The Clone Wars did not simply end with Order 66, or because Palpatine on Coruscant willed the Republic to be transformed into the Galactic Empire.
There still exist many who do not bow before their oppressors. In the Outer Rim, the Confederation of Independent Systems still exists - in name, just barely, after decades of bitter struggle that have seem them fight the Republic and the Empire across the entire galaxy. No matter their attempts, the Empire has learned the hard way that men may die, its leaders may come and go, but its ideals persist. Old leaders, finding themselves betrayed and alone in the corners of the galaxy, have fought the Long War, battle after battle, until they have bled the Empire white in its foolhardy efforts to crush the CIS once and for all.
Terrible prices had to be paid, but in every centimeter the Rebel Alliance has ground the Empire's so-grandiosely proclaimed "Pacification of the Outer Rim" to a crushing standstill. Upon the Outer Rim planet of Telos IV, you and your allies in the Grand Alliance have just won an exhausting victory at great expense. It is the start of something much greater, it seems, as the Empire begins its bruised and bloodied retreat to re-consolidate their strength. They will return, no doubt in greater numbers. But in this moment, there is a rare opportunity.
Yet the Grand Alliance is in a fragile state, and the Confederacy and the Empire alike seem to be entering a deep, deep winter. But perhaps with the right moves, the right initiatives taken, the right moments seized - perhaps Spring will come soon.
Guidelines:
This RP takes place in a slightly different timeline, in which the CIS is still holding on - just barely - after the events of Episode III, and you play as some of its remnants still fighting back. While the CIS is severely weakened, it still retains the backing of the Intergalactic Banking Clan and some of its leadership have fled to the Outer Rim, where they plan to consolidate their power and stabilize the Confederacy as a viable alternative against the Empire.
The characters are intended to be part of the Grand Alliance: A large and loose coalition of CIS loyalists, mercenaries, smugglers, and Republic restorationists, united in their opposition to the Empire, and divided in everything else. In hopes of turning the effort around, the leadership in question knows that something has to give, some changes need be made. And when they do, the Grand Alliance shall be strengthened: Trade routes must be controlled, new alliances signed, new armies raised. But in the meantime, the Alliance remains fragmented and internally divided, besieged from without by the constant threat of the Empire, and beset from within by internal divisions about the goal of their war and the best way to proceed.
The Grand Alliance Against the Galactic Empire:
Best thought of as something of a successor movement to the earlier Confederacy of Independent States, the Trade Federation, and the Techno Union, the Grand Alliance is the name of an incredibly broad association of loosely-affiliated anti-Imperial governments and guerillas throughout the known galaxy. In spite of their best efforts, at the end of the Clone Wars the Confederacy of Independent States had yet to admit defeat, nor suffer an unconditional surrender unto the Republic or the Empire. Even with the death of much of its leadership at the hands of the Empire in the 1st year of the Imperial Calendar (19 BBY), the scattered and diffuse nature of the CIS gave it the resilience of moss: Never blooming, and never dying. In the wake of Imperial re-organization, various pirates, mercenaries, and discontented junior Republics have pledged their loyalty to one another, though in practice it is rife with infighting and bitter ideological, political, and practical divisions. An overwhelming majority of Alliance-held space is firmly in the Outer Rim territories, divided neatly in half by Hutt Space. The CIS - and the Grand Alliance with it - used to control a considerable number of Mid Rim worlds, but they have been pushed back considerably by the Galactic Empire in the years after in small, but fierce campaigns. Notable Mid Rim strongholds still exist, such as Onderon.
The Grand Alliance in the 6th year of the Imperial Calendar (14 BBY) is a truly desperate coalition, born of odd war-born wedlock and little besides a shared sense of stubbornness. It is a motley crew of the angry and the desperate: An agonizing state which simply refuses to die, fueled by hate towards the Empire and the Republic which allowed its rise. They are held together by the tiny, ever-snapping thread by the conviction that, one day, it will be their blood shed upon their soil - that, one day, they will make their triumphant march upon Coruscant as heroes, even if they have to bind the Outer Rim by ball and chain, shatter the Empire's bases planet by planet, inch by inch, and kill every single sycophant and traitor who dares to stand before them.
The Main Factions of the Grand Alliance:
The Fate of the Jedi:
Some 5 years after the proclamation of the Galactic Empire, persecutions have all but decimated the old Jedi Order. Constant hunts by the Imperial Inquisition have carved bloody swathes with what few Jedi Knights remained after Order 66. By that year's end, some thought that as few as a hundred Jedi remained, and likewise there are incredibly few Jedi who have received any formal training from Coruscant left. Most even doubt their existence. There are whispers of a scant few Jedi who have joined the Grand Alliance, allying with the Reformists and hoping to restore the Republic - and with it the Jedi Order. Other force-sensitives have risen in the time between the fall of the Order and the present day, where their doctrine and expertise is largely developed from personal experience and whatever scarce tutelage they can scrounge, but even they pale in comparison to a Jedi or Sith with proper training.
Still, if there still exist any who would call themselves a Jedi, it is a title reserved only between those they share extreme trust with: Both their lives depend on that secrecy more often than not. Otherwise, any Jedi who still lives keeps their head very low down.
Character Sheet:
