501st Legion
The 501st Legion was a legion of Clone troopers who fought the Confederate States of America during the Clone Wars. They became known and feared throughout the Galaxy for their many victories against the droid armies of the Confederacy. When the Empire was created and the Clones ceased to be "good guys", they became Darth Vaders personal legion of stormtroopers, invariably reducing their effectiveness. They assisted Darth Vader with such pleasant escapades as hunting down the Rebels, interrogating male prisoners, sampling the charms of female prisoners, killing people, embroidering, destroying planets, and otherwise generally engaging in a manners becoming representatives of the New Order. During the Galactic Civil War, despite their sterling combat qualities and innate tactical skills, they were constantly bested by the Rebels, because <sarcasm> in spite of ample historical evidence to the contrary a single complex situation in Vietnam, no more than an fortunate (for Vietnamese) aberration in the long history of brutally suppressed rebellions (autocratic Czarist Russia, for example, survived and crushed countless revolts, rebellions, and guerrilla bands for centuries) proved to the American popular culture, which is of course the sole world authority on military stratagem, that countless mechanized corps and innumerable divisions of modern, professional soldiers are incapable of eradicating guerrilla resistances <end of sarcasm>. But I digress. Anyway, the once glorious 501st Legion sank into disrepute and was, in the end, slaughtered by a few scores of cute little bears on Endor.
History
Creation
The 501st Legion was created on Kamino by the Kaminoans, it was part of the massive cloning process that started when Dooku told the Kaminoans to start making a clone army for the Galactic Republic. The Kaminoans realized it would be "most excellent" and "bodacious" to create a special elite legion that was better than all the other legions, so they began a long and troubling program under the supervision of seven cantankerous lecturers from the University of Kamino's Department of Microbiology and Culinary Arts. Five hundred attempts were made, each displaying progress until the 501st attempt proved ultimately successful, which is also where the legion's name came from. Success on this occasion derived from isolating Jango Fett's genetic inheritance from Cassus Fett and splicing it with DNA segments from Canderous Ordo and all Mandalores up to that date, save Ung Kusp (because he was named Ung Kusp) and Mandalore the Unintelligible for obvious reasons.
The training program of the 501st was ten times more difficult and therefore better then that of the rest of the army, instilling a well-deserved reputation for superiority among the troopers in the legion and leading them to conclude they were invincible and the best damn chefs their side of the Unknown Regions. To be honest, they truly were... until their devolution into stormtroopers.
The Clone Wars
Battle of Geonosis
When the Jedi found out that Dooku was planning to use his mighty Droid Army to attack the Republic, they sent 200 Jedi Knights, all disposable rejects, to Geonosis to distract Dooku while Master Yoda went to Kamino to see if this Clone Army was able to help them. Yoda immediately noticed the 501st legion was the best, a fact employed during the war when, to raise funds, the Galactic Senate published a video game based on their exploits, but the Kaminoans insisted that he inspected the other five hundred legions too, just to make sure he made the right choice. The Kaminoans were very helpful, explaining in detail every aspect of the lives of the clone troopers, and eventually Yoda concluded he was right about the 501st legion and took them and the other legions to Geonosis. It is frequently speculated however that Yoda's poor hearing failed to register anything the Kaminoans were saying about how at a given order the clones would slaughter all Jedi. To be fair, Kaminoans were quite tall and Yoda was quite small, meaning everything they told him went over his head. (Get it? Over his head?) Unfortunately for 180 of the embattled Jedi, but in keeping with dramatic timing, the Clone Army was delayed in its arrival on Geonosis owing to paperwork required because the acquisition of the clones was registered in Sifo-Dyas name, not Yoda's. The 180 Jedi died, leaving, to the amazement of all but those educated in basic arithmetic, twenty survivors surrounded by the Droid Army, which Wal-Mart had provided at excellent rollback prices. Battle ensued, and became a Republic victory about fifteen minutes later by means of Napoleonic era tactics. Historians debate the particulars, but presume this was because American audiences' attention spans are negligible and if it were longer, everyone would have left.
The War begins
After the victory on Geonosis, the 501st became Yoda's favorite legion, especially because most of the other legions didn't even know what a blaster looked like. Many Jedi and clone troopers got killed in the first few months of the war, but whenever the 501st arrived on a planet the Separatists surrendered within minutes. The legion, being bored most of the time, found many fun ways to celebrate their victory after each battle. Their best victory celebration was after the battle on an unknown planet, Jedi General Aayla Secura rewarded every trooper in the Legion with a special "Massage". A few months later after winning another battle, Yaddle the Destroyer offered the legion the same reward, but they politely refused.
The War continues
As the war continued, the Legion was sent to many different planets. With every battle the Legion got more heroic, so much that during one battle the battle droids blew them selves up when they heard that the 501st had just arrived on the planet. The other clone troopers and the rest of the galaxy worshiped the heroes of the 501st legion, their name was known to everyone. Soon the legion became a symbol of hope for those oppressed by the Separatists. During the Battle of Nabooboo the 501st came up with a brilliant plan to capture an enemy battle ship and ramming it in to the Weapon of planet destruction built by the separatists to destroy the planet Nabooboo, this caused the weapon to explode and prevented the destruction of the planet.
Battle of Jabiim
The 501st didn't really do anything on Jabiim, at least not during the first months of the battle. At the start of the battle, the 501st was busy doing other things so their commander decided to let another Clone legion take their place. Which legion this was is unknown, we do know that most of the clones in this legion either died during the battle or went crazy and were never heard from again (Yes, we know they most likely killed them selves, but that's speculation and we don't do that... right?). Anyway, things weren't going very good on the planet and Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi even got kidnapped by the separatists and the Republic thought he was dead. When the 501st learned that their "brothers" weren't doing very well and that Jedi General Obi-Wan Kenobi might have been killed, they were very pissed, because everyone (except for the Jedi) knew that the 501st were supposed to kill Kenobi. The Legion went, kicked the separatists off the planet, killed any scared clones on the planet and raped any woman they could find. They also rescued Kenobi from the separatists, something which they later regretted because by doing this they also saved Anakin Skywalker from falling to the Dark Side because he "couldn't live without" his Master.
Order 66
- "Keep it down, this is a library."
- ―Jocasta Nu to Darth Vader during Operation Knightfall.[src]
At the end of the Clone Wars, The Republic was transformed into the Galactic Empire by Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader, who was previously known as Anakin Skywalker. Lord Vader chose the 501st to assist him during Operation Knightfall, the attack on the Jedi Temple. Normally a clone trooper wouldn't even have a chance at killing a Jedi, but because all the Jedi were reading books in the Temples library and because there were just so many clone troopers in the 501st legion, this was an easy mission. Thousands of Jedi and many more clones got killed during the short battle in the Temple.
The Empire
Early years
After the formation of the Empire, the 501st legion was feared throughout the Galaxy. Whenever a planet didn't want to join the Empire, the legion was sent to the planet to "aggressively negotiate" with said planets leaders. These aggressive negotiations usually ended with the death of the planets leadership and many more Innocent people trouble makers. One of these planets was Nabooboo, who were hiding escaped Jedi, at this point the Legion hated themselves for saving the planet during the war. It looked like the planet would be easily conquered, until the frightened Jedi decided to join the battle. A few minutes and dozens of dead clone troopers later, Darth Vader arrived on the planet and killed the Jedi. With the Jedi dead, the battle was easily won. The first few years of the Empire were filled with many more victories for the 501st legion, they became legendary. They eventually became known as the Fist of Lord Vader that would be rammed up any planets ass that wouldn't join the Empire willingly.
Meeting "the Rebels"
Eventually all the enemies of the Empire gathered and joined forces and decided to call themselves the Rebel Alliance. At first the 501st was very confident that they could defeat these rebels, the only thing they really had a problem with were Jedi, and the Rebels had none. The first real battle between the Rebels and the Empire took place in space, over Yavin. Half of the 501st legion was on the Death Star, which was a big planet destroying space station. There was no way the Rebels could defeat the Death Star, I mean... a huge space station that had the power to destroy an entire planet, something like that just has to be invincible... unless some stupid designer forgot to tell the Empire about this small hole which lead to a shaft, which lead to the space stations main reactor... which is in fact exactly what happened... when the Death Star was destroyed half of the 501st legion died too. When the other half of the legion arrived on the planet the Rebels had already left.
The battle of Hoth
A few years after the battle of Yavin, Lord Vader found the Rebels and sent the surviving half of the 501st legion to attack them. The Rebel base was defended by the best Rebels soldiers, who were using the latest out dated weaponry. The 501st used the best weapons and vehicles in the Imperial army, they had huge walker things, small walker things and lots of blasters. Before the battle started everyone, including the Rebels, knew the Empire was going to win the battle. The only thing that could stop the 501st legion from killing all Rebels on the planet was if the Rebels used half of their troops to defend the base while the other half escaped... which was in fact exactly what the Rebels did... The Rebels that defended the base killed many stormtroopers, reducing the number of troops in the 501st even further. After the battle Lord Vader was furious, he could not believe that his best legion had let half of the Rebels escape. But eventually, after counting the number of dead Rebels, Lord Vader did believe that his best legion had also become his most stupid legion. He punished the 501st by taking away some of their Twi'lek dancers.
The battle of Endor
At the battle of Endor the 501st got another chance to defeat the Rebels, but again they failed. The only thing the 501st had to do was capture or kill a dozen Rebel commandos, and make sure the cute little bears didn't get in the way. The 501st did manage to capture all of the Rebels on the planet, but as soon as the cute little bears jumped out of the trees the legion got scared and let the Rebels escape... after a long battle all of the stormtroopers in the 501st legion were dead... they actually allowed a dozen stupid rebels and a few hundred cute little bears kill them... The Rebels then destroyed the shield generator, which meant the second Death Star was now vulnerable and also got destroyed. So, the 501st legion actually caused the end of the Empire, but to be fair this wasn't their fault alone because Palpatine and Vader did keep them in continuous service since the Clone Wars. Twenty-five or so years of contiguous combat deployment is hard on one's joints after all, and all those explosions doubtless rendered them rather deaf. The moral of their saga is to never entrust vital missions to arthritic old men. You hear that, New Republic/Galactic Alliance? Sooner or later old man Solo's back is going to give out during a firefight and then what will happen? That's right, you'll be slaughtered by a horde of mindless space slugs or some other meaningless force that would otherwise be easily dispatched.
Behind the scenes
The 501st legion is also a real world organization, which is also named the 501st legion. According to fanboys the real world 501st legion is the coolest thing ever, they have all these cool costumes, go to all the conventions and most of them don't have girlfriends. The best part about the real 501st legion is that they're actually successful against the Rebels... unlike the other 501st legion... The fact that they also have some Slave Leia costumes and a few fangirls who wear them is also a reason why fanboys find them cool.
