during first contact with the Imperium, Jedi General Renphi makes a desperate attempt to avert war with the Imperials by ordering his fleet to perform a rescue operation on the damaged Atlas of Steel against Dr. Shina's advice, believing that seeing this will make the rest of the Imperial Fleet hold off from attacking and deescalate things. This winds up only making the situation much worse as the captain of the Atlas of Steel assumes the Republic is trying to kidnap the refugees aboard his ship for slave labor and decides to pull a Taking You with Me by activating his ship's Self-Destruct Mechanism, resulting in the Atlas of Steel blowing itself up and killing everyone aboard. This provokes the Imperium into going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against the Republic and completely colors their perception of the Star Wars galaxy to the point where any attempts made by the heroes to reason with them are ignored.
  • Anakin unknowingly does this by setting Iskander Khayon — one of Abbadon the Despoiler's top lieutenants, and a Chaos Sorcerer who brought Magnus the Red to his knees — free from an Inquisitorial prison.
  • The Axum Resistance ends up rescuing a Genestealer while saving the inmates of an Imperial prison. While the Genestealer Jevona is relatively innocent, there is now a danger that she and her family may bring the Tyranids to the Star Wars Galaxy, or even just from the sheer chaos and destruction that Genestealer Cults create out of habit.
  • At the end of Episode 41 Part 2, Mace and Obi-Wan come to the rescue of the aforementioned Genestealer just as she is about to be executed by Samael, enabling her to escape while the Inquisitor is busy dealing with the two Jedi Masters.
  • After falling to the Dark Side while battling Samael and Hecate, Mace Windu's last order before passing out and being evacuated from the battlefield is for a second wave of 500 Jedi and thousands of clone troopers to directly assault the Basilica of Salvation even though Obi-Wan had just ordered a Tactical Withdrawal from the Basilica because that strategy was proving too costly. This results in many Jedi and an entire clone legion getting killed by the Tempered Hands, who had arrived to reinforce the Basilica's defense. While Mace had no way of knowing this, ordering a second attack on the Basilica was also unnecessary as the remaining Imperials holed up in the Basilica had decided to throw in the towel and evacuate from the planet shortly after Obi-Wan ordered a retreat from the Basilica.
  • Nala Se and Lama Su decide to keep Omega in the dark about her role as the primary commander overseeing the Republic's naval forces in the Second Battle of Axum by lying to her that she was merely playing a computer simulation testing her strategic skills. They did this due to noticing how Omega had shown a reluctance to sacrifice her fellow clones in battle and believed that tricking her into thinking this was a simulation would incentivize Omega to not hesitate making the necessary sacrifices to achieve victory for the Republic. This really bites the Republic Navy in the ass at the end of Season 3 when the Adeptus Mechanicus hack into Omega's console during the battle and trick her into giving them access to the Republic fleet's communication systems, then immediately launch a hostile boarding action of the Republic ship Omega was aboard. Unable to hide the truth any longer, Omega's subordinates come clean to her that she was actually commanding a real battle, causing Omega to enter a Heroic BSoD from the guilt of having sacrificed so many lives under her command throughout the battle and leaving her too traumatized to continue leading the Republic Navy's forces in Season 4.
• Nicknaming the Enemy:
  • The humans from the Imperium are nicknamed "Imps" by the Republic and Jedi.
  • The Adeptus Mechanicus are nicknamed "droidmen" by the Republic's clone troopers due to their heavy cybernetic augmentations and droid-like behavior.
  • The Republic's clone troopers are called "toy soldiers" by the Imperial Guardsmen due to their nature as mass-produced clones that were artificially grown for war.
  • After their initial victories against the Republic, various Imperial officers call Republic forces "softies" due to believing them to be weak.
  • The Republic's AT-TE walkers are nicknamed "caterpillar walkers" by Lazarus.
• No-Paper Future: Unlike the Imperium, the Republic doesn't use pen and paper in their society anymore and instead keep everything on datapads. This briefly becomes a problem in Season 3 when Ahsoka tries to convince an Imperial Guardsman she captured to deliver her ceasefire terms to his commanding officer. The Guardsman staunchly refuses at first because her terms are written on a datapad and the Imperium views all alien technology with extreme suspicion. When he demands she write her ceasefire terms on paper instead, it's pointed out that the only place on Axum where paper can be found is in museums as primitive relics.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: One of the weaknesses of the Imperium's cooler toys is that they are often Lost Technology to the point they are at best ridiculously hard to repair or build, and at worst it's completely impossible to do either. A perfect example is the Ironclad from episode 39; once its primary weapon is taken down, it's stated that the Imperials literally cannot repair it, because they've lost all the necessary background technical knowledge.
  • A variant of this is that the Imperium's more elite warriors are similarly all but impossible to replace. Space Marines are the perfect example; between the brutally harsh recruitment rituals, the risk of genetic incompatibility with the bio-modifications, the risk of dying from infection due to the surgeries needed to implant said bio-modifications, and the risk of being killed for failing the many tests of physical and mental hardiness needed to prove one's worth, their recruit attrition rate is horrendous. Then add in the fact it takes decades just to go from a neophyte to a fully-fledged Space Marine, even if one survives the gauntlet of risks to get there. Then add in the centuries of survival needed to attain the higher ranks and their attendant physical prowess. Space Marine Librarians are even worse since you need to recruit from a much smaller base and then add even more grueling tests of willpower and discipline. The end result is that, to all practical purposes, every Space Marine casualty cannot hope to be replaced in the face of a Republic increasingly gearing itself up to properly war against the Imperial refugees.
• Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering: The Galactic Senate as per canon. When the Imperium conquers the Axum System (which is located practically next door to Coruscant), Palpatine tries to convince the Senate to authorize a military counteroffensive. However, the Senate instead breaks down into political infighting and petty squabbling that lasts for weeks, giving the Imperials plenty of time to entrench themselves on Axum. Eventually, the Jedi become tired of waiting for the Senate to come to a decision and launch their own unauthorized counter-invasion in hopes of pressuring the Senate to finally act.
• Not That Kind of Mage: Downplayed. The Imperium believes Force wielders to be Psykers of some sort, and vice versa with the Republic; however, the story shows that they are similar enough on a fundamental level that what interacts with one will affect the other (like the Imperium's Anti-Magic).
  • A more subtle form appears in the alignment of the Imperium's psykers — Jedi perceive them as dark siders, so one can only wonder what they would perceive the psykers of say, Chaos would be. This has been further complicated by the fact that A Fan with Too Much Time has said that "The will of the Force has been inverted in the Warhammer universe".
• Occupiers Out of Our Country: After the Imperium conquers the Axum System, a resistance movement is formed on Axum by the planet's locals with the goal of taking their home back from these Imperial invaders.
• Off with His Head!:
  • How Anakin finally kills the Space Marine that he and the Bad Batch fought aboard Trench's dreadnought in Episode 8.
  • Aayla ultimately kills a trio of Wyrdvane Psykers that she fights in Episode 16 by cutting off each of their heads.
  • In Episode 31, General Grievous decapitates an Imperial naval captain with his lightsaber out of frustration when the captain refuses to stop his ship's self-destruct sequence.
  • Brother Gorginon of the Crimson Razors Chapter gets his head ripped off in Episode 33 by the true Grievous.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
  • We're never shown the First Battle of Axum (referred to in-universe as the Blue Massacre) in which the Imperium drove the Republic and CIS out of the Axum System after defeating both in a series of Curb Stomp Battles. This was the first time the Republic fought the Imperium in a full-scale ground battle as opposed to in space or inside a ship. It's mentioned that the full might of a Space Marine Chapter was deployed and the Republic lost twenty-seven Jedi in total, including Jedi Council member Ki-Adi-Mundi. Word of God also confirms that the Galactic Marines fought in this battle and were decimated by Imperial forces.
  • There's also the Space Marine Librarian Saphran curb-stomping Luminara Unduli and fifty other Jedi, which we're only shown the aftermath of from Obi-Wan's perspective in episode 12.
  • During the Second Battle of Axum, Quinlan Vos leads a strike force of two thousand Jedi to siege and sack the Imperium's central headquarters on Axum, capturing and/or killing most of the high-ranking Imperials on the planet. This impressive feat occurs offscreen between episodes 12 and 29.
  • Count Dooku single-handedly dispatches an entire squad of Space Marines offscreen in Episode 24 during the battle for Raxus Secundus.
  • Jackal, the daemonhost serving Inquisitor Tahr Whyler, is able to singlehandedly take down and capture Quinlan's strike team of four hundred Jedi. The battle itself is never shown and happen offscreen between episodes 35 and 41.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Dr. Shina's reaction to seeing the full size of the Imperial armada during First Contact in Episode 4. She goes from advocating for the Republic and KDY fleets to surprise attack the outsiders in order to get the drop on them, to gasping in horror with her eyes bulged wide and pleading with the Jedi Knight in charge to withdraw their fleets.
  • After being knocked unconscious by Rex, Farnus later wakes up restrained to a bed inside a tent full of Republic medical droids (i.e. Abominable Intelligences). Seeing what are basically the Satanic figures of your religion walk right up to you and wave a syringe in your face will naturally garner this sort of reaction. With Farnus, he has a more literal "oh crap" moment.
• Oh, My Gods!:
  • The Imperials frequently swear using the Emperor's name. "Burning Throne" is also a popular Imperial curse.
  • The Star Wars characters swear using the Force as a substitute for God.
  • Sergeant Kallak Norn is prone to swearing using Horus Lupercal as a substitute for the Devil.
• One-Hit Kill: Imperial Cruisers, Battleships, and Escorts are all capable of destroying Republic ships with a single hit from their weapons. As the author notes, Star Wars ships are all shield and Imperial firepower is easily capable of getting through them.
• One-Hit Polykill:
  • In "Davik Thune and the Droids", the titular Chapter Master takes out an entire squad of commando droids with a single calculated swipe from his Lightning Claw.
  • In Episode 37, Kombirr fires his ancestral Mandalorian ripper rifle at some Karkosan Untouchables (elite Imperial Guardsmen based on the Sardaukar). A single shot punctures through and kills three of them while also sending their bodies flying back like a weighted harpoon.
  • The first time that the Ironclad fires its fusion cannon in Episode 39, many Republic ships are destroyed in that single shot.
• One-Man Army:
  • Davik Thune in particular deserves mention as he single-handedly boards a Separatist dreadnought and easily fights his way through all the Battle Droids sent against him onto the bridge and killing the admiral leading the Confederate fleet.
  • The Space Marine Librarian Saphran is shown to take on anywhere between fifty and a hundred-plus Jedi simultaneously, and win.
  • A Custodian kills 5,000 navy armsmen in less than 2 minutes in Episode 38.
  • An Inquisitor's daemonhost is able to defeat a strike team of 400 Jedi on Axum.
  • Inquisitor Tahr Whyler is an Alpha-Plus psyker capable of singlehandedly defeating Aayla Secura, Quinlan Vos, and more than four hundred other experienced Jedi all by himself once he stops hiding his true power.
• One-Word Title: Several of the episodes have one-word titles including "Warriors" (Episode 8), "Unexpected" (Episode 16), "Struggle" (Episode 21), and "Herald" (Episode 25).
• Opening Scroll: Episodes 2, 5, and 10 all open with the traditional Star Wars-style scroll of yellow text that provides important background information and summarizes what has happened in the story so far.
• Orbital Bombardment: The Imperium as per usual never shies away from using the enormous firepower of their ships to decimate planets. So far, Raxus Secundus, the Confederate capital, has been destroyed by Davik Thune's fleet. It's also implied from an offhand remark by Hondo Ohnaka in Episode 10 that the Imperium also orbitally bombarded Axum during their initial invasion.
  • During the siege on the Basilica of Salvation, the Imperium is for once on the receiving end of this trope when a trio of Republic Acclamator-class assault ships enter Axum's atmosphere and rain turbolasers down on the Basilica itself, destroying much of the structure as well as many of its defenders.
• Out of Focus:
  • All of the major Imperial characters from Season 1 (including Orion Phatris, Davik Thune, and Rollah Sendurran) take a backseat in Season 2 as the story largely shifts its focus to the lower-ranked Imperials fighting on Axum like Lazarus, Nerva, and Kallak's squad. Rollah at least returns in Season 3 as The Heavy for the Space Battle portions of that season, but the rest of the Season 1 Imperial cast have yet to return to making regular appearances aside from the occasional interludes.
  • Ahsoka and the 501^st take a leave of absence from the story for the second half of Season 2, save for a scene in Episode 30 where her voice is heard over the radio as part of a distress call.
  • Anakin and the Bad Batch get this treatment in Season 3, appearing in only one episode out of the entire season when they were regular POV characters in the two previous seasons.
• Outside-Context Problem: The Imperium of Man is an incredibly advanced civilization from another galaxy with gigantic technology that puts even the most sophisticated societies of the Star Wars universe to shame. Furthermore, since they arrived in the late years of the Clone Wars, both the Republic and the CIS are completely unprepared for the sudden appearance of the Imperium in the known galaxy.
• Overnight Conquest: Season 1 ends with Axum, a heavily populated City Planet and one of the Republic's founding worlds, getting conquered in less than a day by the Imperium. The Imperium deployed an entire Space Marine Chapter supported by thousands of Imperial Guard regiments to invade Axum, completely overwhelming the unprepared and outnumbered Jedi and clone troopers defending the planet.

Tropes P to S

• Parallel Conflict Sequence: The entire Second Battle of Axum is one from start to finish.
  • At the start of the battle you have:
    • The Jedi led by Mace Windu and Obi-Wan Kenobi boarding the Imperial warship Hellsmasher, fighting the ship's crew, and encountering a Space Marine Librarian.
    • Ahsoka, Rex, and the 501^st battling the Adeptus Mechanicus aboard Trench's former flagship.
    • Anakin and the Bad Batch infiltrating an Inquisitor's warship, with Anakin getting into a fight with a Sister of Silence.
    • The 327^th Star Corps led by Aayla Secura, Bly, and 65 fighting the Imperial Guard and later Adepta Sororitas across Axum's surface.
    • Shaak Ti going behind enemy lines to take out the Imperial frontline command and auxiliary bases, and then confronting Sister Rajulia.
    • In space, Plo Koon is leading hundreds of Jedi starfighters against an Imperial warship.
  • Near the end of the battle, you have:
    • Mace and Obi-Wan vs. Samael and Hecate, with Mace later fighting the two alone while Obi-Wan is preoccupied dealing with Lazarus and Leahandra.
    • The Axum Resistance and a Genestealer Cult laying siege to the Basilica of Salvation. They later get joined by the Jedi and the 327^th.
    • Inside the Basilica of Salvation, the Cadian Shock Troops loyal to Lazarus are in a tense standoff with Commissar Shadrick, his bodyguards, and some brainwashed Death Korpsmen.
    • Aayla, Quinlan, and around four hundred other Jedi confronting Inquisitor Tahr Whyler.
    • In space, the massive Republic armada is battling the Imperial Navy, which is later reinforced by the Ad Mech, the Tempered Hands, and the Rogue Traders.
• Pardon My Klingon: The Imperium has several different variants of the f-bomb including "fek", "frak", and "frack". Interestingly, "frack" is also used by the Republic and Jedi as their f-bomb equivalent.
• Parrying Bullets:
  • The Jedi are able to use their lightsabers to deflect shots fired from lasguns just like they can with blasters, though they find lasguns to be more difficult due to their shots being much faster than blaster bolts.
  • As Brother Hastus demonstrates during his battle with the heroes in Episode 8, Space Marines can also deflect blasterfire using their power swords due to how slow blaster bolts are compared to kinetic rounds.
• Patchwork Fic: The fic is largely set in Star Wars Canon and features characters from the Disney EU like Jaro Tapal, Cere Junda, and Taron Malicos. However, there are also plenty of Legends characters like Rahm Kota, Serra Keto, A'Sharad Hett, and the Grievous from the 2003 Clone Wars cartoon.
• Pendulum Battle: The Second Battle of Axum. At first, the Republic counter-invasion proves to be a curb-stomp against the Imperial occupation force. Though by that point, the Imperial Navy had already left the system with only a token defense force and three ships to guard Axum. However, the Republic did deliver quite an effective sucker punch even though they were only fighting a token force at the time. The initial offensive on the ground caught the Imperial Guard by surprise and crippled their immediate command structure. However, the Republic fails to maintain its surprise momentum and the Imperial Guardsmen are able to blunt their offensive with the help of the Sisters of Battle. The Sisters of Battle then curb-stomps the 327^th Star Corps and nearly forces them to retreat until a last-minute rescue by Mace Windu's army of Jedi once again turns the tables in the Republic's favor. The Imperials are then driven back to the Basilica of Salvation where they seem to be on their last legs, even with the initial Republic siege army led by Mace and Obi-Wan being forced to retreat due to large casualties. However, the appearance of the Tempered Hands Chapter once again turns the tide by annihilating an entire clone legion alongside their Jedi commanders.
• Personal Hate Before Common Goals: It quickly becomes apparent by the end of Season 1 that the Republic and CIS face a mutual existential threat from the Imperium, and that neither will survive if they choose to engage in a Mêlée à Trois with this new enemy. Palpatine (acting on Echo and Obi-Wan's advice) contacts Dooku and tries to arrange for a temporary alliance between the Republic and CIS. However, any hope for a Republic-Confederate coalition is quickly stymied by politicians on both sides. It turns out that years of bitter war and failed negotiations aren't so easily forgotten, and neither the Galactic Senate nor the Separatist Parliament have any interest in entertaining their leaders' proposals for a truce given how both perceive the other to be an illegitimate government that represents everything they stand against.
• Please Select New City Name: After the Republic is defeated at the Blue Massacre and forced to retreat from the Axum System, the planet Axum is swiftly conquered by the Imperials, who rename it New Cadia in honor of the original Cadia from their home galaxy, which had been destroyed during Abbadon's 13th Black Crusade.
• Point of Divergence:
  • The Republic ends up losing the Battle of Anaxes when the Imperium suddenly intervenes during the battle and curb-stomps both sides, forcing the Republic to give up the planet alongside their reserve shipyards.
  • In canon, the Outer Rim Sieges were a long and slow Republic military campaign that carried on until the end of the Clone Wars, ultimately ending in a massive victory for the Republic. Here, the Imperium's unexpected arrival to the Galaxy and their conquest of the Axum System forces Palpatine to recall the entire Republic Navy back to defend Coruscant due to the possibility that the Imperials may decide to attack Coruscant next. However, in doing so, the Republic is basically forced to abandon its war effort against the CIS, allowing General Grievous to claim victory over dozens of formerly-contested war zones, effectively defeating the Outer Rim Sieges.
  • The Siege of Mandalore never happens since the Imperium's occupation of the Axum System forces Ahsoka and the 501^st to prioritize helping the Jedi retake Axum over capturing Maul and liberating Mandalore.
  • The Battle of Coruscant from Revenge of the Sith never happens either as the Crimson Razors destroy Raxus Secundus and kill the fake Grievous and the Separatist Council before the Separatists have the chance to launch their surprise attack on Coruscant.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • During Ahsoka's argument with Rex in Episode 40 Part 3 over whether the Imperium was Beyond Redemption, it's revealed to the audience that the Republic never even tried communicating with the Imperium at any point since their disastrous first contact. To be fair, Palpatine likely had a role in that since he explicitly wants a war; plus, it's highly unlikely the Imperials would've been in a talking mood (as proven by Shaak Ti's interactions with Sister Rajulia). However, had either the Republic or Jedi at least bothered attempting official diplomacy after educating themselves on Imperial culture (ex. knowing not to send nonhumans or droids as diplomatic envoys), the Imperials might have considered sitting down at the negotiating table and had a lot of their initial misconceptions about the Republic corrected (namely that humans are the Republic's dominant species instead of a Slave Race).
  • While dueling Mace Windu at the Basilica of Salvation, Inquisitor Samael Whyler attempts to deescalate the situation and explain himself to Mace, specifically the reason he's so hellbent on slaying Jevona, a Genestealer Magus who had infiltrated the Axum Resistance. However, the way he goes about doing this is by verbally dehumanizing Jevona, giving vague warnings about how her mere existence is somehow a threat to galactic civilization, and claiming to act in humanity's best interests. Naturally, his words fail to get through to Mace, who brushes off everything he hears as anti-alien propaganda from an Imperial spy.
• Power Armor: Both Space Marines and Sisters of Battle wear this. Blasters have proven to be completely useless against it. Lightsabers are far more effective at getting through the armor though.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: The story does this to balance out a conflict between the Imperium of Man and the Clone Wars-era Star Wars factions by having the Republic and CIS only fight the forces of a single Imperial sector rather than the whole Imperium.
  • Due to a case of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale, both Star Wars Canon and Legends have the Clone Army numbering in the single-digit millions. By contrast, the Imperial Guard alone normally fields billions if not trillions of Guardsmen at any time (and these soldiers are actually competent, unlike the B1 Battle Droids cranked out by the CIS). As the author has pointed out in Episode 8's after-talk segment, if these numbers were kept in the story, then the Republic would realistically get steamrolled as any battle involving ground forces would practically be a lost cause barring miraculous circumstances. To give the Republic an actual fighting chance, the author chose to inflate the Clone Army's numbers to around 500 million, claiming that anything less would just lead to the Republic fighting a Hopeless War.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • In Episode 7, the Crimson Razors defeat the Separatists at the Battle of Anaxes and foil Admiral Trench's plan to destroy Anaxes with his planet-cracking bomb. Of course, the Razors only did this so they could then invade Anaxes themselves and claim the world for the Imperium of Man.
  • The Imperials trying to colonize Tatooine believe in human supremacy and genociding non-humans just as much as the rest of the Imperium. However, unlike the Axum occupiers, these guys are mostly civilians who were marooned there with extremely limited supplies. Despite hating nonhumans with a religious fervor, they understand that their best hope for surviving Tatooine's unforgiving desert ecosystem is to make friends with the locals. As such, the Imperium exercises far more restraint when dealing with Tatooine's locals than they ever did on Axum, even going so far as to broker deals with Jabba and employing local bounty hunters as guides.
  • In the Episode 42 Part 3 After Talk, the author explains that the reason the Officio Assassinorum refuses to let psykers (even latent ones like Hecate) become Eversor Assassins is due to the extreme risk involved. It's already difficult enough to control regular Eversors, which are Super-Soldier Human Weapons mentally programmed to kill everything they see in a berserker frenzy. An Eversor that also has potent Psychic Powers would be an absolute nightmare for the Imperium since they have no guaranteed way of controlling it and it would become unstoppable should it go rogue.
• Proud Warrior Race:
  • The humans of the Imperium fill this as a whole, they see themselves as superior to all non-human races and have the creds and military power to back their claim.
  • The Clones of the Grand Army of the Republic can also be seen as an artificial version of this as well.
• The Purge: During the first contact battle at Pzob, Orion Phatris takes advantage of the Imperial Navy being distracted battling the Republic fleet by having his Skywatch Space Marines infiltrate the now undefended civilian transports of the Imperial refugee fleet to assassinate various planetary governors, nobles, and anyone else who could potentially challenge his newfound claim to leadership over the Imperials.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The Republic takes this over and over due to the Imperium's determination and Martyrdom Culture.
  • The Jedi task force manages to kill the Space Marine Librarian Saphran. However, by the end of the fight, dozens of Jedi are dead or wounded including multiple Jedi Masters, leaving them in no state to take the bridge of the Imperial warship Hellsmasher. What's more, as he was dying, Saphran revealed that there are two more Astartes in his Chapter who are even more powerful than he is, referring to the Chief Librarian and the Chapter Master.
  • The destruction of the Death of Defiance at the end of Episode 39. The Republic's vanguard battle group is able to hold off the Imperial battlefleet long enough for the rest of the Republic armada to reposition and spring a Hyperspeed Ambush thanks to two clone pilots sacrificing their starfighter to take out an irreplaceable enemy Ironclad Battleship. However, the initial Republic battle group takes monstrous casualties, losing over eighty percent of their ships including two Mandator II-class dreadnoughts.
  • All but confirmed to be the Second Battle for Axum for the Republic. Although they are forcing the Imperials to evacuate from Axum, the losses that they had taken are nothing short of devastating as hundreds of Jedi, thousands of Clones and civilian rebels are dead, and who knows how many ships were destroyed in the battle. And that's not getting into that the Jedi High Council losing nearly half their members, Aayla's faith in the Light Side being destroyed, Anakin possibly being corrupted by Chaos, Mace falling to the Dark Side, and judging by Kirak's Holonet transmission, things are just going to get worse.
• Quantity vs. Quality: All over the place.
  • In general, the Imperial refugee fleet is the Quality to the Republic's Quantity. Cut off from the Imperium's billion-worlds supply network, the refugees have no reinforcements or logistical support other than what they can capture through conquest or recycle, whilst the Republic has virtually an entire galaxy's support in manpower and raw resources. However, the Imperium's forces and weapons technology are, as a general rule, stronger than their Republic counterparts. This is exemplified in the space combat scenes; despite outnumbering the Imperial ships hundreds to one, the Imperial ships are vastly superior in size, power, durability and range, racking up tens or dozens of kills before going down.
  • At the same time, the Imperial refugee forces are also massive in their own right, with thousands of Space Marines and ships, and millions if not billions of Imperial Guardsmen.
  • Republic Clone Troopers may be outnumbered and technologically outgunned by the Imperial Guard regiments, but they generally have better tactics, morale, battlefield innovation and unit cohesion.
  • One of the Republic's subtler strengths, however, is that they are far faster builders and vastly superior at innovation compared to the Imperials. An Imperial battleship may be larger and more heavily armed than any of the native ships currently in use, but it would also take decades if not centuries for the Imperials to repair or build a new ship even if they had full access to the Imperium's industrial supply line. For comparison; in an early episode, it's mentioned that it would take several months to do a complete retrofit of the entire Republic Navy — the Imperium would struggle to even fix a single ship in that time frame, even if they had a fully functioning forge world to dock it at.
• Ramming Always Works: Ramming is incredibly effective against Republic ships. As the author states Star Wars ships are extremely fragile in comparison to Imperial warships and are not designed with ramming in mind. In addition, even the smaller Imperial ships are twice the size of almost all Star Wars warships. As such Imperial ships are able to cleave right through Venators and other Republic/Separatist ships without suffering any damage. It's made worse since Star Wars ships need to get up close for their weapons to have any impact on Imperial warships. This tactic is used against them by Grievous, however, via packing his ships with explosives so that when they are rammed they can inflict major damage.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: What Davik Thune's mostly offscreen campaign against the Separatists during Seasons 2–3 is like. Episode 32 provides one such example of what Thune's forces do to Separatist worlds they conquer. After destroying Utapau's droid factory, the Crimson Razors proceed to burn down every settlement on the planet and genocide the native Pau'ans and Utai. Thune even throws a cannibalistic victory feast where some of the really unlucky native Pau'ans are Eaten Alive head first.
• Rasputinian Death:
  • Brother Hastus (the Space Marine that Anakin and the Bad Batch fight in episode 8) has half his mouth burnt by Anakin's lightsaber, gets pelted by heavy blaster fire, has a frag grenade go off in his hand, takes a point-blank shot in the face from the blaster equivalent of a sniper rifle (reducing his face to a skull), and is finally decapitated.
  • Saphran gets a heart and two of his three lungs punctured by a lightsaber, then has a massive hole blown clean through his torso with an ancient Jedi weapon. He still lives long enough to hold a dying conversation by using his telekinetic powers to propel air through his vocal chords.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Episode 41 has Ahsoka on the receiving end of an (undeserved) tirade from an Imperial Guardsman she had captured and was trying to ask why the Imperium was attacking the Republic. The Guardsman, Farnus, is initially tight-lipped but eventually snaps and goes on a rant against not just Ahsoka, but all xenos in general.
  Farnus: You... you Fracking alien! You monster! You predator! You are not ALLOWED to sound so innocent! You cannot pretend you do not know what you do to us! I've heard it! I've seen it! Worlds turned to worse than ashes! Death that never ends, living inside your body with no control of your mind! We've killed you! We've killed you on a million, billion worlds, and it still isn't enough for you to just LEAVE US ALONE! I've seen the bodies! I've seen the cities, and the survivors! You keep us like cattle! You eat our minds and steal our souls! It is never enough, never ever enough! You lie, betray, and backstab! Every word and every act you take is not only to destroy us, but devour us! Enslave us! Corrupt us! I've seen it! You cannot lie to me!
• Redshirt Army:
  • In preparation for the Imperium's arrival, Palpatine sends nearly the entire Kuat Drive Yards defense fleet, a private navy belonging to a shipbuilding MegaCorp renowned throughout the galaxy for their powerful dreadnoughts, to reinforce the Republic task force making first contact. When first contact turns sour and the Imperial fleet attacks, most of the KDY defense fleet gets effortlessly destroyed with only 25 ships out of the original 1,000 surviving the battle.
  • In Episode 5, the clone trooper contingent aboard the Honor Hound get absolutely massacred when their ship is boarded by the Skywatch's Third Company during the first contact battle at Pzob.
  • The author mentions that the Galactic Marines, one of the Republic's most elite clone legions, was placed in charge of defending Axum prior to the Blue Massacre and suffered a brutal defeat in the Imperium's offscreen invasion. The Galactic Marines took so many losses that the entire legion was dissolved with the remnants being absorbed into the 501^st Legion.
• Religious Bruiser: Being largely made up of religious fanatics, this is all too common in the Imperium. The greatest ones so far are Davik Thune and the Crimson Razors as they are one of the few Space Marine Chapters who worship the Emperor. The Sisters of Battle also deserve mention as members have proven capable of fighting and killing Jedi.
• Religion of Evil:
  • What Aayla Secura considers the Imperial Cult to be, calling it insane and describing the God-Emperor as being from a pantheon of madness.
  • Later in Season 3, the series introduces a proper evil religion in the form of the Tenfold Path, which is a Chaos cult that recognizes all four Chaos Gods and the God-Emperor as both being equally deserving of worship. They are widely reviled by both the Imperials and the majority of Chaos worshippers for obvious reasons. Their main priest is the Heresiarch, an Ax-Crazy Chaos biomancer who literally flays people alive and wears their skin as a cape.
• Restricted Rescue Operation: While planning for their counter-invasion of an Imperial-occupied Axum, Ahsoka wants to prioritize liberating the Imperial death camps as soon as possible. Mace, however, refuses and insists that the Jedi must first prioritize defeating the Imperial occupation force and seizing control over their bases before they can even think about trying to free the camps. Ahsoka bitterly points out that this would almost certainly mean that the Jedi would end up rescuing less prisoners as the Imperials would undoubtedly start accelerating their mass killings at the camps in response to the Jedi counterattack.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons:
  • Obi-Wan and Mace's decision to withdraw from Anaxes was due to the Imperials gaining control of Trench's planet-cracking bomb. However, we see that the Imperials had no intention of using it and in fact once a Techmarine discovers the bomb, he immediately moves to disarm it. Despite this, the decision to withdraw was certainly the correct one as the Republic was facing an entire Chapter of Space Marines in addition to a very large force of Imperial Guard. Had they remained, the battle would have almost certainly consisted of a one-sided slaughter of the Jedi and clones.
  • While dueling Sister Rajulia, Shaak Ti denounces the Sister of Battle's faith in the God-Emperor as a false religion. Shaak Ti likely only said that to insult her opponent and probably came to that conclusion simply on account of the Imperial Cult being a different religion from the Jedi Order. Neither she nor her opponent have any way of knowing that the Imperial Cult began as an Unwanted False Faith and that the Emperor himself was adamant about not being a god back when he was still alive, making her remark about the Imperials following a false religion technically accurate.
  • Commander 65 concludes that the Imperium's Space Marines are Not So Invincible After All in the special episode "Soldiers of the Storm". While he's not wrong to think this (as later episodes would demonstrate that it is indeed possible for Space Marines to be killed by Jedi, Sith, and even sufficiently skilled clone troopers like Fordo), 65 only came to this conclusion because he managed to kill a group of Ogryn shock troops (which he mistook for Space Marines) by using explosive charges to collapse the bridge they were marching across.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand:
  • The Inquisition as always suffers from this. Inquisitor Tahr Whyler wants to sabotage the Imperial occupation on Axum and get all those Imperials killed as part of an elaborate Uriah Gambit. Inquisitor Samael Whyler, on the other hand, wants to help the Imperials occupying Axum defeat the Republic's counter-invasion. Then you have Inquisitor Udama, who seeks to investigate Tahr under suspicions of corruption and is willing to slaughter her way through thousands of Tahr's underlings to do it.
  • During the Republic's siege on the Basilica of Salvation in Season 3, the Imperial forces defending the Basilica have a small schism between those loyal to Saint Lazarus (who wants to continue holding out against the siege) and those loyal to Commissar-Captain Shadrick (who has been ordered by an Inquisitor to destroy Axum with the Basilica's Exterminatus bomb and use a teleporter to escape). The two sides wind up fighting each other while simultaneously fending off the invading Jedi, clone troopers, and Axumites.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Palpatine successfully frames the Republic fleet for launching an unprovoked attack at First Contact that destroyed an Imperial refugee ship and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, the Imperium is rightfully pissed off and spends the remainder of Season 1 on a prolonged revenge quest against the seemingly responsible parties. First, the Imperials promptly retaliate by massacring nearly a thousand Republic warships stationed at Pzob, unleashing every weapon in their arsenal and giving no quarter. Next, they forcefully invade Anaxes and Axum — two of the Republic's most important founding worlds — while killing everything that gets in their way. Then, after both worlds are conquered, the Imperials construct hundreds of death camps on Axum and waste no time slaughtering millions of Republic citizens over the course of weeks.
• Rousing Speech:
  • Jedi Master Rahm Kota delivers one to all of Axum in Episode 12 as the Jedi begin their counter-offensive to retake the planet from the Imperium. In a planet-wide broadcast, he tells Axum's people that the Jedi have come to liberate their planet from the Imperium and urges them to stage an armed uprising to assist the Jedi in defeating the Imperials, reminding the people of their heritage as soldiers who defended the hyperspace route to Coruscant in ancient times.
  • Clone Commander 65 gives one to his men at the end of the Season 2 special "Soldiers of the Storm", reminding them that they came to Axum to liberate its people and that despite the losses they have taken, they can't give up because of how much the Jedi's counter-invasion force depends on their artillery support to assure victory.
  • Saint Lazarus gives one to a mob of Imperial Guardsmen while standing atop a Leman Russ tank at the end of Episode 36, shouting at them to not lose hope, stating that more reinforcements are inbound if they can hold out long enough, and urging them to continue defending the Basilica of Salvation from the encroaching Republic forces.
• Ruling Family Massacre: In the backstory for Orion Phatris, the Skywatch's Chapter Master, he had to put down two separate insurrections on the same Imperial world of Yevan Secundus, both caused by the planet's high king acting like a total Caligula. After Orion's squad helped put down the first rebellion, he had the high king executed out of disgust at his incompetence alongside several of the king's children. However, the high queen of Yevan Secundus eventually remarried and had a new son who she made her successor. Years later, Orion was called back to Yevan Secundus because their new high king was somehow even worse than the one Orion had previously executed. Predictably, the people of Yevan Secundus once again rebelled, this time requiring an entire Space Marine company to be sent in before order was finally restored. By that point, Orion was done cleaning up the messes made by cruel and incompetent royals, and had both the high king and queen killed alongside their entire family lines.
• Running Gag: Various Star Wars characters keep mistaking other Imperial units for Space Marines. A clone commander in the "Soldiers of the Storm" special mistook the Bullgryns assaulting the bridge for Space Marines. In episode 28, clone commando Sando believes the Sisters of Battle are female Space Marines. In Episode 40, a mob of Axumite rebels mistakenly identify the Ogryns defending the Basilica of Salvation as Astartes. By Episode 41, this has gotten to the point where Obi-Wan, despite having previously fought a Librarian, still somehow mistakes an Inquisitor for a Space Marine until the latter corrects him. Though to be fair to Obi-Wan, the Inquisitor in question was a former Space Marine aspirant who had partially undergone the transformation into a full Astartes before being rejected to to his body being unable to handle any more modifications.
• Sacrificial Lamb:
  • Episode 2 starts off by introducing original characters Jedi Knight Renphi, Padawan Gaphin, Dr. Shina, and Captain Kraken. They are the ones leading a small Republic task force on a survey mission at the behest of Chancellor Palpatine, supposedly in response to strange anomalies being detected at the edge of the galaxy. In reality, Palpatine sensed the Imperium's arrival to the Star Wars universe and perceived them as rivals, so he sent the task force hoping that they would unwittingly stumble across the Imperials. They are even called "sacrificial lambs" by the episode's YouTube description. Kraken is the first to die at the end of Episode 3 when Palpatine remotely activates his control chip and forces the clone captain to hyperspace ram his Star Destroyer into an Imperial refugee ship during first contact. Renphi is Killed Offscreen while battling Space Marines aboard his ship in Episode 5. Gaphin is subjected to an Uncertain Doom as he is last seen holding off a Space Marine to buy time for Dr. Shina to reach their ship's escape pods. The only survivor is Shina, who is still left mentally scarred and injures her leg during the escape, forcing her to rely on a hover chair to move around for the rest of the series.
  • At the start of Episode 5, we are introduced to the other members of Dr. Shina's science team that were also present aboard the Honor Hound when the Republic makes first contact with the Imperium at Pzob. All of them get killed by Space Marines while trying to escape the Honor Hound after the ship gets boarded during the first contact battle.
• Sacrificial Planet:
  • Raxus Secundus, the capital world of the Separatist Alliance, gets destroyed by Davik Thune's fleet to once again show how dangerous the Crimson Razors are as well as establish that the Imperium is waging a war of total annihilation against the CIS.
  • Utapau is given the same treatment at the end of Season 2 when Thune and the Crimson Razors sack the entire planet and slaughter the entire native population.
• Salt the Earth: During their mass evacuation of the Xek-Tek Sector, the Imperials razed their own planets to deny whatever resources remained to the incoming hordes of Tyranids and Drukhari pirates.
• Scientist vs. Soldier: Dr. Shina and Jedi General Renphi have this dynamic in Season 1 during the Republic's first contact with the Imperium at Pzob. After a Brainwashed and Crazy Captain Kraken hyperspace rams the Bellejore into the Atlas of Steel, Shina advocates for the Republic fleet to immediately retreat into hyperspace since the Imperial warships clearly outmatch them and any hope for a peaceful first contact has been irreparably damaged along with the Atlas of Steel. Renphi, however, doesn't heed her suggestions, optimistically believing that it's still possible to salvage the situation by rescuing the crew of the attacked refugee ship, thereby hopefully deescalating hostilities. Renphi then has Shina escorted off his ship's bridge under armed guard and locked in his ship's lab alongside the rest of her science team when she tries to protest his decision. Shina ultimately turns out to have been right as Renphi's rescue operation is mistaken for a slaver raid by the Imperials and the captain of the Atlas of Steel reacts by overloading his ship's Warp core and causing it to self-destruct in a Taking You with Me moment. With the total destruction of the Atlas of Steel, the Imperial Fleet immediately attacks and massacres the Republic fleet, starting a new galactic war.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!:
  • Shortly after their arrival to the Galaxy, the Imperium of Man conquers Axum, a major Core World located only a few star systems from the Republic capital of Coruscant. Faced with this new extragalactic threat on their doorstep, the Galactic Senate reacts... by entering political gridlock as they bicker among themselves over what should be done. After weeks of senatorial inaction, the Jedi Order finally becomes fed up with waiting and launches an unsanctioned military operation to liberate Axum, knowing that the Senate will be under increased pressure to send aid once news of the Jedi counter-invasion gets out.
  • Also, every clone trooper from the 327^th Star Corps and the 501^st Legion that joined in on the Jedi's counter-invasion of Axum. Like the Jedi, both clone legions are going against the Senate's direct orders by taking part in an unsanctioned attack against the Imperium. It's even worse for them since the Clones don't have the luxury of claiming "Jedi affairs" as an excuse, meaning that they could all be facing a court martial when everything is said and done.
  • On the side of the Imperium, Sister Rajulia gives Colambian Sergeant Lazarus a field promotion to major, even though the Adepta Sororitas have no real command over the Imperial Guard. This decision proves to be a good one in the long run, even though this risked Lazarus getting court-martialed.
• Screw Your Ultimatum!:
  • As Obi-Wan and Saphran face off in Episode 18, Saphran is impressed by Obi-Wan's martial prowess and offers to let him join the Imperium in exchange for swearing his Undying Loyalty to the God-Emperor, claiming that there is much they could learn from each other. Obi-Wan obviously isn't interested and rejects Saphran's offer in the most polite yet snarky way possible.
    Obi-Wan: Thanks, but I think I'll pass. I've only ever had one place—and trust me, if you are any indication, then your Emperor would make a lousy Jedi. I doubt the Council would allow him to join the Order, so it's out of the question that I could train him.
  • In Episode 31, Grievous has boarded an Imperial cruiser and fought his way to the bridge, where he then issues his terms for surrender to the enemy commander.
    Grievous: Captain, your ship is disabled and boarded; your crew are defeated and dying at my hands. For your own sake, surrender this vessel to me—or I will kill every last Imperial here, and ship your heads back to your retreating fleet in garbage bags.
    Imperial Captain: I'd die a million deaths before succumbing to the likes of you, Xenos scum! Your threats change nothing. Every man, woman, and child on this ship has been ready to die for the Emperor since the moment we were born. In victory and defeat, this is our destiny, and we will not shirk from it!
  • In Episode 43, Coleman Kcaj immediately rejects Sebastian Vondrel's Last Chance to Quit and responds with his own ultimatum for his enemy's surrender.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: All Imperial ships that use a Warp drive have the option of self-destructing by overloading their ship's Warp core. The Atlas of Steel does it in Episode 4 as part of a Taking You with Me when the ship's captain mistakes the Republic's rescue ships approaching his vessel for slaver ships.
  • Later in Episode 31, Grievous finds his attempts to capture an Imperial ship stymied by the fact that any ship his fleet manages to disable is destroyed by its own crew overloading the ship's Warp core. Tasleon overloads the Warp core of an Imperial cruiser which had been boarded by General Grievous and his forces during the Battle for Raxus Secundus, destroying the cruiser in a massive explosion that also takes out Grievous as well as many of the surrounding Separatist warships.
• Series Continuity Error: In Episode 27, Anakin and Khayon are planning to get through a corridor being guarded by nine servitor-controlled turrets and two Inquisitorial prison guards with both of the guards described as being armed with a shield and a power maul. When Anakin and Khayon put their plan into motion and take down the two guards in Episode 28, the guards' weapons are suddenly changed to shotguns.
• Shoo Out the Clowns:
  • In preparation for their counter-invasion of Axum, the Jedi Council has every single Padawan remain behind at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant with the younglings under Yoda's supervision while most of the Jedi Masters and Knights are away fighting on Axum. Hence why, except for Ahsoka (who is a Jedi Knight in all but name anyway), there are no teenage Jedi involved in the Second Battle of Axum.
  • As the series progresses, the story becomes much darker and gorier than any of the Star Wars films or television shows ever were. One of the signs of how serious things are getting is when the comedic and bumbling B1 battle droids used by the Separatists are completely phased out by Grievous at the end of Season 2, and replaced with the much more intimidating and less talkative B2 super battle droids.
• Shoot the Bullet:
  • When Aquila Squad tries to take down Inquisitor Tahr Whyler in Episode 16 by shooting the underslung grenade launchers of their blasters at him, the Inquisitor uses his psychic powers to reflect some of the grenades back at the clone commando squad. Captain Graves uses his blaster pistol to neatly shoot two of these redirected explosives out of the air before they could reach his squad.
  • During the Crimson Razors' assault on the planetary shield generators of Raxus Secundus in Episode 24, a bunch of B1 battle droids attempt to Grenade Spam Brother Araknus, who uses his Bolter to shoot most of the tossed grenades so that they explode mid-air.
  • Later in that same episode, Dooku is shown using Force Lightning to counter a Space Marine's Bolter by detonating its rocket-propelled grenade rounds in mid-flight with precisely aimed blasts of electricity.
  • In Episode 28, Delta Squad commando Sev uses his sniper rifle to shoot an incoming missile that was aimed at him and Sando. The missile explodes mid-air but was still close enough for the blast to send Sev flying and break one of his legs from the impact of hitting the ground so hard.
• Shout-Out:
  • Episode 20 has one to Dune during the scene where the Colambian sniper Joseph is reciting his prayers as he aims at some clone troopers from afar.
    Joseph: But thanks be to the Founder, who bestows on us victory through our Lord Leto the God-Emperor.
  • Omega's entire introduction into the story is basically one big Ender's Game shout-out: in order to prevent her from making tactical decisions based on her heightened empathy that might risk the chances of victory, the Kaminoans lie to Omega and her fellow tactical cadets and tell her that the battle they'll be directing in is just a simulation, allowing her to make ruthless tactical decisions in order to exploit the full potential of the massive Republic armada combating the Imperial Battlefleet at Axum.
    • It's later revealed in Episode 40 Part 4 that all of the clone cadets on Omega's team are named after characters from Ender's Game, specifically Ender's fellow students at Battle School.
  • When Anakin and Khayon find Tahr Whyler's armory aboard the Luminous Reign in Episode 38, one of the Chaos artifacts which Anakin notices is the ninth volume of the Necronomicon.
  • The YouTube description for Episode 40 contains an ancient oath used by the Dai Bendu (the precursors of the Jedi Order) which is a paraphrased copy of the Litany Against Fear.
  • The ending of Episode 43 contains a reference to Hellsing Ultimate. As Ishtara Ordane is diving after a falling virus bomb in a desperate attempt to stop it from detonating and destroying Axum, she gives one last prayer to the God-Emperor for a miracle. Her prayer is a paraphrased copy of a quote by Alexander Anderson.
  • The end credits for Episode 45 feature Tzeentch and Slaanesh singing "They're Only Human" from Death Note: The Musical.
• Space Battle:
  • Episode 4 is largely centered around the space battle near Pzob that breaks out between Orion's Imperial fleet and the Republic-aligned KDY defense fleet shortly after the Atlas of Steel is hyperspace rammed during first contact and subsequently self-destructs. Referred to in-universe as the Battle of System K749, nearly the entirety of the thousand-strong KDY fleet is mauled by the smaller Imperial fleet. The only exception to this is thanks to clone captain Spikes, whose creative tactics enable his Venator squadron to take out a dozen Imperial warships.
  • Episode 31 features two different space battles between the Separatist Navy and Thune's crusading fleet.
  • Episodes 34, 36, 39, and 40, 44, and 45 all feature continuations of the same massive space battle in the Axum System going on between Rollah Sendurran's Imperial battlefleet and the Republic's counterattack armada which is being coordinated by Palpatine, Spikes, and Omega.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • The Imperium has unknowingly severely disrupted Palpatine's plans. They are a piece on the board that the Sith Lord has no control or influence over. Their presence means he can't move against the Jedi as he needs them to help defeat their forces. In addition, the Imperials have forced Palpatine to redeploy most of the Republic fleet to protect Coruscant. This not only allows General Grievous to effectively defeat the Outer Rim Sieges but also weakens his control of the Senate due to the outrage many Senators feel over their planets and systems being abandoned.
  • Gaksian, a Primaris Psyker assigned to the Imperial Guard's garrison on Axum, unknowingly throws a massive wrench into the plans of Inquisitor Tahr Whyler when he sacrifices himself to save his unit from a Jedi ambush. The Inquisitor's original plan was to have the Imperial garrison on Axum get slaughtered by Republic forces so he could use those soldiers' deaths to create martyrs that the disparate factions of the Imperium could rally behind. However, Gak's Heroic Sacrifice turns him into an Inspirational Martyr in the eyes of his fellow guardsmen, inspiring the Imperial Guard regiments to fight even harder to the point that they actually manage to blunt the Republic's counteroffensive against all odds instead of getting wiped out like the Inquisitor intended.
  • 1313 manages to defy Commissar-Captain Shadrick, even after the latter has mind-controlled the Death Korps soldiers by means of General Order 99. This is due to 1313's very personal beliefs being influenced by his experiences with a squad of Cadians and Shadrick's blatant dismissal of Cadia as not good enough to stand against the 13th Black Crusade. Just as Shadrick is about to execute Captain Sternn, 1313 breaks away from his mental conditioning, verbally declares Shadrick unfit to be Commissar, and then shoots him in the chest.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Padmé is able to survive giving birth to Luke and Leia.
  • In canon, Ciaphas Cain naturally died of old age in M42. Here, he's revealed to have hitched a ride to the Star Wars galaxy with the Xek-Tek Imperials, meaning that this version of Cain was still alive during the time of the Indomitus Crusade.
  • In Legends, Oppo Rancisis was killed by the Fallen Jedi Sora Bulq during the Siege of Saleucami late in the Clone Wars. Unlike his Disney Canon counterpart, the version of Oppo Rancisis that appears in Episode 43 also went through an identical experience, including being stabbed In the Back by Sora Bulq's lightsaber, though Rancisis mentions in his internal narration that he survived his injuries by entering a Force trance and spending some time in a bacta tank.
• Stone Wall: The three Mandator II-class dreadnoughts that the Republic Navy bring to confront the Imperial Navy at the Second Battle of Axum. Despite being the size of Imperial Battleships, the Mandators are actually undergunned for ships of their size due to the armament restrictions placed on the shipbuilders by the Ruusan Reformation. However, this means that the dreadnoughts have a ton of extra power normally reserved for cannons which they instead divert to their shields, making them incredibly durable. So far, they are the only Star Wars ships shown to be capable of surviving a barrage from Imperial capital ships. In one example, a Mandator has its shields remain intact even after getting rammed by the Imperial flagship.
• Stop Being Stereotypical: It's mentioned in Episode 40 Part 4 that the clones created from Spaarti cylinders for Operation Axum-Omega are widely ostracized by the regular Kaminoan clone troopers, who view their Spaarti counterparts as embodying every bad stereotype about clones (rapidly-grown Empty Shells that are born as adults who all act and think the exact same way with no individuality).
• Storming the Castle:
  • In between Episodes 12 and 29, Quinlan Vos and his strike force of 2,000 Jedi sack the Imperial central command headquarters on Axum and capture/kill the Imperial Guard's high command in an Offscreen Moment of Awesome.
  • Season 3 has the Battle of Axum reach its climax as the Axumite rebel mobs lay siege to the Basilica of Salvation, where most of the surviving Imperials have gathered for a final stand. The rebels soon manage to breach the Basilica's walls and are joined by Republic forces led by Mace Windu and Obi-Wan. Played with in that the Basilica isn't actually the Imperial HQ on Axum, which had been captured offscreen earlier in the battle by Quinlan's Jedi strike force. The attack is ultimately a failure with Republic forces being forced to make a Tactical Withdrawal without ever getting inside the Basilica itself due to a combination of taking too many casualties and new Imperial reinforcements arriving in the form of Astartes from the Tempered Hands Chapter.
• Straight for the Commander: Much of the Jedi's strategy for their counter-invasion of Axum revolves around taking out the command structure of the Imperial occupation. Forty percent of the Jedi participating in the battle are sent to board and capture the flagship of the Imperial squadron blockading Axum. Another forty percent of the Jedi are sent down to the planet to launch a direct assault on the Imperial central headquarters. Shaak Ti is assigned to infiltrate the Imperium's auxiliary bases and command bunkers to assassinate the mid-ranking Imperial officers to prevent the possibility of a Dragon Ascendant. During the opening stages of the ground battle, Clone Commander 65 assigns his best marksmen to target the enemy field commanders, hoping to turn the Imperial ground forces into a Decapitated Army. This fails to actually work as the Imperial Guard simply promote their lower ranked officers, leading to the whole battle to being grounded out.
  • Much later during the Republic's assault into the Basilica of Salvation in Episode 42, Obi-Wan attempts this by targeting Saint Lazarus after identifying him as a military and spiritual leader for the Imperials defending the Basilica. He is stopped by Leahandra Ordane, who places herself between Obi-Wan and Lazarus, forcing Obi-Wan to fight her in order to get through to Lazarus.
  • Ironically, this ends up getting turned on the Republic when the Mechanicus finds the Oracle ship and destroys the coordinating system, leaving the fleet headless.
• Stunned Silence:
  • When Yoda shows Hondo's footage of the Imperium's death camps on Axum to the Senate, the entire chamber becomes dead silent as every senator stares in horror at the inhumane tortures and mass killings being inflicted on Axum's non-humans by the Imperium.
  • In episode 25, Iskandar Khayon is left stunned silent in amazement when Anakin informs him that he can still use the Force (albeit in an extremely limited way), which should be impossible given that they are both inside a Tailor-Made Prison specifically designed to nullify psykers.
  • When Mace (recently fallen to the Dark Side) strikes Obi-Wan in the face and knocks him out cold for calling a retreat at the end of Episode 42 Part 4, the Jedi and clone troopers who witness this are so shocked that they can only silently stare at him with looks of horror etched on their faces.
• Suicide Attack:
  • During first contact, a Brainwashed and Crazy clone captain (secretly acting under Palpatine's orders) activates his Venator's hyperdrive and rams the Imperial refugee ship Atlas of Steel at lightspeed, destroying his own ship and nearly cutting the Atlas of Steel in half.
  • Double-subverted in episode 39. Seeing that their starfighters' weapons are doing minimal damage to the Ironclad's hull, Plo Koon decides to sacrifice himself to destroy the ship by piloting his fighter straight up the barrel of its primary cannon just as it's going to fire. However, he gets intercepted by Wolffe, who disable Plo's fighter with an ion cannon and then uses a magnetic cable to tow him away to safety. Wolffe tells Plo that he is too important to throw his life away; however, Warthog and Jag acknowledge that Someone Has to Die and take Plo's place. The two clones then fly their Y-Wing into the cannon's barrel, causing a chain reaction that permanently cripples the Ironclad and renders its main gun useless.
• Switching P.O.V.: The story's point-of-view is constantly switching between different characters from the Ensemble Cast as the series progresses.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: Given the story's Ensemble Cast and Switching P.O.V. format, it is not uncommon to find episodes that feature the sympathetic viewpoints of both Republic and Imperial characters as they fight each other. This is especially noticeable during the Second Battle of Axum, where the Imperials occupying Axum are given just as much focus and perspective as the Jedi and clone troopers who are trying to liberate Axum. Quite a few Imperial POV characters from the Axum arc (namely Kallak, Nerva, and Farnus) are portrayed as Obliviously Evil Villainous Underdogs who believe they are fighting for their survival against the Jedi "witches" and their army of cloned human Slave Mooks.
• Sympathy for the Devil:
  • Ahsoka experiences this while talking to an Electro-Priest that she and the 501^st took as a POW in Episode 17, listening to him as he explains the Imperium's tragic history with the Cybernetic Revolt, the Age of Strife that followed, and how the Imperials have known nothing but endless war for thousands of years. It's at this moment that Ahsoka begins to understand that the Imperials aren't just genocidal savages like the rest of the Star Wars galaxy believes, but rather deeply traumatized Invading Refugees who wage war because it's all they've ever known.
  • Ahsoka also has another moment of this in Episode 41 Part 1 while trying to question Farnus, another Imperial POW that she captured in an earlier episode. After her previous attempts to get him to talk only result in Farnus mindlessly repeating his name, rank, and military ID number, Farnus snaps and goes on a prolonged Motive Rant about all the horrors and atrocities that the xenos in his home galaxy have inflicted upon humanity for thousands of years. When Farnus is done, Ahsoka sounds like she's on the verge of tears as she reacts with compassion and an attempt to comfort him, much to his suspicion and bewilderment.
  • Whilst battling Hecate—a failed Eversor Assassin turned Inquisitorial agent—in "Mortal Fall Part 3" and seeing her reaction to his comment about laying flowers on her grave, Obi-Wan experiences a brief moment of sympathy for the girl, realizing that she has been subjected to such systemic abuse in the name of molding her into a Human Weapon that she has little sense of self remaining.
• Synchronous Episodes: Episodes 4 and 5 both cover the Battle of System K749, AKA the first contact battle between the Republic and the Imperium, from two different perspectives. Episode 4 is largely told from the POV of Spikes, a clone naval captain who is commanding one of the Republic fleet's Venators and focuses on the actual Space Battle. Episode 5 is told from the perspective of Dr. Shina, a civilian scientist working aboard the flagship of the Republic fleet who barely manages to escape with her life when the ship gets boarded by Space Marines during the battle.
  • Episodes 7-8 also take place within the same timeframe as Episodes 4 and 5. For context, both Episode 4 and 5 end with their respective character-of-the-day barely escaping the Battle of System K749 with their lives and spending an indeterminate amount of hours recuperating in an infirmity at Rothana before they are approached by Anakin, Mace Windu, and Obi-Wan. Episodes 8 follows what Anakin was up to at the Battle of Anaxes during those hours Spikes and Dr. Shina spent in the infirmary, while Episode 7 serves as an immediate prelude for Episode 8.

Tropes T to Z

• Tactical Withdrawal: In Episode 42 Part 4, Obi-Wan orders a tactical withdrawal of all Republic forces sieging the Basilica of Salvation due to their current strategy of a frontal assault proving too costly with tens of Jedi and thousands of Clones already dead with little to show for it. The sudden arrival of new Imperial reinforcements in the form of Colonel-Commissar Leerose's battlegroup and the Tempered Hands Chapter only further convinces Obi-Wan that tactically withdrawing from the battlefield is the right choice. Too bad that a recently fallen Mace disagrees...
• Take That!: To the infamous "lost the will to live" line from Revenge of the Sith. When a medical droid suggests it here, Shina blasts it and mutters about the things they're programming into medical droids these days. Though, to be fair to Canon, there was semi-legitimate credence to this theory, as Padme was incredibly heartbroken from losing Anakin to the Dark Side, leading the Jedi to accept it as fact in absence of other evidence. That is not the case this time and Dr. Shina is less accepting of such pithy explanations, though when no conventional medicine can save the Senator, she begrudgingly accepts a more metaphysical solution is necessary and summons Yoda for help.
• Taking the Bullet:
  • In episode 29, an unnamed Imperial vox officer does this for Inquisitor Tahr Whyler just as the latter was about to be cut in half by Quinlan Vos, who had disguised himself as one of Tahr's subordinates in order to get the drop on him. The vox officer pushes the Inquisitor out of the way of Quinlan's lightsaber and takes the blow meant for him, getting bisected across the body.
  • Near the end of Episode 41 Part 2, Inquisitor Samael fires at the Genestealer Jevona with his Hand Cannon, but Kombirr (an Axumite rebel who befriended Jevona) jumps in the path of the bullet and takes the shot meant for her.
• Taking You with Me: After the Imperial refugee ship Atlas of Steel is hyperspace rammed during First Contact, the Jedi commander of the Republic fleet tries to carry out a rescue operation on the damaged Atlas of Steel in a misguided attempt to deescalate tensions and show the Imperials that the Republic means well. Unfortunately, the captain of the Atlas of Steel assumes that the unknown alien ships heading towards him are pirates looking to kidnap the refugees. Rather than let that happen, the Imperial captain overloads the Warp core of his ship so that the ensuing explosion will take out any nearby Republic ships alongside the Atlas of Steel itself.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Regarding the Clone Army, Jedi General Renphi once said "An entire army and armada of what amounts to be tamed Mandalorians? The Republic will never lose another conflict due to strength of arms, that is certain." This occurs one episode before the Republic makes first contact with the Imperium and is dealt one of their worst military defeats in galactic history.
  • During the 501^st's assault on Trench's captured flagship in Episode 11, there's a lull in the battle where Rex and Ahsoka have just cleared a room full of Skitarii. Believing the worst of the fighting has passed, Rex relievedly jokes that he was worried the Adeptus Mechanicus might have their own equivalent of a Jedi that Ahsoka would be forced to fight. Cue the nearby elevator opening up ten seconds later to reveal an Electro-Priest accompanied by his entire Skitarii Maniple.
  • Occurs during the Jedi assault on the Imperial command ship Hellsmasher in Episode 12. Initially, the mission seems to be going well as the Jedi cut through hundreds of naval armsmen with zero casualties. Then, one of the Jedi Masters on Obi-Wan's strike team jinxes everything by commenting on how easy this has been and calling it overkill to have brought so many Jedi. Naturally, the next enemy they encounter aboard the ship is a Space Marine Librarian, standing over the remains of another Jedi strike team who he had ambushed earlier. Many Jedi would be either lost or critically injured in the battle that followed.
• Terrifying Rescuer: When Ahsoka rescues Vastellen Private Farnus after finding him and a comatose Tech-Priestess Nerva trapped inside a disabled Imperial Knight that had a damaged access hatch, Farnus reacts to her appearance with terror and tries to shoot her because he, like all Imperials, grew up being taught to instinctually hate anything that isn't a human.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: After getting thoroughly curb-stomped by the Imperium in the Blue Massacre, the Jedi Order decides that they're not going to take any chances and send a force of 5,000 Jedi (around half of the entire Order) to retake what is essentially a single planet being guarded by a picket force. Against any other opponent, this response would be complete overkill, something which Cin Drallig lampshades during the Jedi boarding of the Imperial command ship Hellsmasher. Against the Imperium, however, this trope gets subverted as it turns out that the Jedi actually underestimated the Imperials' capabilities and take heavy losses for it. For example, out of the 2,000 Jedi originally deployed to seize/cripple the Hellsmasher, 500 are killed and the Jedi are ultimately forced to abandon the mission before they ever reach the ship's bridge.
• Those Were Only Their Scouts: The Imperial army occupying Axum takes two whole seasons for the Jedi and Republic to defeat — and that required half of the entire Jedi Order, two of the Clone Army's best regiments, several of the Republic's best elite clone commando squads, and practically the entire Republic Navy pulling The Cavalry late-battle in order to eke out a Pyrrhic Victory. Word of God says that the Imperials fought on Axum's surface were barely a percentage of the main Imperial military force operating in the galaxy, not to mention the entire Axum occupation was part of a Uriah Gambit by a rogue Imperial general to purge the ranks of those viewed as expendable and/or non-compliant.
• Throwing Your Gun at the Enemy:
  • There's a moment during the opening battle in Episode 29 where Sando throws his grenade launcher into the face of one Sister of Battle to distract her while he shoots her in the sword arm, steals her power sword, and uses it to kill her.
  • In Episode 35, Commissar Terandor throws what's left of his laspistol at Quinlan out of frustration after Quinlan deflects one of Terandor's laser shots back into his laspistol, causing it to blow up in Terandor's hand.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works:
  • In Episode 17, Ahsoka manages to take out half of the Electro-Priest's Skitarii maniple by throwing one of her lightsabers and using the Force to send the whirling blade into the ranks of the gathered Skitarii.
  • In Episode 30, Aayla takes out a Sister of Battle armed with a flamer by throwing her lightsaber so that the blade slices through the flamer, causing the weapon to combust and kill its wielder.
• Time Skip: Around halfway through Episode 10, the story jumps ahead multiple weeks after the Senate became gridlocked in response to the Imperium's invasion of the Axum system. This is done to show the fallout of the Imperial occupation of Axum. The Republic is shown to be facing a sudden refugee crisis caused by civilians who fled Axum before it fell. Meanwhile, the Imperials have had time to entrench themselves on Axum and start purging the planet's non-human population. Most of the Imperial invasion force has moved on since then, leaving behind only a token garrison to defend their newly conquered holdings, presenting the Jedi with the opportunity to launch a counter-invasion to retake Axum and force the Senate to break their weeks-long deadlock.
• Torture Chamber Episode: Quinlan Vos spends Episode 41 Part 1 being tortured by Tahr Whyler.
• Tractor Beam: One of the few advantages that the Republic Navy has over the Imperial Fleet is their tractor beam technology. During the first contact battle in Episode 4, Captain Spikes uses the tractor beams of eight Venator-class Star Destroyers to fling a piece of debris from the remains of the Atlas of Steel towards a squadron of twelve Imperial warship that were charging in at ramming speed.
• Train Job: One of the subplots in Episodes 32 and 33 follows Boba Fett and a squad of Space Wolves foiling an attempted spice train hijacking by an unusually well-organized band of Tusken Raiders who are led by a rogue Jedi.
• Translator Microbes: Characters from the Star Wars side often make use of translator devices while speaking with the Imperials in order to get past the language barrier as it's established that Galactic Basic (the primary language of the known Star Wars galaxy) is an entirely separate language from High and Low Gothic (the languages of the Imperium).
• Trigger Phrase: During the stand-off in episode 41 part 3, Commissar-Captain Shadrick issues "General Order 99", which activates the mental conditioning of every Krieger in earshot and causes them to turn on the Cadians who were attempting to arrest Shadrick.
• Underestimating Badassery: Both sides have degrees of this.
  • The Imperium overall look down on the Republic and CIS, seeing them as weak and soft for not actually fighting wars by themselves and instead opting to use clones and AI to do the fighting for them. However, the Clones were able to disapprove this to a certain extent. Note though the Imperials they are fighting in Axum are barely a percentage of the actual force that is currently operating in the galaxy.
  • The Republic underestimated the capabilities of the Imperial Guard with their initial successes during the Axum counter-invasion. This comes back and bites them in the ass, as the Guardsmen rallied and are now blunting and even rolling back the initial success of the Republic.
  • Mace Windu and the Jedi Order as a whole takes the cake for this. He completely underestimates the Imperial capabilities in the Force/Warp and is paying heavily for it. Every Jedi strike force sent to Axum is taking heavy casualties, with the death and serious injuries of several well-known Jedi.
  • The Axum Resistance horribly underestimates the sheer capabilities of Imperial Guard firepower when they face the Karkosan Untouchables and Obsidian Guard in Episode 23, believing that their shield generator will keep them safe from the Obsidian Guard's tanks. The Obsidian Guard simply deploy an even more powerful tank which one-shots the forcefield with a mini-nuke.
  • Obi-Wan, while accepting that Hecate is dangerous, doesn't think she will be anywhere near as dangerous as some of his opponents like Asajj Ventress. He quickly changes his mind after fighting her in Episode 42 part 3, and she almost kills him, with the Jedi Master only being saved by luck and some very quick thinking.
  • At the end of Episode 42 Part 4, Mace catches sight of the Tempered Hands arriving on the battlefield to reinforce the Imperials defending the Basilica of Salvation, and internally dismisses them as "limited support", assured that there's no way the Imperials will be able to hold out against a second wave of Jedi and clone troopers. The very next episode shows just how wrong he was as the Tempered Hands easily wipes out an entire legion of Jedi and clone troopers. To be fair to Mace, it's obvious that he's not thinking clearly due to his judgment being clouded by the Dark Side's influence.
• Unreliable Expositor:
  • Iskander Khayon tells Anakin that he has renounced the madness of the Imperium. He neglects to mention that he renounced it in favor of the promises of Chaos, which is basically the Dark Side on steroids.
  • Two of the Imperial prisoners freed on Axum claim to have been persecuted by the Imperium. They don't mention it's because they're both Genestealer Hybrids, genetic timebombs who will form a beacon for a Horde of Alien Locusts if allowed to proliferate.
  • When Farnus rants about all the evils that aliens have done to the Imperium, he doesn't mention the peaceful alien races and even human/alien alliances that the Imperium has been massacring since it was first founded. Then again, he probably doesn't even know of those peaceful aliens in the first place, considering the Imperium's millennia of propaganda.
• Unskilled, but Strong: The typical Imperial psyker vs. a Jedi; due to their drawing from Warp (or "the Dark Side", as the Jedi view it), they have more raw strength, on average, and more overtly lethal powers compared to the Jedi's focus on subtle applications of telepathy, telekinesis, empathy and precognition. But, most Imperial psykers are filled with a cocktail of self-loathing and deep dread of the Warp; as a consequence, they are very vulnerable to Jedi powers developed to disrupt or deflect psionic energies. The few exceptions to this rule of the Imperium's psykers hating themselves, such as Inquisitors and Space Marine Librarians, are correspondingly vastly more dangerous.
• Unusable Enemy Equipment: During the 501^st's assault on Trench's flagship, some of the Clones try using the weapons of fallen Skitarii but find that the Ad Mech weapons won't work for them. This is then subverted thanks to Echo, who uses his cybernetic augmentations to hack into the Ad Mech's guns and unlock them for the Clone Troopers to use.
• Urban Warfare: The Battle of Axum sees the Jedi and clone troopers battling the Imperium's forces on the eponymous City Planet.
• Uriah Gambit:
  • After Sister Rajulia's death in Episode 15, Commissar-Captain Shadrick places Major Lazarus in charge of a task force (subsequently named Force Lazarus) comprising of the Imperial Guard's finest Elite Mooks and sends them on a Suicide Mission to take out the Republic's artillery without any support, reinforcements, or even an extraction plan. Shadrick intends for Force Lazarus to fail their mission and get killed in battle in order to make Lazarus seem like a General Failure. This is part of his plan to posthumously humiliate Rajulia since she was the one who gave Lazarus an illegal Field Promotion from sergeant to major in the first place, so any failures from Lazarus would also badly reflect upon Rajulia. Much to Shadrick's frustration, Lazarus instead proves to be Majorly Awesome and destroys the Republic's artillery, resulting in Shadrick attempting to get Lazarus Arrested for Heroism when he returns from his successful mission.
  • Episode 19's ending reveals that there is a conspiracy within the Imperial Guard's top brass to purge their ranks of those that they deem "non-compliant". The regiments from Thune's fleet that were sent to occupy Axum were basically being left to die by their superiors, who fully expected for them to get slaughtered to a man once the Republic inevitably retook the planet in a massive counter-invasion.
  • Episode 21 reveals that Inquisitor Tahr Whyler also has one going on. He intends for the Imperials defending Axum to all get killed in the Republic's counter-invasion so he can make them into martyrs which he'll use to unite the disparate sub-factions within the Imperium. When the Imperials occupying Axum prove to be Surprisingly Elite Cannon Fodder, Tahr resorts to plan B: have one of his agents detonate a Virus Bomb inside the Basilica of Salvation and make it look like the Imperials blew up the planet as part of a Taking You with Me.
• Use Their Own Weapon Against Them:
  • Sando manages to kill one Sister of Battle in Episode 29 by shooting her in her sword arm with his blaster, wrenching her power sword away from her disabled arm, and then using the stolen sword to impale her through the chest.
  • In Episode 37, Kombirr takes out a Karkosan Untouchable by shooting them in the face with their own laspistol which he yanked away from them during a Gun Struggle over Kombirr's blaster.
• Vagueness Is Coming: Before succumbing to his wounds, Jaro Tapal has a dying vision of what's to come and cryptically warns Mace Windu about a secret war, and that both the Republic and Jedi are at risk of being consumed by the "chaos" that is soon to follow the Imperium's invasion of their galaxy.
• Versus Title: The very title of this fan series is Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K with the whole premise being about characters and factions from the 40K universe (specifically the Imperium of Man) clashing with the Star Wars universe circa Season 7 of The Clone Wars.
• Villain Episode: In general, any episode which uses exclusively Imperial viewpoint characters is this by default given how the Imperials are the primary villains of the story.
  • The mini episode "Davik Thune and the Droids" is primarily told from the POV of Admiral Borvant, a Separatist admiral in charge of Raxus Secundus's defense when the Crimson Razors attack. The ending of the mini episode then switches perspectives to that of Davik Thune, who is leading the attack.
  • "The Dreamer Awakens" is almost entirely centered around General Grievous, both the real one and the imposter.
  • The special episode "Our Chains Are Broken" introduces a new antagonist called the Heresiarch and the entire episode is about building him up as the next big threat.
  • Season 3 episode "Mortal Fall Part 2" gives the spotlight to Inquisitorial agent Hecate and is told entirely from her POV while also exploring her backstory as a failed Eversor Assasin.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left:
  • Dooku, after seeing that the battle for Raxus Secundus is lost, shrugs it off and makes a strategic withdrawal.
  • Electro-Priest C-82 and Magos Lethrin both make their escape from Trench's flagship in Episode 17 after Lethrin helps C-82 escape from Ahsoka's custody.
  • After being defeated in a duel by Mace Windu near the end of the Republic's siege on the Basilica of Salvation, both Samael and Hecate skedaddle and pull a Stealth Hi/Bye while Mace is distracted arguing tactics with Obi-Wan.
• Villain Has a Point: A lot of Imperial characters consider the clone troopers to be slaves of the Republic, which is absolutely true. Despite whatever bonds individual Clones may have formed with their Jedi commanders, the Clone Army are ultimately Slave Mooks created for the sole purpose of fighting the Republic's wars with precisely zero say in the matter. Note though that the Imperium is hardly any better in this regard with their use of servitors and practice of forcibly conscripting countless young men and women for their Imperial Guard.
• Villain of Another Story:
  • Iskandar Khayon is a significant antagonist in Warhammer 40,000, being a high-ranking member of the Black Legion and one of the most powerful Chaos Sorcerers in the Milky Way Galaxy. When he shows up in Season 2, however, he's simply Anakin's cellmate in the Inquisitorial prison aboard Tahr Whyler's warship, and the two wind up forming a Who Needs Enemies? alliance to escape since Khayon has no real quarrel with the Jedi or Republic.
  • Likewise, the Genestealers who show up in Season 3 are a major antagonistic faction in the 40K universe and were probably responsible for summoning the Tyranids to the Xek-Tek Sector in the first place. However, in the story itself they function as anti-heroic supporting characters fighting on the side of the Axum Resistance against the Imperial occupation force.
• Villain Opening Scene:
  • The first scene in the series is told from the POV of Orion Phatris shortly after the Xek-Tek Imperial Fleet was transported from the 40K universe into the Star Wars universe.
  • Episode 11 opens with the perspective of Captain Yorran, an arrogant naval commander in charge of the Imperial Navy's blockade over Axum, as the Jedi begin their counter-invasion of Axum.
  • Episode 21 opens with Inquisitor Tahr Whyler delivering an evil monologue to some random Imperial Guard officer where he explains his whole evil plan before then killing the officer by feeding him to his pet daemonhost.
  • Episode 23 opens with the POV of Magos Domina Kallie Delta as she slaughters her way through some of the 327^th's clone troopers.
  • Episode 25 begins with Canoness Leahandra Ordane giving her prayers to the God-Emperor before entering into battle against the Republic's clone forces.
  • Episode 26 starts with Tahr Whyler and his two agents awaiting the arrival of their gunship so they can leave the area and enact the next part of Tahr's plan, only for their escape to foiled by a sudden attack from Chaos-corrupted clone troopers.
  • Episode 36 opens up with Ishtara Ordane in a Paragon Warsuit entering the ground battle on Axum and leaping on top of a Republic AT-TE to do some damage.
  • Episode 39 starts with Lord Admiral Rollah Sendurran being displeased at the state of the Space Battle in the Axum System and ordering the deployment of the warship Death of Defiance.
• Villain Team-Up:
  • Beginning with Episode 24, Jabba the Hutt and his criminal empire are enlisted by Ciaphas Cain to aid the Imperials in colonizing Tatooine.
  • Episodes 32–33 has a subplot featuring a team-up between Boba Fett and the Space Wolves as they come into conflict with Tusken Raiders attempting to hijack one of Jabba's spice trains.
  • The end credits of the Season 4 premiere show a series of Wham Shots revealing that Tzeentch and Slaanesh are somehow involved in the story and have been working together the whole time behind the scenes.
• Villain Teleportation: Played straight. On a macro level, the Imperium has access to teleportation technology while the Republic and Jedi don't. On a micro level, only the especially villainous Imperials ever seem to actually use it. The ones who've made use of teleportation tech in the story include Tahr Whyler (a sadistic Radical Inquisitor who has long since Jumped Off The Slippery Slope), Tasleon (a Techmarine from a Chapter that is rather brutal and aggressive even by Astartes standards), and Shadrick (a petty, jerkass commissar who exists solely to be a Hate Sink).
• Villainous Rescue: At the end of episode 43, Darth Sidious himself arrives in person to save Aayla, Quinlan, and the other Jedi who were getting curb-stomped by a fully-powered Tahr Whyler.
• Villainous Valour: The Imperials are genocidal human supremacists who think nothing of killing billions and serve as the primary villains of the story. However the rank-and-file Imperials by and large display extraordinary amounts of courage and self-sacrifice. This actually bothers Shaak Ti at one point as she notes that the Sister of Battle she is fighting is not thinking in the slightest about her own survival.
• War Arc: The Second Battle of Axum takes up the entirety of Seasons 2 and 3, centering around the Jedi and Republic being on the offensive for once as they launch a counterattack to liberate the eponymous planet from the Imperium's occupation. The Jedi Order sends nearly all of their Masters and Knights, supported by the 327^th Star Corps and the 501^st Legion, to retake Axum which is being defended by the Imperial Guard, Adepta Sororitas, and the Adeptus Mechanicus.
• War Comes Home: Played straight when the Imperium invades and conquers Axum, a wealthy Core World of the Republic which had up until then been mostly unaffected by the Clone Wars due to being located far from the Outer Rim where most of the battles were taking place. For weeks, the Imperials occupy Axum and kill anyone who isn't visibly human as well as humans who openly oppose them. When the Jedi come to liberate the planet, they are aided by many of Axum's civilians, who have taken up arms against their occupiers and formed a La Résistance.
• War Crime Subverts Heroism: Occurs in Episode 37 when Mace learns of the AdMech soldiers that Ahsoka captured during the 501^st's assault on Trench's former flagship, which the Imperials had seized during the Blue Massacre. He disapproves of this since keeping Imperial POWs will require Clone Troopers to guard them, and that would mean having fewer troops for his planned assault on the Basilica of Salvation. He explicitly forbids her from taking any more prisoners, implicitly telling her to give no quarter to the Imperials. Ahsoka angrily calls him out on that and points out it's not the Jedi way, but Mace doesn't care and shuts her down, causing her to storm out in disgust.
• War Refugees: When the Imperium first conquered the Axum System, some of the people who lived on Axum and Anaxes were lucky enough to escape and fled to Coruscant to seek refuge. Episode 10 shows that some of the space stations orbiting Coruscant are being used to house these refugees with at least one station having an entire tent city set up inside its hangar bay.
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: The Republic's First Contact with the Imperium occurs when one of their fleets encounters a lone Imperial freighter carrying refugees. Their meeting goes horribly wrong when one of the Republic's Venator-class Star Destroyers (secretly acting under Palpatine's orders) suddenly moves out of formation and uses its hyperdrive to perform a kamikaze attack on the Imperial refugee ship. The Jedi General commanding the Republic fleet is naturally horrified by what has just occurred and immediately sends over rescue ships to save the crew of the attacked Imperial ship. It's at this point that an entire Imperial armada shows up, sees one of their damaged civilian ships being surrounded and boarded by unknown aliens, and opens fire under the assumption that their refugee ship is being attacked by slave raiders.
• We Have Reserves:
  • Imperial Guardsmen are this, especially with the Death Korps of Krieg, who manage to maintain a continuous stream of troops that breaks through the Republic gun lines.
  • This attitude isn't just limited to the Imperial Guard. The Imperial Navy also shows signs of this. During the Battle over Raxus Secundus, Davik Thune sacrifices the loyal crew of an entire Cruiser just to kill the fake General Grievous. The Ironclad in Episode 39 uses its Wave-Motion Gun to take out dozens of Republic ships, destroying numerous Imperial ships in the crossfire.
• Weak Boss, Strong Underlings:
  • While not entirely helpless as evidenced by the fact that he survived close-range encounters with the Orks in the past, Captain Yorran is still a Muggle in a fancy uniform fighting against the Jedi, an order of psychic warrior monks with laser swords. It goes without saying that his chances of defeating a Jedi in combat are next to none. Fortunately for Yorran, he has a Space Marine Librarian and thousands of naval armsmen who are much stronger and more capable than him to keep the Jedi boarding his command ship busy.
  • When she first appears in Episode 27, Canoness Superior Ishtara Ordane is an extremely elderly woman who can barely stand and needs to be carried around everywhere on her Cool Chair. She is commanding the Sisters of Battle, an Amazon Brigade of elite warrior nuns wearing power armor who are shown giving even the Jedi a challenge. This gets subverted at the end of Episode 34, where Ishtara stops being idle, dons a Paragon Warsuit, and then spends the next two episodes tearing through the Clone Army and fighting Jedi Council members to a standstill.
  • Marshal Doven is your typical armchair general and is a normal human who has displayed zero fighting skills. He is commanding the army occupying Axum, which has some of the most elite regiments in the entire Imperial Guard including the Cadians, Kriegers, Colambians, and Karkosans as well as Badass Normal commissars like Terrandor and Leerose.
• Weak to Magic: The Republic Navy has precisely zero defenses against psychic attacks, something which the Imperial Navy is elated to discover and exploits to great effect during the Second Battle of Axum. During the massive space battle in Season 3, Imperial Astropaths mentally hijack the bodies of the bridge crew aboard the largest Republic dreadnaughts and then proceed to cause as much mayhem as they can by forcing their thralls to attack their fellow crew, damage ship controls, and kill themselves.
• Webcomic Time: As of Season 4, the Second Battle of Axum has been going on for between 8–12 hours according to Word of God. The battle first began in Episode 11, which was released on August 2020 and it has taken over three years in real-life just to get to Episode 45, at which point the battle is starting to wrap up though it's still ongoing for the most part.
• Wham Episode:
  • "I Deny You" features the death of Shaak Ti, who is killed in battle with Sister Rajulia. While not the first major named Jedi Master to die in the story, Shaak Ti was the first to have her death occur onscreen, setting the tone for the rest of the Axum arc. This episode is also significant for revealing that the God-Emperor is somehow able to extend his psychic influence into the Star Wars galaxy, as shown through the Divine Intervention he performs by cutting off Shaak Ti's connection to the Force prior to her death.
  • "The Herald" ends with the big reveal that Iskandar Khayon was being held prisoner aboard an Inquisitorial ship that was part of the Xek-Tek evacuation fleet when it jumped to the Star Wars galaxy/universe, and now is freed thanks to Anakin.
  • "Sins of the Arrogant" confirms that the Genestealers are now in the Star Wars galaxy, having stowed away aboard the Xek-Tek evacuation fleet with some even being on Axum while the Republic's counter-invasion is underway.
  • "The Dreamer Awakens" reveals that there are two General Grievouses — the original Legends version who was mothballed because the Sith didn't think they could control him and his inferior canon copy. The canon version is lured into a trap and killed off, forcing Dooku to revive the original, who immediately proves their decision correct.
  • "Mortal Fall Part 4" has Mace Windu fall to the Dark Side and lose his arm and eye in his duel with Samael and Hecate.
• Wham Line:
  • When the leader of the Imperial forces on Tatooine introduces himself to Jabba the Hutt in Episode 24. The Imperial's name? Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!
  • When the Traitor Astartes that Anakin frees in Episode 25 reveals his identity to the Jedi:
    Though I serve by my own choice, I have indeed chosen a new master, and a new way of being that is apart from the insanity of the Imperium. I serve the Black and Gold, and I am known by others of my branding as the Herald of the Crimson Path. I come before the Warmaster of the Empyrean in order to prepare the way for my Legion, the Black Legion. [...] I am Iskander Khayon.
  • When Anakin mentions to Iskander Khayon that he is The Chosen One and said prophecy, his response is to mutter various words to himself, but the only one we hear is Everchosen.
  • Tahr Whyler revealing his hidden power while facing down Quinlan and Aayla at the end of Episode 41 part 4.
    Tahr Whyler: All together now. Let me teach you and your order what it means to be...Alpha-Plus!
  • Inquisitor Tahr Whyler says another one in Episode 43 in response to Sidious killing Omni-Kraiden, revealing that he and Macharion were in cahoots the entire time.
    Tahr Whyler: That Tech-Priest belonged to me, and my Warmaster.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The story pretty much forgets about Anaxes after the first season with all of the focus shifting to its neighboring planet of Axum and the Jedi's efforts to liberate it from the Imperium's grasp. As of the third season, there is no mention whatsoever of what became of Anaxes after the Republic was forced to evacuate in response to the Imperials gaining control over Trench's planet-cracking bomb.
  • Word of God says that Anaxes was also occupied by the Imperium and that the Republic didn't stage a counter-invasion of that planet because they believed that the Imperials still had Trench's planet-cracking bomb armed and ready to blow it up. Apparently, some of Anaxes's civilians also staged a planet-wide rebellion upon receiving news of the Republic fighting on Axum, though they have been having far less success without the support of the Jedi and Clones.
• What the Hell Are You?:
  • The first time that Dr. Shina comes face-to-face with a Space Marine aboard the Honor Hound during the Republic's first contact battle with the Imperium, she uses a translator on her datapad to ask this of him. The Astartes replies that he is an angel of death and has come to render judgement.
  • Aayla Secura asks this of Inquisitor Tahr Whyler in Episode 16 after the latter subjects her to a Mind Rape.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Ahsoka expresses her outrage towards Mace Windu in Episode 10 when he reveals that he doesn't plan on liberating the Axum death camps until after the Imperial occupation force is defeated. She points out that putting off the death camps for later would mean that more of the people imprisoned there would die than if the Jedi were to free the camps first.
  • In Episode 28, Depa Billaba falls under the sway of the Dark Side from overusing Vaapad during her battle with Saphran and begins torturing the Librarian after he's seemingly already defeated. She is stopped by Jaro Tapal, who, along with Jocasta Nu, call her out for acting unheroically. Sadly, their words fail to get through to Depa and she winds up stabbing Jaro through the chest in the heat of the moment, distracting the Jedi long enough for Saphran to get his second wind.
  • In Episode 37, Mace orders Ahsoka to stop taking prisoners from the battlefield since they can't spare any more troops for guarding POWs. Ahsoka calls him out for implying that she should give no quarter, stating that it's not the Jedi way. Mace doesn't care and responds with a That's an Order!, causing a disillusioned Ahsoka to walk out on him.
• Willfully Weak: Per Word of God, the reason that the military technology in the Star Wars galaxy is inferior to that of the Imperium is due to the strict limitations on military technology and conduct created as part of the Ruusan Reformation, the great galactic peace treaty forged after the last Jedi/Sith War, creating an era of widespread peace that lasted for thousands of years. Ripper rifles, a weapon that hasn't been used since the last Sith War nearly 4,000 years ago, are shown to be capable of blowing holes clean through Power Armored Space Marines and Sisters of Battle. The author even notes in one of their post-episode commentaries that if the Republic starts to properly gear itself up for war, the Imperial Refugees will be in a lot of trouble, inviting readers to remember just how long it took Republic-turned-Empire workers to build the first and second Death Stars — whose primary laser cannon completely disintegrates planets, a level of power beyond even Exterminatus.
• The Worf Effect:
  • The first couple of episodes are spent showing off how dangerous Space Marines are to the Star Wars characters. A single one-armed Marine is able to easily kill a Jedi Knight and overpower a Padawan in Episode 5. Episode 8 has Anakin Skywalker opting to run for his life when faced with the prospect of fighting several Space Marines at once, and it took the combined effort of Anakin, Captain Rex, and the Bad Batch just to take down one Marine. Skip to Episode 24 where Count Dooku is introduced singlehandedly dispatching a whole Space Marine veteran squad with ease. For bonus points, the leader of that squad was the same guy who led the Space Marine fireteam which Anakin fled from in Episode 8.
  • The first half of Episode 16 is spent showing how much of a badass Action Girl Aayla Secura is as she carves through the Imperial Guard's forces, culminating in her killing a trio of Wyrdvane Psykers (who had just killed hundreds of Aayla's clone troopers) while hardly breaking a sweat. In the second half of that episode, we are introduced to Inquisitor Tahr Whyler, who establishes himself to be a formidable adversary by dueling Aayla to a standstill before swiftly incapacitating her via Mind Rape.
  • During the battle for Raxus Secundus, the imposter General Grievous gets outsmarted by the Crimson Razors, who succeed in killing him by luring him aboard a cruiser set to self-destruct, establishing the Razors as a greater threat. Qymaen jai Sheelal (the true Grievous) makes himself known to the Crimson Razors by luring the small fleet they sent to destroy Hypori into a trap of his own, sending their warships crashing down onto Hypori's surface where Sheelal proceeds to expertly hunt down the Razors who survived the crash like animals.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Space Marine Librarian Saphran considers Obi-Wan to be this as he is so far the only thing in the Star Wars galaxy to have caused him some difficulty.
  • Saphran ultimately considers the one who killed him Jocasta Nu to be this, despite the fact that she herself only fired the killing shot upon him and never directly engaged in combat with him. She is the one he ultimately said his last words to.
  • Whereas the true General Grievous has nothing but scorn for the Jedi and their "pseudo-morality", he is shown to respect the Space Marines as true warriors similar to himself.
  • In Episode 36, having previously held her own against three Jedi Masters at once, Canoness Superior Ishtara Ordane can sense that Mace Windu is much stronger than his peers and describes him as having the "frightful visage of a worthy adversary" before engaging him in combat.
  • Darth Sidious and Tahr Whyler appear to recognize each other as worthy opponents at the end of Episode 43. Sidious arrives in person wielding both his lightsabers to deal with Tahr despite taking a massive risk by exposing himself to hundreds of Jedi. Tahr likewise telekinetically summons his rapier to his hand and adopts a serious demeanor when facing off against Sidious whereas before he was toying with the Jedi by fighting barehanded.
• Would Hurt a Child: It's mentioned more than once that the Imperium didn't spare the lives of innocent children during their brutal occupation of Axum. Axumite children from non-human species were also placed into death camps and killed alongside their parents.
• Wrong Assumption:
  • The Republic thinks that the Imperials are returning Pius Dea, an ancient human supremacist cult that dominated the Republic for a thousand years but was eventually defeated by the Jedi. This is due to the Imperium's human supremacy and their fondness for cathedrals which the Pius Dea shared. Ahsoka begins to doubt the supposed connection after checking out Farnus's literary stuff, which has no reference to anything about the Pius Dea at all.
  • This is one of the Imperium's biggest problems in the story; they assume the concept of "Aliens Are Bastards who prey on Puny Earthlings" universally applies to the Galaxy Far, Far Away the same way it does in the Milky Way Galaxy from 40K, and thus conclude that the Star Wars aliens are Always Chaotic Evil monsters that they can kill en masse without any guilt or consequences. Of course, the problem is that the SW universe doesn't function with the same rules as 40K; if anything, the SW galaxy runs more on Humans Are the Real Monsters and Innocent Aliens. Because of this, the Imperials wind up massacring tons of innocent people who did nothing wrong — an act so heinous that it crosses the in-universe Moral Event Horizon and ensures the Imperials will be Hated by All in the SW galaxy.
  • Mistakenly believing the Clone Troopers' status as Slave Mooks is reflective of how the Republic treats humans as a whole, the Imperium comes to conclude that the Republic is a Vichy Earth-style dystopia oppressing humanity, and the Jedi are a dark cabal of Sorcerous Overlords controlling the Republic from the shadows through Mind Control (the Jedi Mind Trick). Of course, the Imperium has it totally wrong as the Republic is founded and dominated by humans, and the Jedi are more akin to a heroic order of Knight Errants.
• Wrong Genre Savvy:
  • It's explained in Episode 17's Q&A segment that this trope is partially why the Imperium is so overtly skeptical and hostile towards the Republic; from their perspective, the existence of a galaxy-wide peace government where humans and aliens co-exist in harmony sounds way Too Good to Be True. If this were a grimdark and dystopian setting where Aliens Are Bastards like the 40K universe, the Imperials would be Properly Paranoid for thinking this and the Republic would probably turn out to be a False Utopia where humans are an enslaved underclass. However, because the Star Wars universe more closely resembles an optimistic and romanticized Space Opera, the Imperials end up being totally wrong about the Republic (which is dominated and mostly controlled by humans) and their Improperly Paranoid absolute xenophobia drives them to commit heinous war crimes against countless Innocent Aliens, thereby needlessly making enemies out of the entire SW galaxy.
    AFanWithTooMuchTime: If you were in the Warhammer 40K galaxy and you jumped in after a huge time skip or something, right, and you found suddenly that the galaxy was ruled by a "republic" that had an army of slave human clones — like, if you saw that in Warhammer, it would be really grim and bad for the humans, and really terrible for everyone involved, and it would just be masking a horrible, horrible thing. And so, right now the Imperium is trying to unmask and understand the "horrible, horrible thing" that they have no doubt is there.
  • The Axumite Rebels believe that they are in the classical "La Résistance versus The Empire" story that Star Wars is known for. They learn the hard way that the Imperium is more than capable of putting bloody uprisings down, not to mention their leader is an Imperial spy.
• The X of Y:
  • Many of the episodes and specials in this series follow this naming convention.
    • "A Storm of Sabers"
    • "Soldiers of the Storm"
    • "The Will of the Force"
    • "The Cost of Honor"
    • "In Defiance of Fate"
    • "Sins of the Arrogant"
    • "The Jaws of Fate"
    • "Heralds of the End"
    • "The Death of Defiance"
    • "The Lords of Catastrophe"
  • The titles of each season also use his naming convention. The first season is titled Reign of Ignorance, the second season is titled Masters of Pain, the third season is titled Lords of the End, and the fourth season is titled Dawn of the Dominions.
  • This also seems to be a common naming convention with Imperial voidships. The Imperial Fleet has ships with names like the Price of Dignity, the Death of Defiance, the Hand of Catastrophe, the Heart of Judgement, and the Pillar of Termination.
  • The Mandator II-class Star Dreadnaughts used by the Republic Navy in Season 3 are named the Pride of the Core, the Pillar of Order, and the Bulwark of Duro.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: The Sith are this, according to an Extra Talk video by the author. Whenever the Sith draw power from The Dark Side, they unknowingly channel two fundamentally opposed aspects of the Force together: the natural Dark Side meant to balance out the Light and the chaotic Dark Side caused by imbalance in the Force. This constant clash of Order Versus Chaos inside them slowly erodes their bodies (explaining why some Sith who've delved in the Dark Side for too long get progressively uglier and more sinister-looking) and minds (the reason why The Dark Side Will Make You Forget). This gets deconstructed as it's also the source of all the Sith's shortcomings and flaws. This mental/spiritual instability is why so many Sith throughout both the Canon EU and Legends were prone to Stupid Evil behaviors like being inherently selfish, constantly backstabbing each other, acting evil for the sake of being evil, and being self-destructive in nature.
• You Keep Using That Word: Many of the Imperials frequently refer to the Jedi and the Republic (especially the human members) as "heretics" despite none of them ever having even followed the Imperial Cult to begin with. The actual correct word usage would be "heathens" as that is what people who are not a part of one's religion would be considered, whereas heretics are people who used to be part of a religion before turning against it.
• Zerg Rush:
  • What the Imperial Guard counter-offensive against the Republic defense lines at the Battle of the Bloody Bridges is. With the loss of their frontline command structure from assassinations and sniper fire, until the command structure has been reorganized, the rank and file of the Guardsmen are defaulting to human wave attacks against the Clones.
  • The Republic Navy is outclassed by the Imperial Navy in almost every way except when it comes to FTL travel. So far, the only way that the Republic Navy has effectively held their own against the Imperial Navy in a space battle is to outnumber them by so much that any losses the Imperials manage to inflict on the Republic fleet is like Shooting the Swarm.

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