Was the Battle of Coruscant meant to be the last battle of the Clone Wars?

Question

The Battle of Coruscant wasn't the last battle of the Clone Wars, but multiple factors indicate to me that it was meant to be.

• The two main leaders of the Separatist army, Count Dooku and General Grievous, were on the same ship at the same time, leaving ample opportunity to cripple the military in one fell swoop
• Kidnapping Chancellor Palpatine directly from the galaxy's capital is a fairly drastic decision that hadn't really been attempted before
• The Jedi were growing wary of Palpatine's power, given how he had remained in office long past his term limit, so such a drastic decision may have been necessary for him to maintain control

At the tail end of the battle, Dooku was killed and Grievous may have been too if he hadn't escaped. Is there any concrete evidence in canon or Legends that Palpatine meant for the Battle of Coruscant to be the Clone Wars' final battle?

Answer 1

Difficult to prove a negative, nonetheless; no there's no indication of that in any canon source I'm aware of. Legends is a bit more tricky since it was hardly consistent on basically any point, so it's not impossible that there's some passing mention in some comic, short story, video game, RPG sourcebook infobox, or reference book call-out that supports this idea . . . but it's equally likely that there's a dozen more that directly contradict it. That stuff is non-canon for a reason.

Honestly, I'd say that the premise that the battle over Coruscant was envisioned by Palpatine as the "last battle" is faulty on the very face of it. The Outer Rim sieges were still very much in progress at that time, so even if Grievous had been eliminated then; those would, and indeed did continue until Vader had the droid army shut itself down AND after eliminating the Separatist leadership (or rather the shadowy cabal of trader barons that were actually in charge behind the scenes, not the representative political leadership on Raxis that only thought they were in charge.)

Remember that the Clone War was an orchestrated war. Sidious was playing both sides from start the finish. So as was illustrated in the 'Rebels' episode 'The Last Battle', neither the Separatists nor the Republic "won" the Clone Wars, they just prepared the way for the Empire to arise from within.

As for the Battle of Coruscant's role in Palpatine's endgame; given that it involved his own "kidnapping", it's pretty obvious that the whole purpose wasn't any kind of military objective. It was to have Anakin specifically be the one to eliminate Dooku in Palpatine's presence, and set the stage for his fall to the dark side. It's the same basic setup he later used over Endor with Vader & Luke. Indeed, at that very moment Maul was attempting (and failing) at a similar gambit on Mandalore, in direct opposition to what Sidious was up to. So that battle certainly wasn't intended to cripple the Separatists and end the war, because Sidious could do that any time he wished. Both armies were literally at his command. The war was never going to end with a battle, but with an order.