This is my understanding.........the Republic is made up of Padme, ..etc. The Republic thinks they are fighting separatists (people who were working on behalf of the trade federation). But they are actually fighting those who want to build an Empre...Palpatine.

General Grievous is a separtists.

Do I understand this correctly?

The Separatists are simply a group of worlds that no longer want to be under the rule of the Republic. Think of it in civil war terms -- they want their own rules, governance, etc.

Palpatine is playing both sides. He is secretly controling/supporting the Separatist movement, in order to gain power within the Republic. By creating the Separatist threat, he is able to be elected Supreme Chancellor, gain emergency powers, create an army, spread the Jedi thinly through the galaxy fighting this 'threat', and stay in office beyond his term limits. The war creates a distraction by which he can gain power and create his Empire. It's a win-win situation for him.

The separatists are a group systems who where former members of the Galactic Senate who have "seperated" themselves from the Republic because they feel that the Republic is too cumbersome to be effective. According to the EU the seperatists were begun by Count Dooku though the manipulations of Darth Sidious. ( I just got done reading a couple of the novels that happen in between the prequels)

I just watched clone wars last nite and they linked Dooku to Palpatine - thus linking the Sepratists to what will be the Empire.

I was surprised to hear the word associated with Star Wars because I'm so used to hearing the Rebels and the Empire from the original trilogy. Then I watched the opening crawl of Clones and the separatists are mentioned.

By the time Ep 4 comes out, the separtists were apparently irrelevant.

Some people thought of the rebels as "terrorists".

Have you seen Episode III yet? That should answer the question for you.

haven't seen ROTS yet but from the spoilers it seems as though those against palpantine join the separatists and become the rebellion

Go and see the movie and all speculation will be cleared up.

Since the Separatists are run by two Sith Lords -- Darth Sidious and Darth Tyrannus -- it wouldn't make much sense for the Rebels to 'join' them. That group wouldn't be a very good launching point for a rebellion, since it is run by the very guy you want to rebel against.

Again, see Episode III, and everything (should) be clear.

The Separatists are not aware that Palpatine, whom they are truly fighting against, and Darth Sidious, who is their 'leader,' are the same person.

I confess that the separatists thing went over my head while watching 3 and it wasn't until seeing the crawl on 2 and the clone wars did it make sense.

I was tunnel visioned in my attention to how will Anakin become Vader that i overlooked this very interesting/complex subplot.

in one of the clips padme says that maybe they are fighting on the worng side

sideous becomes emperor

mon mothma and bail organa start contacting the separatist worlds to get on their side. just because anakin kills the leaders doesn't mean the war will just end.

the war continues, except now it's known as the rebellion

doesn't seem that far fetched to me

Another way to look at Dokuu is that he's like Castro. Once, very high minded and for his people. But now corrupt and only thinking of himself.

It's easier to understand this when you think Lucas came up with the idea of these films during Vietnam - and he wasn't for US policy at the time. He believes it's deja vous all over again.

Speaking only of the movies, Dooku was always the bad guy, always working with the emperor/Sidious to bring about the end of the Republic and give complete control to Palpatine. The only reason there was a separatist movement, created and nurtured by Palpatine and Dooku, was to allow Palpatine to possess the clone army. It was always a ruse.

Correct. The seperatist movement was started by Dooku at the bidding of Palpatine/Sidious in order for Palpy to gain power in the republic. Once he had what he wanted, he had the leaders of the seperatist movement killed so they could no longer rebel against the new Empire. He also has Anakin shut down all the droids which explains why we don;t see any BD's in the OT era.

Organa and Mon Mothma organize a new movement to restore the republic and it is dubbed the Rebellion.

According to the star wars website, Doku was originally (back in the day) about peace.

I thought they were gonna splain why R2 doesn't fly in original trilogy. I'm gonna chalk it up to age.

All Anakin wanted was peace too. And look where that got him.