After killing the prisoner and returning the plans, the 501st were informed that the prisoners had taken over the the station's fire control room and were ordered to take it back before the prisoners could damage the main cannon. Upon the strike team's return with the CIS battle plans, the 501st set a course to enter the planets atmosphere. With the Clone Commander freed from Order 66, Tano, the droids, and him made their way to the hangar to look for an escape ship, but the Star Destroyer was pulled out of hyperspace when Maul destroyed the hyperdrive, leading to the warship being caught in a moon's gravitational pull. After Skywalker and Tano located and rescued Rotta from the depths of the castle, the Confederate forces—under the command of Dark Acolyte Asajj Ventress—launched a counterattack on the Teth monastery. Because of this, the 501st Legion proudly refers to themselves as the "Bad Guys Doing Good." While the operation was still being carried out, Appo was injured by the Padawan Zett Jukassa, who attacked a group of clones, including Appo, as they barred Senator Bail Prestor Organa from entering. The Legion later commandeered an All Terrain Tactical Enforcer to destroy the incoming OG-9 homing spider droids who were closing in on the crash site. Vader and the 501st eventually killed this Jedi and retrieved the holocron which was soon handed off to a LAAT/I which took off immediately once it had the second holocron. [43] Appo and his men later helped Vader defeat several Jedi at the Kessel conclave,[46] and would follow Vader to Murkhana. [27], The legion also participated in "mopping up" the remaining droid forces on the planet Ryloth shortly after the world's liberation from the Confederacy, helping Skywalker and Tano to defeat the droids based out of the ruined city of Resdin. As the battle was winding down, a group of clones from the 501st was discreetly transferred back to Coruscant, in preparation for Order 66—a top-secret order given by Chancellor Palpatine which stated that the Jedi had rebelled against the Republic, and needed to be eliminated. The 501st then stormed the ship, and stunned Organa, but failed to locate the plans, as an escape pod containing them had been jettisoned. [11] Eventually, Rex and a 501st contingent were sent to reconnoiter Geonosis, where evidence of Separatist droid foundries had been discovered. [26] Torrent Company itself continued to endure losses even after the JanFathal mission. This article or section needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of article quality. A decade after Johnson and Crews founded the Legion, on January 1, 2007, two hundred members of the Legion marched in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California, with George Lucas himself as the grand marshal. Not long afterward, the 501st fought in the Battle of Coruscant in an effort to rescue the kidnapped Chancellor Palpatine from the Confederacy. With Skywalker's help, the 501st quickly earned a reputation for incredible victories, often snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Now serving the Empire, the members of the 501st took the designation stormtrooper, as well as new armor, weapons, and ships. [24] Despite a millennium of peace, the First Battle of Geonosis had been the first battle of the Clone Wars. This tradition originates from a line in Star Wars, "TK-421, why aren't you at your post?". While many of the higher ups found the situation to be disastrous, the 501st saw it as good opportunity to get back in the fight and were soon deployed to quell the riot. To join the Legion, clones had to gain experience in battles and show initiative and leadership. [57], The Chiss also took the step of incorporating non-Humans into the 501st, something that would have been considered unthinkable under Palpatine.