Ar'alani

BACKSTORY

Born around 62 BBY, Irizi'ar'alani was known by her core name "Ziara", and was a blood member of the Irizi family, one of the Nine Ruling Families of the Chiss Ascendancy nation in the Unknown Regions, also known as the "Chaos". She is good hearthed and very smart, her personality is serious, but manages to warm up for the people who owe her trust. Irizi'ar'alani is part of a species called Chiss, aliens characterized because of their blue skin and completely red eyes, tending to be slim and their sharp features. She attended Taharim Academy on the planet Naporar, and rose to the rank of Senior Cadet in four years. Around 37 BBY, while at the academy, she was placed on trial after a Cadet under her tutelage, Mitth'raw'nuru "Thrawn," was accused of cheating on a simulator exercise. As they were unable to recreate the parameters of the simulator, there was no way for Thrawn to replicate his results. During a luncheon break from the trial, Ziara invited General Ba'kif to the trial, who suggested that if they could not recreate the parameters as a simulation, Cadet Thrawn should replicate his results in a combat exercise. As they prepare to start the exercise, Ziara reflects on how she has painted a target on her forehead. If Thrawn fails to prove his case, she will be in hot water too, as she went to all this trouble to try to prove his innocence. However, to her relief, Ziara watched as Thrawn perfectly executed the maneuvers he did in the simulation, and explained to the Irizi family Aristocra how he had pulled it off.

After having his name cleared, Thrawn invited Ziara out as a token of his gratitude for her help. He took her to an art gallery showcasing the history of the Chiss Ascendancy, much to her dismay. Thrawn explained that art and military tactics are reflected in each other, and strengths and weaknesses can be seen in one's artwork. He broke down two civilizations of the Chaos, the Scofti and the Brodihi, from their art. Ziara argued that everything he concluded was purely theoretical, but offered him the chance to prove his claims. She led him to her quarters and told him to study her own wire sculptures, before the two of them dueled in a dojo to see if he could find her tactical strengths and weaknesses. They sparred with soft-coat sticks, and Thrawn easily countered all her attacks. She changed up her attacks and was able to land a few hits, before reverting to her old tactics, causing Thrawn to gain the upper hand once again. Thrawn explains that her sculptures, mainly consisting of groundlions, dragonelles, and predatory birds, showcase preferences for short attacks, hesitation feints, and aggression, respectively. He also states that her art reflects preference for wide-spaced attack combinations, the way she formulates her feint attacks is reflected in the open areas of her sculptures, and the angular style of her sculptures suggest that spinning attacks would likely slow her fight response. Ziara considers landing a cheap shot on Thrawn, since the fight wasn't specifically called off, but she refuses to do so. Thrawn adds that the elegence and care in her art reflect Ziara's reluctance to play "shoddy tricks" on the sparring mat, which embarrasses her.

Ziara, now holding the rank of Mid Captain, aided Junior Commander Thrawn on a mission to the heart world of the Lioaoin Regime nation to take down a group of pirates. Thrawn had previously learned that the Pathfinders, a group of force-sensitive hyperspace navigators that were a part of the Navigators' Guild, could track each other through hyperspace, and used this information to his advantage. After Thrawn had confirmed the Lioaoin involvement in piracy on the Ascendancy worlds of Schesa, Pesfavri, and Massoss, he successfully manipulated four Lioaoin corsairs (navigated by Pathfinders) into following him to the Chiss Kinoss system, where Ziara destroyed them. The skirmish marked the beginning of the Ascendancy's Lioaoin pirate campaign.

Shortly after the destruction of the pirates, Ziara and Thrawn were reprimanded by General Ba'kif for what he sees as a preemptive strike. Regardless, both of them had been promoted, Ziara to Senior Captain, and Thrawn to Senior Commander. After dismissing Thrawn, Ba'kif asked Ziara for her assessment of Thrawn. She replied that he is an excellent tactician and strategist, but his political capabilities are close to nonexistent. Ba'kif tells her that she is being placed in command of the patrol cruiser Parala, and that Thrawn would be her Third Officer, in order for her to keep an eye on him. While discussing their roles with the Ascendancy, Thrawn informed Ziara that after the Lioaoin Regime would go back to piracy after they had replaced the ships she destroyed. He noted that they wouldn't try attacking the Ascendancy again, but, rather, they would go after other nations that could not defend themselves as well. Ziara asked if he wished for the Ascendancy to be the protectors of the Chaos, mentioning that would be the case should they interfere in the affairs of others. She told him that for the time being, non-intervention was the protocol, and until that changed, they must accept their orders and fulfill their duties.

Months later, the Parala received a distress call from Security Officer Frangelic from the Garwian Unity nation's colony of Stivic, stating that they were being raided by pirates. Unbeknownst to Ziara and the patrol cruisers second officer Mid Captain Clarr'os'culry (Roscu), Thrawn had guided the cruiser to answer the call. Ziara immediately reminded him of the Ascendancy's protocols of non-intervention, but the Senior Commander hoped that the arrival of a Chiss patrol cruiser would scare away the pirates, who he believed to be Lioaoin, due to the vicinity of Stivic to Lioaoin space. Ziara agreed to his plan after he reassured her if it did not work, they would not intervene. During the battle, Roscu questions if Ziara would have responded to the distress signal, to which Ziara states that the Chiss would be allowed to render humanitarian aid. The arrival of the Parala did not frighten the Lioaoin pirate vessels, however, and Roscu reminded Ziara that there was no reason for the Chiss to be at the battle, also adding that there were a few cafes on Stivic that she would regret to see destroyed. Ziara then ordered Roscu to check on the electrostatic barriers in case the patrol cruiser was attacked, and the Mid Captain obliged.

Thrawn insisted that he could beat all four attacking pirates, but, tempted to assist the Garwians against the Lioaoi pirates, Ziara stood her ground, once again echoing the Ascendancy's rules against preemptive strikes and deliberate provocation. She wondered if she could get the bridge crew to keep quiet if they did in fact help the Garwians, but immediately realized that it was impossible, due to the familial rivalries. The Senior Captain asked Thrawn if he could tell anyone how to beat the pirates, to which he replied in the affirmative. He asked for permission "check the calibration" on the ranging lasers, which she allowed. Roscu noticed Thrawn leave the bridge, and reminded Ziara that with him leaving the bridge, he relinquished his deck officer position, allowing them to leave. Ziara made the excuse that she wanted to see if the pirates had come up with new tactics.

An operations officer called to Ziara from his station, informing her of activity on the ranging lasers. Ziara informed the officer that the actions were sanctioned, and the officer also reported the frequencies being modulated. Ziara once again made up an excuse for the activity, and noticed the Garwians change their tactics. Thrawn had sent the Garwians a message in modulated laserfire informing them of the weakness of the Lioaoi, and Senior Commander Ocpior reported multiple hits on the attacking pirates. The pirates in turn tried to escape, but only one made it to the safety hyperspace. Ziara ordered the helm to return to their patrol circuit, and told Roscu that she should be relieved, as the cafe's she mentioned earlier were safe.

Shortly after the Stivic incident, Mid Captain Roscu filed a disciplinary report with the Defense Hierarchy Council on the grounds that Ziara and Thrawn had violated the Ascendancy's protocols of non-intervention. General Ba'kif came to the defense of both Ziara and Thrawn, fueling Roscu's bitterness towards them both, as she believed they were being granted unfair treatment within the Defense Fleet.

Some months following the pirate attack at Stivic, Thrawn was given command of the patrol ship Boco, which answered a distress call from an excursion liner owned by the Chiss Boadil family. The liner had eight thousand passengers aboard, and had begun crashing into the atmosphere of a three-ringed gas giant planet. Thrawn sent an emergency message to Ziara, who arrived aboard the Parala in two hours. Thrawn had activated the Boco's tractor beams to pull the liner out of the magnetic bands, but could not evacuate the passengers on the escape pods due to the radiation in the atmosphere, as well as the thrusters of the liner being incapacitated. Thrawn informed Ziara, much to her surprise, that the passengers were still aboard the vessel, gathered in the central cylinder. He warned Ziara that no one else was coming to help and that time was short, asking her to act quickly. The Senior Captain ordered the Parala to pull parallel to the Boco, and activated its own tractor beams.

As soon as the Parala's tractor beams locked onto the excursion liner, Thrawn dropped the Boco's tractor beams and fired its spectrum lasers at the connecting points between the wings and the central cylinder. Losing the extra mass of the wings effectively make the liner lighter. The port and starboard side wings were home to luxury suites, reserved for the wealthiest among the vessel's voyagers. Some of Ziara's officers voiced their issues with the Boco's captain attacking the ship they were tasked with rescuing, but the Senior Captain understood Thrawn's plan as he carried it out. As the Boco shot off the starboard wing of the liner, Ziara ordered her officers to use emergency power to enhance the tractor beams, with the now-lighter excursion liner being pulled away from the planet. Thrawn's patrol ship returned to the Parala's side and reactivated the tractor beams and thrusters to help. Within fifteen minutes, the crisis had been averted, and all eight thousand lives aboard the liner were saved. Thrawn contacted Ziara and thanked her for her assistance, and Ziara likewise applauded his quick thinking, but also warned him not to expect gratitude from anyone else, as his destroying of the liner's wings, and, by extension, the luxury suites and the belongings of the passengers, would make the Boadil family unhappy.

As the action of saving the excursion liner was a civilian affair rather than military, Thrawn and Ziara were summoned to a hearing on the Chiss homeworld of Csilla. He informed Ziara that he never been to the capital planet of the Ascendancy, as all of his training took place on Naporar. Ziara attempted to alleviate Thrawn's worry, mentioning that despite the destruction of the luxurious wings, he had saved eight thousand people, including Aristocra from at least five different ruling families. As they approached the icy surface of the capital, Thrawn saw a massive city that seemed to be covered in ice and asked if it was Csaplar, which Ziara confirmed. She added that it was the capital of Csilla and had once been a center of culture and refinement, and they would be landing at the city's spaceport. Thrawn mused that it was odd a city with a population of seven million could not support a cultural center along with a government, and Ziara quietly decided she would tell him the truth soon.

Ziara was correct in predicting the hearing would be short—a representative of the Boadil family insisted that Thrawn be punished for destroying the wings of the excursion liner, but representatives of three other ruling families, who's Aristocra had been saved, countered, saying Thrawn deserved a promotion. In the end, Thrawn was neither promoted nor thrown out of the fleet, as the Boadil family representative had suggested, but, for a reason Ziara assumed was one family owing another a favor, Thrawn was removed as commander of the Boco. Ziara apologized to a disappointed Thrawn for the fleet's decision, but the Senior Commander justified the tribunal's ruling, adding that his actions had cost the Boadil family millions. Ziara countered his justification, saying that he was not the one who ignored the engineers and took the liner too close to the planet, which is what the liner's captain had done. But as the captain of the liner was of the Ufsa family, who were political allies of the Boadil, they viewed Thrawn as a scapegoat, dropping the blame on him.

As the pair made their way back to the city in a tunnel car, Ziara informed Thrawn that she had requested for him to be reassigned to the Parala as one of her officers, which also granted him convenient passage off Csilla as he no longer had the Boco to leave on. Thrawn considered staying in a hotel located around the spaceport, but Ziara invited him to stay with her on the Irizi family homestead on the planet. Thrawn had concerns of how welcome he would be at the homestead, as he was of the Mitth family who rivals of the Irizi, but Ziara brushed them away, noting that she was a blood member of the Irizi and an honored member of the fleet who just help save eight thousand lives. Finally, she added that her grandfather was an avid art collector. Thrawn accepted his friends invitation, adding that she had a knack of exploiting the weaknesses of her opponents—his passion for art, in this circumstance.

On their way to the homestead, Ziara booked them a two-passenger tube car that went across the city rather than through the tunnels of Csaplar, which she knew she wasn't allowed to do. Still angered and unsatisfied with the fleet's treatment of her friend, however, she did not care. Additionally, the Senior Captain thought it would be an interesting tactical exercise to see how long it would take for Thrawn to notice what was wrong on the Chiss homeworld. The Senior Commander quickly realized something was amiss, raising the fact that there were no people visible since they left the spaceport. Ziara made an excuse, saying they were probably too far away for him to see, feeling guilty at how much fun her "tactical exercise" was. She apologized for telling him the truth, as he was not of rank to be aware of this information. However, she continued by saying what he learned in school—that an exodus that occurred over a thousand years prior that caused changes in the sun's output and the slow freezing of the planet's surface—was mostly true, but the histories left out that not everyone was forced underground but, instead, was moved to other planets within the Ascendancy (specifically, Rentor, Avidich, and Sarvchi). Whereas Csilla was advertised to have around eight billion residents, the true population was only around sixty or seventy million. The Senior Captain added that her family's homestead was located in a cavern below the surface of ancestral Irizi lands. Only a few hundred people were in Csaplar at any given moment, with the population being rotated out periodically to maintain the illusion for visitors, trading partners, and enemies of the Ascendancy. Thrawn understood the tactical advantage of allowing enemies of the Chiss nation to waste resources attacking an "empty shell", but questioned why Ziara had told him the truth, as he was not senior enough in rank to be aware of this information. Ziara replied that she told him because he thrives on information; the more he knew about a circumstance, the better he could come up with strategies and tactics to handle it. Despite that, she added he would be called in for a briefing about the truth soon enough, and Ziara asked him to try to act surprised. The Senior Commander then asked her if her family knew she was bringing a guest, to which she revealed she had not, but insisted it would not be a problem. The Senior Commander retorted, saying she only assumed so, to which she confessed.

Soon thereafter, Ziara was summoned for a promotion ceremony, where she was given the flag rank of Commodore. She was called to floodlit circle where she faced Supreme Admiral Ja'fosk and two other senior officers. Ja'fosk asked her to state her name, which she did. He replied saying that person no longer existed, as her promotion to flag-rank caused her to lose her ties to her Irizi family. Emotions ran high for Ziara as she had been a blood member of the Irizi her entire life, taking in all the prestige and honor that came with the position. Ja'fosk continued, saying that from now on, the Chiss Ascendancy was her life. Despite rehearsing the ceremony for a week before her promotion, she felt that it did not feel real until the words came out of Ja'fosk's mouth. The Supreme Admiral lifted a box and handed it to her, which contained a new Commodore's uniform—colored white as opposed to the black uniform she donned her entire career—and the appropriate insignia pins. Her new uniform showcased the Ascendancy's multi-circle symbol where normally her Irizi family patch would have sat. As her promotion caused her to lose her ties to the Irizi family, Ja'fosk also presented her with her new name—Ar'alani. After accepting her new uniform and new life, Ar'alani gazed at Supreme Admiral Ja'fosk, who seemed to be remembering when he stood in her spot, losing his family to serve for the greater good of the Ascendancy.

Following the ceremony, a promotion celebration party was held for the newly promoted Commodore. As the people began to filter out, Ar'alani was approached by Thrawn, who congratulated her and reminded the Commodore that he predicted this day would come. With her promotion, Ar'alani had been given command of the warship Destrama, as well as Picket Force Six. Ar'alani had requested for Thrawn to serve with her aboard the Destrama as her first officer, who replied that he was under the impression her days of babysitting him were over. She asked if he believed Supreme General Ba'kif had assigned him to the Parala under her command so she could watch over him, which he did. The Commodore conceded the fact, but added she asked for him because she truly believed he was a good officer. Thrawn thanked his friend, and then asked her for advice. She replied that she would always make time for him, and insisted he call her by name instead of rank. Thrawn informed Ar'alani that he had been approached by Syndic Irizi'stal'mustro (Zistalmu), who informed him the Mitth were unhappy with him, and the Syndic suggested he rematch to Irizi family as a trial-born, as opposed to a merit adoptive (Thrawn's current rankin the Mitth). The Commodore originally wanted to deflect the conversation as family politics were a sensitive subject, but as she no longer had a family, she let him continue. Ar'alani filled him in of her former family's history with the military, who liked to have members in the upper ranks, as it bought them additional prestige. However, she had never been comfortable with the way the Irizi dominated Chiss Defense Force personnel. Despite Chiss officers being told to ignore family identity as they serve, they had both seen familial rivalries impact the fleet in conversations and in duty. Thrawn asked Ar'alani if the Irizi were a better fit for him as they were more military-minded, and she had to remind herself that with her new position she could not show familial bias, and ultimately left the decision up to him. Thrawn thanked her, not only for her advice but for the help she provided him in his career, from the cheating charge at Taharim Academy to her testimonies after the Stivic Incident. While on the topic of the Stivic Incident, Ar'alani reflected that the Garwian Unity had given Security Officer Frangelic all the credit, which likely resulted in a promotion for him. She continued by asking Thrawn how he had communicated with the Garwians, as there was no way to tie a communications device into a ranging laser. He replied that he tied his questis into the ranging laser instead, using a script option. He remarked that he did not do it for the gratitude of the Garwian's nor the Ascendancy, but for the good of the people. Ar'alani touched her friends arm and invited him to buy her a celebratory drink, where he could tell her more of his goals that the Ascendancy pretended not to be grateful for.

ACTUAL SITUATION

Once back home from the party, she's very sad about what's happening, hoping for her lover to be back from their trip, not knowing they're already back.