The Alderaan Ascendancy Contention was a political conflict taking place in 32 BBY 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. The mediation team sent by the Galactic Senate resolved the dispute in favor of the Organas, allowing a member of the family to succeed to the position. In addition, a marriage joining the houses of Antilles and Organa was arranged.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Prelude 1.2 Mediating the ascendancy 1.3 Aftermath 2 Behind the scenes 2.1 Timeline 2.2 Families involved 3 Appearances 4 Sources 5 Notes and references 6 External links 6.1 In other languages

HistoryEdit

PreludeEdit

In 32 BBY,^[2] 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^[3]—to decide which of them was entitled to the position of Viceroy. When the third vote on the matter did not yield a winner,^[1] the High Council of Alderaan^[4] appealed to the Galactic Senate for mediation.^[1] In response, a delegation including Jedi Watchman^[3] Jorus C'baoth was sent to resolve the case.^[1]

Mediating the ascendancyEdit

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 C'baoth in solving the conflict.^[3] In less than a month, the delegation came to the conclusion that the Organa bloodline had the rightful claim to the Viceroyship, allowing a member of the family to succeed to the position.^[1] In addition, C'baoth proposed a marriage that would join the rivaling Antilles and Organa families. With both parties agreeing to the union, the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention was brought to an end.^[3]

AftermathEdit

A focal event in the planet's history,^[3] the ascendancy contention was documented in the Alderaanian archives, with a group hologram of the Republic mediation team. Owing to its historical significance, all Alderaanians were familiar with the event at least to a certain degree, and it continued to be remembered among them even after Alderaan was destroyed by the Galactic Empire in 0 BBY. Nine years later, Winter recounted the event to Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, who, while conducting research on Jorus C'baoth, had found a mention of the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention in the records of the Galactic Senate on Coruscant.^[1]

Behind the scenesEdit

TimelineEdit

The exact timing of the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention remained uncertain for a long time. 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.^[5] In 2002, however, the Roleplaying Game Revised Core Rulebook retconned much of Jorus C'baoth's backstory, stating him to have been 38 years old at the time of the Battle of Naboo which took place in 32 BBY.^[6] This gave him a birth year of 70 BBY—as opposed to 112 pre-Empire (131 BBY) mentioned in Dark Force Rising—meaning the other events of C'baoth's life as presented in the novel, including the ascendancy contention, were pushed later as well.

The 2006 novel Outbound Flight, also by Zahn, was set five years after the Battle of Naboo and featured the death of C'baoth, thus establishing 27 BBY as the latest possible date for the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention. The ambiguity surrounding the date was finally resolved with the release of James Luceno's Star Wars: Darth Plagueis in 2012, almost two decades after Dark Force Rising was first published. While the novel does not mention the ascendancy contention directly, a part of the narrative taking place in 32 BBY describes how Jorus C'baoth "had been enlisted to arbitrate a dispute among some of Alderaan's royal houses."^[2] As it is unlikely that there would have been two separate disputes between Alderaanian nobles which C'baoth settled, it can be concluded that this was a reference to the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention.

Families involvedEdit

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,^[7] and subsequent sources have not clarified the issue. The first source to name a family other than the Organas was the Databank entry for Pello Scrambas^[3] published in 2007.^[8] Written by Aidan Hennessy (as "Darth NTM") and submitted through StarWars.com's Hyperspace feature, "What's The Story?,"^[8] the entry elaborates on some of the contention's details, such as establishing the House of Antilles as a rival of the Organas and stating that the dispute ended when the two families joined in marriage;^[3] this was later alluded in the "House of Antilles" entry in the 2008 reference book The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia.^[9] This would imply that at least the final choice was made between the Antilles and Organa families. 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 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 not included in the final Databank entry, possibly because of matters concerning the timeline as Hennessy himself suspected.^[8] So far, no official source has addressed the issue of between whom the marriage was contracted.

AppearancesEdit

• Star Wars: Darth Plagueis (Indirect mention only)
• Star Wars: Agent of the Empire 6: Hard Targets, Part 1 (Mentioned only)
• Dark Force Rising (First mentioned)

SourcesEdit

• Dark Force Rising Sourcebook
• The Essential Guide to Characters (Joruus C'baoth entry)
• The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook
• A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, Third Edition (Under C'baoth, Jorus)
• The Official Star Wars Fact File 18 (ALD3-4, Alderaan)
• The Official Star Wars Fact File 67 (ORG1, Bail Organa)
• Star Wars: The Official Starships & Vehicles Collection 29
• The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia, Vol. I, II ("C'baoth, Jorus and Joruus," "House of Antilles")
•  Joruus C'baoth in the Databank (content now obsolete; backup link on Archive.org)
•  Bail Organa in the Databank (content now obsolete; backup link on Archive.org)
•  Pello Scrambas in the Databank (content now obsolete; backup link on Archive.org)

Notes and referencesEdit

External linksEdit

•  "Pello Scrambas...uh....Scambras....whatever - Behind the Scenes" – "Do Nautolans Dream of Aquatic Sheep?," Darth NTM's StarWars.com Blog (content now obsolete; backup link on WebCite)
•  Alderaan Ascendency Contention in The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia (backup link on Archive.org)