"We wrote an extraordinary history, yet the days of peace and tranquility were scarcely recorded." —Professor Chi Jianjun, The Founder of the Fourth Empire: Biography of Chi Jianjun, final page.
July 6, 20 BBY. Two-thirds of the year had already passed (a year in the Star Wars universe had ten months, with thirty-five days per month—emphasizing this once again), yet the Milky Way Galaxy was still engulfed in war.
The Galactic Republic gradually began emerging from the shadow of exterminating the Jedi Order. In truth, it had no choice but to do so. The Jedi Order had now become a forbidden term within the Republic; people could not even discuss it.
Coupled with the relentless propaganda of the Republic's powerful publicity apparatus, the Jedi Order had been portrayed as an evil organization that deliberately provoked war, launched massacres everywhere, controlled the core of Republic power, and had even attempted to assassinate Chancellor Palpatine for the sake of its own authority.
In truth, the people of the galaxy rarely saw Jedi in their daily lives and could only hear legends about them. Moreover, the Jedi were usually quite discreet in their actions. For instance, when arresting spice dealers, they would often disarm them and let them turn themselves in. Driven by the Force, the mental defenses of those disarmed spice dealers could easily be breached by the Force, causing them to unconsciously follow the Jedi's instructions.
As a result, even fewer people had actually seen Jedi.
After the war broke out, Sheev Palpatine had already prepared an entire set of plans. In his propaganda, Jedi were constantly linked to war—news stories about how some planet had been conquered under the leadership of some Jedi Master, how many Separatist rebels had been killed, and so on.
With enough such news, people's impression