First introduced in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, the droid army has become an important part of the galaxy’s history, although their fate is never truly shown at the end of the Clone Wars in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. In fact, the third prequel movie isn’t the only Star Wars project that’s shied away from showing what happened to the battle droids. Both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: The Bad Batch neglect covering this topic in great detail as well, although we have learned more over the years.

Between Star Wars’ TV shows, books, comics, and more, information about the fate of the droid army has increased more and more. After largely glazing over the fate of the droids initially, the aforementioned animated The Bad Batch series also provides some details as to what happened to some of these battle droids after the Clone Wars. From mᴀss shutdowns to surprising criminal activity, here’s what happened to the Confederacy of Independent Systems’ droid army after the Clone Wars ended.

The Majority Of The Droid Army Was Shut Down

They Were Given An Order To Do So

The biggest reason why Star Wars is so quiet about the fate of the droid army in the Star Wars movies and TV shows is because of the simple fact and ᴀssumption that most of the droid army was simply shut down when the Clone Wars ended. This was first modeled in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, when the Trade Federation’s droid army was shut down after their command ship was destroyed by Anakin Skywalker. After the Separatists’ leadership collapsed at the end of the Clone Wars, history repeated itself.

This is further evidenced by battle droids we have seen recently in live-action, most notably in Skeleton Crew. When powered up briefly, a B-1 battle droid says to Jod Na Nawood, “Did we win?” This being the first thing it says after waking up essentially proves that it was shut down before it could even learn about the outcome of the Clone Wars, as was the case for most of the droid army. Of course, this wasn’t the only fate battle droids had, as many others have been spotted doing other things after the conclusion of the galactic conflict.

Some Droids Still Survived & Continued Helping Separatists

They Operated Under Local Command Or Their Own

Whether they were manually turned back on after the shutdown or they somehow survived, there were plenty of battle droids who managed to continue helping any lingering Separatists during the Galactic Empire’s rise to power. This was seen most prominently in The Bad Batch, where a tactical droid and several other types of battle droids were working to protect the Separatist world of Desix under Governor Tawni Ames’ command. While most of her forces were ultimately thwarted by Crosshair, Commander Cody, and their fellow troops, they still held out for quite a while prior to this siege.

This wasn’t likely an isolated case. While we haven’t seen much more of this happening around the galaxy, we do know that some battle droids still managed to survive and desired to fight for the Separatist cause. As shown in Star Wars Rebels, some tactical droids, such as one found by Captain Rex and the Spectre rebel cell on Agamar, received the order to shut down and prevented it from happening, thinking that it was a trick of sorts. Those droids then survived and continued fighting, completely unaware that the war had actually ended.

Other Battle Droids Were Repurposed (& Reorganized)

There Were Still Many Battle Droids Across The Galaxy

For the most part, though, most battle droids post-shutdown were repurposed – or they completely reorganized themselves. The Mandalorian season 3 shows battle droids being used on the opulent world of Plazir-15, fulfilling most of the work humans or other species would have been doing themselves and thus giving people the freedom to participate in recreational activities. The droids were, of course, programmed not to be hostile anymore, aside from an incident that was investigated and solved by Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze.

Other battle droids, however, maintained their awareness to almost a frightening degree, and some united to create the crime group known as the Droid Gotra. These were battle droids who were retaliating against the Galactic Empire for abandoning them after the war, using rather violent means to get their point across. They advocated for droid rights that they would, unfortunately, not receive, but they still tried. This group truly gives battle droids quite a legacy in the Star Wars galaxy, despite the fact they weren’t completely successful.