The Confederacy of Independent Systems was created by Darth Sidious as part of his plan to gain control of the galaxy. Anyone who serves it is complicit in Sidious' plot—knowingly or not.
—Mace Windu
The Confederacy of Independent Systems, also known as the Confederacy, the Separatist Confederacy, the New Order, the Pro-secessionists, informally as the CIS, the Separatists or Seps for short, nicknamed the Sepies, and lesser known as the Separatist Alliance, was the government, and independence movement, led in public by Count Maxon Dooku, a.k.a. Darth Tyranus—and covertly controlled by the Sith Master, Darth Sidious—and formed by various planetary and sectorial establishments, as well as some mega-corporations.
After years of either being a part of, or working with, the Galactic Republic, numerous corporate entities and star systems stated their intent to take leave of the Republic, rejecting compliance with the immoderate taxation, as well as jobbery, venality, dishonesty, and corruption in the Galactic Senate during the Confederacy of Independent Systems Crisis, which was immediately prior to the Clone Wars—the war between the Republic and the Separatists.
After five years of fighting, the deaths of both Dooku, and the droid army commander, General Grievous, along with the capture of the members of the Separatist Council, put an end to the war, and the CIS was promptly dissolved; the rogue systems and fractured businesses that were the bulk of the Confederacy's membership body either rejoined the ranks of the Republic, the main case of the former, or were utterly subsumed, the likely fate of the latter.
Shortly following the war, ex-Separatist member worlds would work hard to re-claim their former status in the Republic, after it was revealed that the Order of the Sith Lords had surreptitiously ruled the CIS throughout all of its existence, in order to take dominion over the galaxy.
History[]
The Rise of the Separatist Movement[]
In the decades before the Clone Wars, the Galactic Rpeublic was seen by many as a decaying and unsuccessful government, plagued by corruption, and idiotic bureaucracy that silenced the voices of many constituents represented in the Galactic Senate. Secession grew during the period following the Invasion of Naboo, and the commerce guilds and trading corporations became dissatisfied with the Republic after a law was passed to place taxation on all trade routes to outlying star systems.
Into this critical situation entered Count Maxon Dooku, a former Jedi Master who had become disillusioned with the Republic, and the Jedi Order, that he once was part of, that served it. This charismatic figure stirred up anti-Republic sentiments on many worlds, paving the way for a rebellion against the government.
A loose affiliation of separatists was formed, with Dooku at their head, pushing for a new government to take the place of the stagnant Republic. Eventually, this Separatist movement established itself as the Confederacy of Independent Systems, a body formally opposed to the Galactic Republic. The members of the CIS included the Corporate Alliance, the Trade Federation, the Commerce Guild, the InterGalactic Banking Clan and the Techno Union.
Although the Republic recognized that many of its member worlds were in rebellion, it refused to officially acknowledge the CIS as their common government, deeming that doing so would legitimize it's existence.