Alderaan Ascendancy Contention

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The Alderaan Ascendancy Contention was a political conflict between the noble families of Alderaan, the House of Antilles and the House of Organa in particular, over which of them had the proper claim to the position of Viceroy. It took place sometime before the Clone Wars and the fall of the Galactic Republic. The mediation team sent by the Galactic Senate resolved the dispute in favor of the Organas on the condition that the houses of Antilles and Organa join in marriage.

Contents 1 History 2 Behind the scenes 2.1 Timeline 2.2 Families involved 3 Appearances 4 Sources 5 Notes and references 6 External links

[edit] History

At some point before the Clone Wars, a political conflict between the high houses of the planet Alderaan arose. Known as the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention, it was the result of the inability of the noble families^[1]—among them the House of Organa and the House of Antilles^[2]—to decide which of them was entitled to the position of Viceroy. When the third vote on the matter did not yield a winner, the government of Alderaan appealed to the Galactic Senate for mediation.^[1] In response, a delegation including Jedi Watchman^[2] Jorus C'baoth was sent to resolve the case.^[1]

The crisis strained the relations of the houses of Antilles and Organa in particular. When the tensions between them erupted at one point, the intervention of Tash Scrambas, captain of the frigate Qel-Droma, proved instrumental. He refused to choose a side and cooperated with the mediation team in solving the conflict.^[2] In less than a month, the delegation came to the conclusion that the Organas had the rightful claim to the Viceroyship, and a member of the family succeeded to the position.^[1] C'baoth called for a condition to the Organas' rise to power, however: a marriage that would join the Antilles and Organa families. With the union of the two houses, the ascendancy contention was brought to a successful conclusion.^[2] This focal event in the history of Alderaan^[2] was well known among Alderaanians even decades later.^[1]

[edit] Behind the scenes

[edit] Timeline

The exact timing of the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention has not yet been established. In any case, it must have taken place before or in 27 BBY, the year Jorus C'baoth died.^[3] Timothy Zahn, author of the 1992 novel Dark Force Rising in which the contention was first mentioned, originally placed the event in 70 pre-Empire date, which would work out to 89 BBY. In 2002, however, the Roleplaying Game Revised Core Rulebook retconned C'baoth's birth year from 112 pre-Empire (131 BBY) mentioned in Dark Force Rising to 70 BBY, meaning the other events of his life as presented in the novel are pushed later as well, including the ascendancy contention.

Taking into account the original dates given in Dark Force Rising, C'baoth would have been 42 years old at the time of the contention. If this is still the case after the changes made to the timeline, the ascendancy contention would take place in 28 BBY. Deducing from the clues offered by official sources, the earliest possible date for the contention seems to be 35 BBY, when C'baoth was 35. Winter states in Dark Force Rising that in a hologram of the mediation team, he seemed to be around forty: "plus or minus five years perhaps." However, C'baoth was known to have looked older than most people his age, the Revised Core Rulebook mentioning him having a white beard at the age 38. Thus it is entirely plausible that he could have been even under thirty during the contention, placing the event somewhere around 40 BBY.

[edit] Families involved

While all sources on the ascendancy contention mention the Organa family, it remains unclear whether there was more than one other family claiming the title of Viceroy. The wording in both Dark Force Rising and Dark Force Rising Sourcebook, the earliest accounts of the event, is ambiguous,^[4] and subsequent sources have not clarified the issue. The only source naming a family other than the Organas is the Databank entry for Pello Scrambas^[2] released in 2007,^[5] fifteen years after the ascendancy contention was first mentioned. In the entry, some of the the contention's details are elaborated, such as establishing the House of Antilles as a rival of the Organas. This, along with the fact that the dispute ended when the families joined in marriage, would imply that at least the final choice was made between the two. Since the mention of the House of Antilles does not exclude the possibility of other rivaling families, however, this article is written with the assumption that there could have been more than the two named families involved.

According to What's The Story? author Aidan Hennessy, his Pello Scrambas entry was supposed to indicate that the marriage joining the houses of Antilles and Organa was between Breha Antilles and Bail Organa. This piece of information, however, was left out of the final Databank entry, possibly because of matters concerning the timeline as Hennessy himself suspected.^[5] So far, no official source has addressed the issue of between whom the marriage was contracted.

[edit] Appearances

• Dark Force Rising (First mentioned)

[edit] Sources

• Dark Force Rising Sourcebook
• The Official Star Wars Fact File 18 (ALD3-4, Alderaan)
• The Official Star Wars Fact File 67 (ORG1, Bail Organa)
•  Joruus C'baoth in the Databank
•  Bail Organa in the Databank
•  Pello Scrambas in the Databank

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

•  "Pello Scrambas...uh....Scambras....whatever - Behind the Scenes" - "Do Nautolans Dream of Aquatic Sheep?", Aidan Hennessy's StarWars.com Blog
•  Alderaan Ascendency Contention in the Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia