State of the Galaxy 14:8 GrS [NON-SENSITIVE]

The Clone Wars. While the 'Clone Wars' remains the most well-known and widely used appellation for the series of conflicts that gripped the galaxy in the second decade post-Great ReSynchronization, the matter remains that it is still one of the most misleading and disingenuous names of the period yet conceived. In fact, the entirety of this galaxy-spanning conflict only became known as the Clone Wars because of the highly sensationalized opening battle of the war, the 1st Battle of Geonosis, where the eponymous Clone Army of the Republic made their thundering debut onto the galactic stage.

The Galactic Civil War. The Separatist Crisis, the Separatist Uprising. The Republic-Confederacy War, the Core-Rim War. The Great Patriotic War, the Confederate War of Independence. The Rimward War, the Liberation of the Rim. The War for the Outer Rim. If one looked into the archives of every planet and every system in the galaxy, one would realize that every participant and warring party had their own local names for the conflict. This was the true nature of the Clone Wars; the first galaxy-wide conflict in a thousand years, this tumultuous yet short era of history was as opaque as it was multifaceted. Every party, apparently, was fighting for their own reasons.

Shifting allegiances, ideologies, and the natural ebb and flow of conflict meant that the ideologies that set the galaxy ablaze also drifted with as well, as the needs of the warring parties adapted to the rapidly evolving galactic situation, thus, the names of the conflict evolved with them. The 'Clone Wars' may have been accurate as a label in the weeks following Geonosis, but soon the defining features of the conflict expanded far past that limiting moniker, burgeoning into the great host of titles we see today. Nations battled nations, systems against systems, planets against planets, cities against cities, brothers against brothers. Therefore, it is my belief that there has been no single name ever proposed that could fully encapsulate what the 'Clone Wars' were, much less the 'Clone Wars' itself.

And yet, if one made an attempt to pinpoint the exact moment of time where all of these names would have been accurate, from one perspective or another, I suggest it would be in the eighth month of the fourteenth year post-Great ReSynchonization. At that moment, following the great lull succeeding the GAR's Operation Trident, was what I believe to be the height of the conflict. It was during the CAF's Operation Storm-Door, in which both the Galactic Republic and Confederacy of Independent Systems invested the full military and economic might of their respective states in the conflict, both sides believing the end was drawing near and hoping for a decisive victory.

At that moment, there was not a single region of the galaxy not inflamed by the war. To the north, the New Territories are under siege by the GAR; in the east the CAF launches a brutal counterattack to recapture their lost territories; in the south Eriadu stands a tomb, the entire Rimma Trade Route engulfed in a bloody crusade against the Core Worlds. At this point, indiscriminate bombardment had become a legitimate and expected siege tactic for all sides, and entire worlds were unhesitatingly put to the torch as punishment for their continued stubbornness. After all, all sides wholeheartedly believed their final victory was only one last push away, so why suffer the grinding of planetary warfare when expediency was at a cannon-bore's reach?

There is no single name or title that could ever capture the sheer scale of the galaxy's first true war in a thousand years. But we could still try, using statistics. After all, it was believed the end was near, and both the Republic and Confederacy had thrown their full weight into the ring. A massive galaxy-wide mobilization had seen every available fighting man they could reasonably muster thrown onto the front lines; from planetary militias, to system defense forces, to whole national armies.

However, due to the opaque and multifaceted nature of the war, the accurate number of fighting men will likely never be found. A fitting example of this dilemma could be found in Atraken; entire planets warred against themselves and burnt out in the shadow of obscurity, billions of unrecorded lives snuffed out without anyone to remember their names. The true number of combatants would never be found, as would the true number of deaths.

But we can still put forward our best educated guess.

In 14:8 GrS, it is estimated that the Galactic Republic had mobilized a rounded figure of around five-point-eight quadrillion servicemen and women into the Grand Army of the Republic, supplemented by an additional one-hundred sixty trillion cloned soldiers from various contracted manufacturers such as Kamino, Arkania, Khomm, Lur, Columus, and more.

The exact ratio between frontline combatants and rear support personnel - or tooth-to-tail ratio - is difficult to estimate, by virtue of the mobilized war economy clouding the division between military and civilian services. As it goes, the chartered ship delivering luxury goods to Chandrila could also be a legitimate military contractor transporting heavy artillery to Mimban at the same time. Thanks to well-maintained service records, however, we can place the number of actual frontline combatants around one-point-two quadrillion soldiers, excluding clones.

On the other side, the Confederacy of Independent Systems is estimated to have mobilized around two-point-nine quadrillion servicemen and women into the Confederate Armed Forces by 14:8 GrS, following a spike in enlistments post-Militia Act. If the tooth-to-tail ratio of the GAR was clouded, then that of the CAF was outright impenetrable due in large part to the decentralized nature of the state, and grey-area operations of corporate interests. Our best guess puts the number of actual CAF frontline combatants at around nine-hundred trillion soldiers, excluding droids. The heavy automation of support duties, however, obscure the numbers even further.

This is, however, excluding the numbers fielded by the Separatist Droid Army, and for good reason. It is completely unknown how many battle droids were fielded in the Droid Army, whether in combatant or support roles, due to the sheer amount and variety of official and unofficial factories, many of which are still yet to be discovered. Propaganda sources outrageously claim numbers in the quintillions, but these values are considered groundless and exaggerated by virtually all respected military historians. The true number has been estimated to be around two to five quadrillion battle droids, with the highest estimates around ten quadrillion.

At this single snapshot in time, there were more men and women mobilized concurrently than any other in the history of the galaxy, even until the present day...

- Excerpt from Historia Galactica Vol.71 by Wottlet Scarsir

Footnotes:

1 Trillion: 1,000,000,000,000
1 Quadrillion: 1,000,000,000,000,000