Ah... Saleucami
Ordinary generals fought local battles: deploying troops, following procedures, fighting as they were supposed to. Excellent generals fought with strategy that encompassed the whole battlefield: meeting the enemy head-on with conventional forces and winning through surprise, always maintaining superior strength to strike at the enemy's weak points. But... true legendary commanders fought human nature! They did not rely on stratagems. What they targeted was human nature itself! They let the enemy's human nature make the choice, let human nature make the choice they wanted... That was how they commanded the enemy's troops!
General Grievous stood before the viewport, his face reflected in the reinforced glass. A Caladanian-style metal mask covered his face, beneath which burned a pair of beastlike vertical pupils filled with vengeance and hatred! Two war-paint markings ran beneath his eyes, their dark red rust stains like congealed tears of blood. This was the mask he had always worn, from the days of the Clone Wars until now. Even when he had been remade into a Purifier, he had demanded that this mask be repaired and placed back on his face.
He could not forget that slaughter, that hatred.
When the Confederacy of Independent Systems had just been founded, before the conspiracies hidden behind the scenes had emerged, nearly every member planet, including Grievous himself, had been full of hope for this alliance.
Everyone had hoped to unite against the exploitation of the powerful noble families of the Core Worlds, to become independent and take control of their own destiny.
Back then, everyone had fought for their ideals. Those backward planets had tightened their belts and squeezed out every last bit of funding to hand over to the Mega-corporations of the Trade Federation, building massive droid armies to resist the Galactic Republic's suppression.
And Grievous himself