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Rebellion eraNew Republic eraNew Jedi Order eraLegacy era

Arali Olan (Aralio'lan) was a tyrian female Twi'lek politician who served from 27 ABY to 40 ABY as galactic senator of the Ryloth System, also representing the whole Gaulus Sector from 29 ABY in the Galactic Alliance Senate, and xenopsychologist of note.

Complementary to her chief duties of representing her home system's and home sector's best interests she took effort to emphasize the importance of Ryloth to the galactic community, which sentiment she ratified by soliciting pharmaceutical business agreements and through legally centralizing Ryll extraction and processing for Twi’lek-owned corporations, and contracting other pharmaceutical enterprises with those. She was known for her strong and sometimes polarizing opinion on slavery, indentured work, and unorthodox policies to libate its victims. She was most affectionately renowned for being entirely serious about her agenda but at the same time being able to play along and even build on even comical interpretation herself and the values she stood for. After her terms of service in office she still remained a diplomat and an active lobbyist during the era of the Galactic Federation Triumvirate.

Professional literature considered her to be one of the significant xenopsychologists of her time lauded for turning theory, study and observations to applied science - most notably extrapolating behavioral patterns of the Yuuzhan Vong during their invasion of the galaxy.


Biography[]


Early life[]

Aralio'lan was born 9 BBY in Kala'uun, one of the two capitals of Ryloth to the relatively prominent Olan clan. It was ten years after the declaration of the Galactic Empire, what designated Ryloth an Imperial Protectorate and by which time Twi'lek opposition to Imperial rule led to the emergence of a resistance movement  led by Cham Syndulla, already a folk hero, who during the Clone Wars turned his political revolution into an armed resistance to combat the Separatist Alliance and liberate his world. About five years prior to Arali's birth the resistance movement started to disrupt the planet's spice production – in which one's domestic regulation the Olan clan traditionally had great part –, fomented riots against Imperial rule that continued on to four more years. By this time the the Olan clan had no actual control over spice mining and production but the expertise that many from the clan had in these fields still garnered some mid-rank and operative positions from the imperial authorities for some individual members. On the other hand these Olan mine and factory overseers intentionally allowed the sabotage of their own work to support the freedom movement. 

Arali was mostly raised in Lessu as her clan arranged for her family to relocate. Having four lekku was a rare occurrence but manifested from time to time once in a number of generations that a child had a posterior set of inferior lekku next to the ordinary anterior ones already at birth. This was a medical condition mostly documented in case of males and even so only at a later age and also was known to be induced by certain metabolic factors (one of which chief contributing condition was obesity – that due to the planet's relative scarcity of food usually meant wealthy patriarchs) and it was also considered a sign of virility. Being born with more than two lekku was essentially contributed to a genetic anomaly just as the rare red skin pigmentation. The native religion and the clergy of Kika'Lekki considered more lekku as a sign of the goddess' favor and a boon for the family of such an individual.

Much like Lethan Twi'lek, individuals with three or four lekku were rare enough to fetch high price on the slave market and a good sale often fed a family for decades. Many Twi'lek were actually glad to sell themselves to leave the often harsh reality of their homeworld behind. Alrali however proved to be valuable otherwise, so her clan tried to have her reared away from Kala'uun, where Ryloth's slave trade was so prominently centered on that it was both the matter of the day[1] – and it is safe to say the currency as well[2]. The Olan clan's wast majority were either Darian who had a range of coloration from pale sand to deeper earth tones or Tyrian who had pigmentation of hues between purple and pink. Arali's phenotype was of this latter kind, which proved to provide some solace as actually at the time of her childhood Tukian Twi'leks of green shades were the most "sought after" – especially by Ryloth's resident Imperial Moff[3]. Of course the tastes of the exacting buyers changed from time to time, but that temporary trend in commercial value literally saved her hide from the fate of slavery.

During the these troubled times of hiding and relocation Arali displayed odd yet practical talents with the Force which her clan's leadership learned to encourage and favor yet tried to keep as yet another secret about her. Force-sesitivity was not uncommon among Twi'lek but it still emerged only in a narrow minority among the population as a whole. Arali possessed only minor psychokinetic or telekinetic yet more considerable telepathic and perception-altering abilities.

Due to her knack at discerning other people's motives she was introduced to business and political negotiations at a relatively young age and she was also considered as one of the Sesk’bumat (political quasi-noble) caste. This status normally would have afforded her a protection from slave-trade that usually was the plight and burden of the lower castes to bear, but her unique physiology on the other hand made her an attractive potential target, despite not being a first-born daughter in her clan and closer sept.

An ancient custom called Vassij'ra was the ceremonial ‘selling’ of the first-born daughter from one clan to another for the purpose of an arranged marriage sealing a business and/or political arrangement and to bring the two clans together. However ever since slavery came to Ryloth the old custom was bastardized in the course of millennia into a desperate action of survival where daughters were sold to the Hutt or to slavers. Her elders decided Arali is to escape the planet in a smuggling cargo ship by the Zann Consortium (what was based on Ryloth at that time) in order to prevent a less hospitable slaver brigade capturing her sooner or later. The elders thought this to be the best, as they could not bear if Arali were sold as someone’s slave as they have higher hopes for her and on the other hand they trusted her in that she will contact the clan later on and with her talents will provide for them from afar.


Unsound outset[]

In 11 ABY Arali was literally smuggled to Coruscant. During the journey and the following months when she could only rely only on herself hardened her enough to build up formidable mental fortitude and passive alertness and danger sense. She later admitted with some shame that in order to survive she used to steal food and even valuables, often utilizing both psychokinesis and perception altering.

Eventually these practices reinforced these talents of her to solidly reliable abilities but she still was prudent enough to use them only covertly. For months she lived in refugee camps, shelters, and later in worker's hostels. During this time she got thoroughly acquainted with the conditions of living below the ecumenopolis' surface. She found it quaint or rather ironic that the inhabitants of the planet's lower levels were somewhat less-then-endearingly called 'Twilighters' while in Twi'leki culture the twilight – with the only habitable terminator rim on her tidally locked homeworld was called the 'twilight realm' – had quite positive connotations.

This was the same year that the New Republic reoccupied Coruscant, thus reclaiming authority of the galaxy.

Early career and higher education[]

In the "galactic capital" Arali sought to find distant relatives and contacts as her elders recommended that once being there she should do so. Eventually she has found the Schaum/Yfarg/Welbig/Fabrico and Associates (a. k. a. Shaum & Assoc.) advertising agency and public relations firm. The company was owned by Twi'lek interests and operated out of both Ryloth (in fact officially headquartered in Kala'uun) and Coruscant[4]. The Olan clan rejoiced when they learnt of the news that their daughter had found a secure place to be on Coruscant.

Arali started to work at the client service department, first as an assistant, and she has used up much of her salary to pay rent as she by then lived near the corporate headquarters that was located in the Calcour Heights district on Coruscant. She was proud that she made a living in that neighborhood, even if she rented only a larger room in an apartment owned by a retired and nearly financially broke female Besalisk physician who formerly managed a public recreative healthcare institution and was allegedly wrongfully discharged for misappropriation of government funds. Seeing her landlord's compromised career and tarnished reputation Arali pondered on the nature of the target-like life of someone noteworthy in public service.

She became relatively fast a key account manager for Cybot Galactica at the Shaum & Assoc. agency as the decision makers and executives became aware of her "enhanced negotiating skills" (which were supported by not infrequent use of minor mind tricks that manifested in her over due course) that were put to the test and have been proven to be useful in luring back the important client after the infamously disastrous Blast Proof advertising campaign. She realized three things in the wake of the crisis. For one, that the way of presenting things often means more than the meaning of the thing that is presented. For two that wrong advertising is still advertising, and sometimes not even bad advertising. And for three that even a bad windfall can be made to have a positive spin – given a fresh perspective after taking a step back, good enough narrative, and much work.

With her more rewarding job she could afford the tuition fee to study galactic history and political science, sociology and xenopsychology at the University of Coruscant.


Public service training[]

When Arali needed professional practice for the university she has left Coruscant in 14 ABY as a trainee of the Council on Security and Intelligence (a.k.a. CSI) which was a somewhat closed and even secretive council of the New Republic Senate's New Republic Intelligence Service (a.k.a. NRI). She has applied to the program and was enrolled for one year training experience and she got assigned to a project tied to the relatively newly formed Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. Arali first was tasked to retrieve intelligence data from the (by that time) obsolete Senate Planetary Intelligence Network (a.k.a. SPIN intelligence service) some years ago originally headquartered at the village of Vornez (near to the Praxeum) and send the data back to the NRI. She's been also set to study history and diplomacy from the Jedi masters but the New Jedi Order even offered her training for her telekinetic and mind-influencing abilities which ones she performed quite well but has displayed still not too often. Arali has been sent largely on missions only to aid others by gathering intelligence or those of peaceful negotiation. At one time she was also appointed to supervise a Jedi classified intelligence data clearing following the actions of Kyle Katarn by Luke Skywalker[5]. Her political ambitions firmly barred her from any direct involvement with the Jedi Order, as she was clearly made to understand.

On returning to Coruscant Arali faced with the unofficial suspicion that Shaum & Assoc. may be a credit-laundering company for slavers. Arali suspended her already dormant employee status at the agency and soon joined an investigation committee answering to the New Republic Senate Commerce Council. Although she along with her colleagues unveiled a number of laundering companies related to slaver groups, there were no incriminating evidence found against Shaum & Assoc., thus the fiasco did not muddied her professional and personal moral history.


Diversity Alliance[]

After she graduated at the University of Coruscant she started her political career as being a trainee in the Senate and also an advisor of the Twi'lek Clan Council on Ryloth up to 24 ABY. Females actually were not acceptable as council members, though her suggestions were always welcome. In one of these years the Twi'lek Nolaa Tarkona engineered a revolution that overthrew the ruling clans of Ryloth. She then assumed control of the planet and was leeching the profits of Ryll mining she reorganized into a system where the dissenters of her ideals as well as human slaves were forced to labor – all that under the guise of the Diversity Alliance[6][7], what Tarkona founded as and presented to the outside world as a peaceful aliens-first movement, not unlike its alleged ideological antecedent, the late Alien Combine.

As was traditional custom at a government shift the co-councilors of the discharged or deceased member of the Head clan were expected to go to the planet’s lethally arid Bright Lands to meet their certain deaths – yet another bastardization of ancient customs forced by an aggressor. Tarkona has extended this tradition to be observed for the entire cabinet and advisory board. Arali instead of going to the Bright Lands sent an illusory likeness of herself and that of as much Twi’lek councilperson she could possibly figment a duplicate of to be seen as leaving the city for the wasteland. She then arranged for hiding the survivors at her clan’s holdings in Lessu. When Nolaa Tarkona found her eventually alive, Arali persuaded her to let her live and told her that she does support the Diversity Alliance and its ideal for attaining duly equal standing for non-human races in the galaxy, that she was immensely interested in cooperation and mutual advancement in a diverse racial community, and that "it was about time that someone of such acumen and charisma came forward to promote an endeavour like this". These statements held varying degree of honesty, as Arali knew well how Nolaa operated Ryll mining on the planet with forced labor by human captives. The mining operation was practically wrenched out of the Olan clan's administration but the Diversity Alliance – similarly to the Imperial administration one generation before them – could not make do without their ages-long effective management and many officers of the clan were allowed to fulfill their former functions. Arali was in truth disgusted to find out about the Diversity Alliance's anti-human and terrorist agenda and in secret she continually provided information about the organization to the New Republic Senate and even the New Jedi Order through her previous connections. Ironically these same connections were also the reason why Tarkona didn't question her word and competence – at the time expecting to whip up funds using the young Olan's contacts in the galactic capital.

Arali secretly cooperated with the former Twi'Lek Head clan councilor, Kur who got rescued from his banishment to the arctic wastes of Ryloth's far-Nightlands by Jacen Solo  and Tenel Ka – also on the run from Nolaa Tarkona – and she has been secretly relaying anonymous news and reports of the Diversity Alliance keeping human slave miners and of stocking up weapons to wage war on the New Republic abroad. Later both Arali and Kur were present during a New Republic Senate inspection on Ryloth to investigate the truth about the above mentioned reports. When word of this reached Tarkona, she ordered one of her trusted friends, the Devaronian Kambrea, to entertain the inspection team and cover up the evidence of the Diversity Alliance's shady operations and aggression. The inspection came across the dark secrets of the Diversity Alliance nevertheless and the situation quickly escalated into a firefight but eventually Kur stepped forward and convinced everyone to lay down their arms. About this same time Tarkona was engaged in another firefight with a mixed force of Jedi and New Republic operatives at the asteroid hiding the Emperor's Plague Storehouse in the Deep Core. Multiple plague canisters were damaged and were leaking both human and Twi'lek specific plagues and their inevitable spread was only thwarted by the sacrifice of the Human merchant and shipping tycoon named Bornan Thul (the original mediator of buying the coordinates to the storehouse's asteroid). Tarkona fled the site with the help of her Wookie ally, Raabakyysh never to be heard of again.

In the aftermath the people of Ryloth appointed Kur as head of government. As one of his first acts in office, Kur sent two delegates to the New Republic Senate, one male Twi'lek, Cola Quis and one female Twi'lek, Arali Olan[8].


Xenopsychology journalism[]

The shared experience of serving under Tarkona's Alliance which originally might have concerned itself with providing a unified forum and a quasi advocacy organization apparently have provided Arali with ample pool of contacts that later proved to be cooperative in partaking xenophychological studies conducted and periodically published later on by her to recognized and prestigious professional periodicals. She was especially interested in how other species view themselves, others and the notion of community, and values regarding community and connection and was known for co-authoring theses and for participating in the conduction of research of 'bilateral' and 'multilateral' nature.


The Yuuzhan Vong Invasion[]

Arali was the diplomatic aide of the Senator Cola Quis right from his inauguration in 24 ABY. By the time the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy commenced in 25 ABY[9] she held the legislator rank of Legate in the New Republic Senate. Following the Fall of Coruscant, along with Quis, she managed to reach Dac (Mon Cala) in the Outer Rim Calamari System , where the New Republic regrouped.

Due to the martyr death of the Chief of State, Borsk Fey'lya, a new campaign to choose a new Chief of State has began. Senator Quis however initially receiving a good lead eventually dropped out of the race as the Alderaan Senator, Cal Omas promised to name him as the chairman of the Commerce Council and give mid-level ministry jobs to several of his friends, and an office of the Kellmer Institute of Galactic History for Ryloth[10] in exchange for his support base. Arali advised Quis to accept the deal as she already was a proponent of the establishment of the institute.

During this time of strife Arali however put aside her political endeavors and decided to aid the New Republic military's efforts alongside the scientists of the Extragalactic Society to support intelligence and 'gray psy-ops' measures. During the invasion she was residing on Dac, but her efforts connected her with Borleias, what became the New Republic's stronghold and main frontline during the upcoming five-years war. Her personal work involved environmental psychology assessments chiefly based on Danni Quee's reports from the journey along with several Jedi to the occupied Coruscant where these field scientists were to investigate the effects of its 'Vongforming'. Extrapolating Quee's assessments with those gathered through outsourced survey data, coming in from military personnel engaging in first-hand contact (i. e. armed conflict) with Yuuzhan Vong troops, and establishing psychometric profiles and larger 'Vong behavioral charts thereof were of key importance in revealing patterns in the invaders' battle tactics to be used in preparation in upcoming battles against them. Among the chief findings was that Yuuzhan Vong seemed to be communicating through a channel on which information was disseminated and distributed along a system resembling organic synapses and also that the invaders had a quaint yet sifnificant aversion of droids, machnery, and electric technology in general.

A number of Olan's behavioral findings and Quee's understanding of Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology were incorporated to the New Republic intelligence's intentionally vague Starlancer Project that acted as a major decoy to hold the attention of the baffled Vong military with its fraudulent bioengineering marvel, with the surprise it gave to the enemy the defenders could take a much needed advantage in the resistance. The whole project was based on the maxim of deception – what Arali has found being a rather ambivalent and repressed quality for the invaders.

A much more practical finding was that the chains of behavior revealed the key importance of Yammosks in driving/pushing mainstream Yuuzhan Vong military tactics and relaying command. Arali postulated that somehow interrupting these creatures would greatly disorient the invaders as their communication and command infrastructure they seem to heavily rely on will be compromised. Why the theory was solid there had to be a way yet to locate Yammosks and to dirsupt their communication. To these very problems the scientist Danni Quee aided by the Mon Calamari Jedi Master Cilghal were already trying hard to find the answers for. Their tracking and research led to the subsequent development of the Gravitic Amplitude Modulator technologies that were able to interfere with the gravity field signals of the living battle coordinators – coming as a huge surprise to the invaders who were disarrayed and were easily defeated in conflicts were these modulators got employed. The Yuuzhan Vong had to adapt their biotic technology to circumvent a sudden setback and for a time the New Republic military gained the upper hand in the war.


A pioneer of 'Vong psychology'[]

During the years of the galactic conflict, as more information on the Yuuzhan Vong society was gained chiefly due to a few defectors and freed captives – of whom perhaps the most in/famous was Tahiri Veila – Arali learned of the 'Jeedai heresy' movement of the Shamed Ones and their alleged prophet Yu'shaa. After the the living planet Zonama Sekot arrived into known space and turned the tide of the destruction first by ushering the Shamed Ones against their betters as they saw it as the divine redemption offered to them, and by the resolution of this internal conflict ultimately pacifying the Yuuzhan Vong. Arali admitted in a xenopsycology conference that "It might have been easier to disarm the invaders and even it might have been possible to mitigate lost lives by the billions if we have understood their sentiments better. That way we might have learnt of the religious schism that centered on a repressed self-deception and has been the source of their drive for seeking redemption in conquest and destruction, ignoring rather than rejecting redemption delivered through tolerance and acceptance. We could have realized that they were in need of healing, but even then only they could heal themselves. What we could do was to help. And in a way we did. We stood against their fever – both in feeding and quelling it. Now we have to learn very hard lessons from everything we experienced."

After peace has returned to the galaxy Arali became a distant collaborator a team that remained to observe further field studies on the live planet of Zonama – still led by Quee – as she was very interested with any possible findings that was on the planet to collect while deeming it a necessary distance that she actually did not reside on the sentient world herself in the first stages of her planned research. She paid visits every once in a while nonetheless. Study of the entity of 'Sekot' and a number other extragalactic sentience was a huge step forward into uncharted territories and unprecendented extents in xenopsychology, and it reaped due professional renown for her as one of the pioneerd of those particular fields of study.

Quee's team of scientists however soon claimed that Olan essentially just published materials that they themselves have collected and filed over the years but she refuted the accusations in stating that she merely used such documentations of findings pertaining to her field of academic discipline only to corroborate her own theories and rhetoric alone. Although the academia leaned to Arali's side in the matter of this feud concerning the wrongfully accused plagiarism – as it recognized her work years prior in extrapolating findings from source data with the psychological and behavioral patterns that were undeniably her genuine 'intellectual property' – her disposition with the field scientists on Zonama dropped significantly and conclusively she had to rely on personally conducted or separately outsourced studies thereafter. In attempts to ameliorate the situation Olan has voiced her personal respect for the young human scientist's accomplishments saying that "Danni Quee deserves not only scientific recognition on her own but also as a proper war hero." Quee and her team however commented that "Olan speaks just like a politician".


Senatorial service[]

As the Yuuzhan Vong invasion concluded and as the newly founded Galactic Federation of Free Alliances' stengthening government has outgrown the infrastructure and provisions of Dac, it has moved to the ecumenopolis planet of Denon. Arali has too returned to politics and soon found herself as the appointed senator of the Ryloth System. She held the office from 27 ABY as the successor of Senator Quis whose new duties required him presiding over the Commerce Council.

She became elected as galactic senator of the whole Gaulus Sector after the Galactic Alliance and the Yuuzhan Vong signed a peace treaty in 29 ABY and the galactic government was transferred back to the expeditiously rebuilt Coruscant.

Ryll re-appropriation reforms[]

In office, her primary arrangements were the slavery reduction measures on Ryloth what she ensured by the raising of technology import to the Ryloth System and by the increase of research and production industry by diplomatic agreements with the Thyferran Vratix and a host of other pharmaceutical, medical and gene-therapy companies – of course, with the solid backing of her senatorial predecessor, Chairman Quis of the Commerce Council. Senator Olan also persuaded and convinced the Galactic Alliance Senate and even the New Jedi Order to support and aid Ryloth in purging corruption and other nefarious practices from the planet’s star docks such as the 'Slavers Camp' in Kala’uun Starport, to what end she utilized among others the argument that "no proper office of the prestigious Kellmer Institute can take root in a conniption- and crime-infested world."

Another important accopmlishment of her was that she fostered by lawful and also barely lawful ways the Twi’lek overtaking of the whole Ryll mining and export businesses coupled with enhancing the species self-protecting militant organizations and by acquiring exclusive legal rights for the planet’s own resources. Senator Arali Olan always tried her best to assert the interests that she supposed are being or becoming for the benefit of her people. She acquired legal rights to create an organized utilization of Ryll, strictly for medical purposes. This was her greatest achievement and her most important campaign. She worked closely together with a staff of professional lobbyist and lobbying professionals and negotiated henceforth often with Chiewab Amalgamated Pharmaceuticals, Merisee Prime Pharmaceutical, the Bacta Cartel and probably with other pharmaceutical and medical companies as well. She agitated and solicited major investments involving the Ryll research, what resulted in the founding of the PharmaRyll Corporation consisting of PharmaRyll Systems (distribution and logistics), MediRyll Pharmaceuticals (drug industry), and Rylltech Incorporated (medical research). Her grown leverage on this field earned her some control over medical research on a galactic political level in due course. At the apex of her influence she was a large presence at the Science and Technology Council of the Senate considering her control over regulatory policies of medical drugs and spices she became especially resourceful at passing though the Policy and Resources Council.

Zonama worksops[]

Senator Olan was also a chief voice in the Senate for amnesty and rehabilitation of the Yuuzhan Vong species, and had a genuine interest (in light of her personal profession being a xenopsycologist) to both help them to find their place in the galaxy and to learn from them while embracing diversity. Following visits to Zonama Sekot and numerous meetings with its quasi native Yuuzhan Vong and immigrated Ferroan and Langhesi inhabitants at initially government-funded "xenopsycology workshops intended to foster a better understanding between the Zonaman and Vong species and the galaxy's natives" Senator Olan brought the incentive to devise organic and part-organic technologies using minerals and plant life as a possible common ground to build good relations on. Her efforts were heavily criticized, understandably, by the Techno Unionon and its various clients and sympathizers. This led to the eventual revoking of the project's government funding. Following that she personally funded further workshops nevertheless and even bought an organic ship manufactured on the planet that was telepathically connected to her. Although she was bound by an oath of secrecy to Sekot that didn't really stop her from publishing essays and articles based on organic mental entanglements.

Dealing with slavery[]

Her ventures gradually positioned her into antagonistic order with both Hutt interests, as both the spice and slave resources where historically exploited by them using millennia-old contracts – including "the practice of the traditional arranged marriage called 'Vassij'ra' in Twil'leki that was bastardized into what became a factual slave-trade agreement according to which the first-born daughters – on in lack of such, sons – were traded to the other party in order to ensure the further virtual independence of Ryloth. What the planet as a whole 'enjoyed' for millennia under the so-called 'protection' of the Hutt cartels". Much of Senator Olan's endeavor was to break this hold on her people and thus she gradually earned herself considerable enmity from the Hutt cartels.

She was firmly against the custom of slave trade and slavery, of course not limited to but given greater attention to where Twi’leks were involved, and spoke out and did as much as she could against it. She however was not naïve and understood, that some parts of the galaxy's economy were dependent on salve-labor to be even feasible, and that a galactic-level abolition would possibly if not surely bring greater strife to both galactic and local economies. She personally believed and stated that "the legal condition of 'indentured service' is a significant improvement over slavery, as the former is a contract between two persons, while the latter is an ownership status between proprietor and property." Saying that with official capacity deeply surprised and even shocked many if not all of her anti-slavery lobby allies (what also meant: some of her suddenly former lobby allies).

She considered slaving raids, slave breeding and brutality still unacceptable of course and expressed that it must be criminalized. She emphasized the notion that professed that aside form the afore-mentioned measure addressing the issue of "slavery and its impact on society and economy can only be resolved locally and that a central government can only help in providing the legal framework for its favorable implementation".

She has been drawing public attention to how she herself was handling the matter in the Ryloth System and pronounced that "Twi’leks outside their home world must become and/or strive to become businessmen, politicians and professional entertainers... (according to her unofficial comments "for astronomical fees") ...instead of being articles of property". A great deal of PharmaRyll's products were advertised being usable to treat posttraumatic stress disorders or as psychologically rehabilitizing supplements. She personally funded a school and Institute of Performed Arts at Kala’uun Starport in place of the 'Slaver’s Camp' what was wiped out by her machinations and its maintenance was bestowed upon the Shak clan as 'indentured service' – "an opportunity of repentance" following their prosecution for the Ryll scams against the 'New' Republic and crimes against their own people".

Attempted assassination[]

Arali had strong opinions and often dared to speak what was on her mind, wich gave her a number of allies and enemies as well. Some interests – likely Hutt cartels and/or slaver guilds or conspiracies behind either – went so far as hiring sniper hitmen to shoot and attempting to kill her with a recently outlawed (including Olan's vote) disruptor riffle aimed at her forehead in 32 ABY. Only her alertness and presence of mind seemed to have saved her as she managed to tumble away from the disruption ray with what reports from witnesses described as 'uncanny alertness and unexpected speed'. After the incident she was facing criticism for hiding her alleged precognitive abilites many fellow politicians were considering duplicitous, unfair or even insidious. To dampen the unfavorable narrative she admitted that she is "indeed Force-sensitive to an extent that involves some extrasensory awareness and cogency." Adding with a laugh, that "just so to settle the matter at hand that truly seems to intrigue most, as of late: in no way am I able mind-read and let alone mind-control anybody. Anything I have possibly ever manifested certainly do not merit me as anything that is on par with an adept of the Force."

Pop cultural significance[]

Following the assassination attempt Senator Olan was often – if not always – being seen wearing a headpiece or helmet that became a trademark associated with her. Its encased violet gem was rumored to be some a sort of spiritual charm. She did not quite becoming less outspoken after the incident but even despite not everybody has always shared her sentiments on all the matters she has been voicing became more increasingly popular public figure in the following decade. Her image complete with the iconic headpiece started a life on its own. While she was entirely serious about whatever she said Senator Olan also incorporated the informal in o her narrative, turning a spin and building on her newfound position of pop-cultural significance complete with not merely toleraing and welcoming, but assimilating even the comical side of the message – along the realizations in the past that even unintentional representation is still repesentation. Senator Olan – the real person and the holo cartoon figure – represented a voice conscience, inclusiveness, idealized connection, a proponent of amnesty, the subject of being-made-fun-of for spoofing Ryll based supplements and advertising them without even actually trying. She herself felt revitalized by allowing herself to take a step back and seeing her role in a perspective where she was not only available to create a positive spin from either warm or cold commentary but where she was appropriating the phenomenon.

Her senatorial term in office ended only in 41 ABY with the first fragmentation of the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. After that she held the credentials of the Ambassador at Large of Ryloth and played an unchanged role in the governance of the galactic flux of Ryll pharmaceuticals.


Rylltech exploits[]

Lightweight legality[]

Or Tuma was the outermost planet orbiting the star Ryloth in the Ryloth system. A frozen terrestrial world, barely habitable by conventional definitions, was only inhabited by a few Twil'lek colonists that decided to escape the extremities of Ryloth's weather conditions. The investors of Rylltech Inc. built remote hot labs in isolated locations across the planet's surface. These facilities were used for research too dangerous or controversial to be performed elsewhere, and where all legalized by the star system's galactic senator, Arali Olan who also held significant sway over the drugs, medicines and healthcare products regulatory affairs of the Science and Technology Council, and on grounds of these well-aligned factors the result was that the Galactic Alliance Senate was eventually providing a unique status to the world (Or Tuma) where basic galactic regulations and even customs laws were relaxed in order to pursue advanced scientific and medical research.

Medical research[]

Certain experiments conducted in Rylltech Inc. laboratories resulted developing a Ryll-based compound that as per introduced to nervous tissue in a certain form of treatment – initially tested on short-lived non sentient species – very slightly raised the Midi-chlorian count of those subjects, which in turn positively contributed to overall health and even provided a somewhat extended lifespan but developing an addiction to the compound. This was somewhat expected as most kinds of Ryll-based drugs usually shared the same addictiveness wee documented in professional literature. Failing to meet the demand on the amount of the substance for a subject that developed the addiction resulted substantial Midi-chlorian count drop in short notice followed by overall numbness and mental enervation inflicted by the nervous system's self-reconditioning. The symptoms faded only slowly with time in context with the amount and extent of the previous administering periods of the treatment. Introducing more than the required amount of the substance caused mental disorders, and nerve system burnouts. The alleged 'right amount' was the only slightly but an ever-increasing portion of the Ryll compound. Careful administration of doses provided a lasting, yet not substantial benefit on one's health and also possible induced Force-sensitivity, but the production of the substance was too expensive to undertake its further development.

The experiments were eventually ordered to be discontinued by the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances' Commissioner for Victuals and Drugs with permission given only to evaluate its final results to a safe level. Officially the research was abolished with the non-sentient test subjects released, who then eventually deceased of old age and/or natural causes, while sapient patients having went through withdrawal treatment with documented success. Notes and files were classified, allegedly turned into the hands of the eventual Joint Chief of State, Jacen Solo.

Unofficially the compound was used by the clergy of Kika Lekki, the Twil'leki goddess in religious ceremonies that was not prohibited by any galactic act. There were speculations that the clergy somehow might have had a way in circulating it and with repeated anointment ceremonies might have used it to enhance Ryloth's homeworld defense military personnel and that also that the temple healers might have made it available in the planetwide internal medical care system. Senator Olan however was only too eager to contract "certified independent compliance overview task forces to aggressively test lawful utilization, distibution, confiscation and destruction" who curiously were also usually only too happy to assist.

Converting controversy[]

Holo cartoon characters in likeness of Senator Olan have appeared on the HoloNet after 32 ABY and the character was an ongoing comic being a mouthpiece for providing unsolicited advertisement for quite some Ryll based supplements available for the public. This was to perpetuate a running joke that that the Senator is heavily soliciting the use and sales of the products. Senator Olan and PharmaRyll Corporation had states on numerous occasions that neither of them are behind the apparent commercials and even reported the less tame and evidently harmful and baseless ones. Eventually these holo cartoon skits of the Twi'lek senator became more tame and uniform and both Arali herself and the public relations team of PharmaRyll Corporation had welcomed the "free advertisement".


Post-term intergalactic politics[]

In 43 ABY Arali participated at the Unification Summit representing the Gaulus Sector and of course the Ryloth System, while also being invested with the trust of all those who wished the galaxy-wide slave revolts to come to the most favorable outcome regarding each party's interests with respect[11]. Ambassador Olan gave voice to her "concerns that the slave rebellions that recently arose in the galaxy are likely fomented riots, and although they are serious issues in their own right, they are likely the symptoms of of even more concerning mechanisms." Despite the accuracy of the theory the notion did not garner much heed and might have been even marginalized as doomsaying in an already grim climate.

The theory however proved to be not just accurate but being the factual reality – as later the Imperial-Alliance-conspiracy what became also known as the Lecersen conspiracy was uncovered and Plan Delta was executed both with the aim (though not necessarily with the same focus) to depose Natasi Daala as Chief of State, who was then arrested for dishonorably abusing her powers and ordering unnecessary brutal intervention in resolving galactic issues leading to the establishment of the Triumvirate to govern the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances.


Implications of Aing-Tii lore[]

Since their first mention of the Aing-Tii in the essay of the then Jedi Knight Jacen Solo published by Tionne Solusar, the report fascinated Arali, and she rightfully suspected that there was more to these aliens than the young knight cared to tell. Then In 43 ABY when Luke Skywalker and his son Ben traveled to the Kathol Rift, hoping to learn more about what caused Jacen Solo's fall to the dark side of the Force they were said to be learning interesting things, yet they also deemed their research inconclusive and left. Arali thought that "the reverend Jedi Master might have been simply focused onto a too narrow content to see the greater context." Pronouncing that, she then personally made the journey herself through the Rift to learn more of the elusive Aing-Tii. What she did learn had huge implications not just in context with xenopsychology but also for spirituality and the Twi'leki faith. The cult of Kika'Lekki was humbled and refreshed by the Aing-Tii's point of view on the multicolored nature of the Force – inevitably drawing analogues with the ancient beliefs in the origins of Twi'lek pigmentation and spiritual customs tied to 'caste'.

Arali's theories and approach in xenopsychology represented and formed the backbone of a stong school in this applied mental science, and even if publications from her started to appear with a decreasing frequency in due course on the scene of active studies and recent publications in professional holos her works became one of the most cited materials for the upcoming generation of this academic discipline.


Later life[]

Arali after resigning from galactic-level public service returned to the Ryloth System to pursue her academic and scientific endeavors on her homeworld.

She never ceased to root out slaving groups wherever any of them showed up on Ryloth and it is safe to say that during the course of one century after her rise in political power she changed her homeworld's main export from raw Ryll drug, slaves and prostitutes to that of legally mined, processed, and distributed Ryll-products, and educated and well-trained businesspeople, attorneys and professional entertainers. Despite the shifting and often turbulent galactic political climate of the 120s and 130s ABY, Ryloth and its newfound pharmaceutical interests were not damaged in any significant measure.

Although the de-juris leaders of Ryloth were Twi'lek Clan Council – by tradition with only males sitting in Council – Arali held significant sway over them, although only indirectly nudging decision-making through either or both the temple and corporate interests.

Arali also seemed to possess an impressive lifespan. Even in 138 ABY when the Second Imperial Civil War draw to its end with the formation of the Galactic Federation Triumvirate, and even for several centuries to come Arali's signature was prominent on the credentials of the newly delegated diplomats and later (if any official) senators of the Ryloth System to the subsequent imperial and federate Galactic Senates what suggested that she maintained a lasting presence in her homeworld's galactic policy. PharmaRyll contracts were still often signed by her legal staff even after she retired from public service and public life.

Arali took on a spiritual lifestyle in her late years deepening her faith in the benevolent Twi'lek goddess, Kika'Lekki.


Appearance[]

Arali had purple skin, golden eyes and usually applied silvery body paint along her lekku which she later gradually replaced with electrum hues as she aged.

Arali possessed a face as handsome and a body as lissome as it could be generally expected from her species. Her relatively large golden eyes gleamed with an intellectual serenity –whenever it was to be seen– but also with the pinning glance of a scholar of the mind. Her features became sharper with age, especially when reaching over 140 years of age, but she showed no traditionally expected signs of age, like deep wrinkles, loosened skin, or any significant change in posture. She was very lean built, especially when she became old, much in contrast with the image the corpulent Twi’lek senators of the late Galactic Republic presented to the public earlier in the galaxy's history.

She often avoided displaying much flesh, as she half-humorously and half-sternly said: "However catchy the package may be, everyone is better be more interested with the content."

Lekku[]

Perhaps her most striking physical feature was an additional pair of lekku next to, or more precisely below the ordinary ones. Four lekku –a rarity– according to medical literature was observed to develop usually on male Twi'leks who possessed a great degree of excess body weight that allowed them to develop an anterior set of fatty lekku from the thick brows common in the species males. In Twi'lek culture this was considered as a sign of power and/or virility. The condition was however not observed among females of the species. Arali's smaller lekku cetainly did not develop because of body weight expansion, and with their posterior position this certain anatomical condition was considered a genetic anomaly (not unlike the red skin pigmentation of lethan Twi'lek). Kivas, the priests of the clergy of Kika'Lekki regarded it as a mark of the goddess and was seen as a boon to the society gifted with such a member. Her additional lekku were vestigial compared to the mass of the ordinary ones but developed at the same time and rate nonetheless.

In the time of her youth, her clan regarded her uncommon appearance as a potential threat making her very likely as an appealing subject to be taken intoslavery. For this reason they advocated the concealment of her smaller lekku outside of family holdings. Later in her life however, once she established a relatively safe autonomous living on Coruscant, and continually after that, she put little effort to hide her lekku anymore. To the point that she deliberately refused to wear the sorts of Twi-lek headgear prevalent both off-world and on Ryloth. This partly stemmed of the prosaic reason that prêt à porter and in general customary pieces were ill-adjusted to her extraordinary cranial anatomy, but was also as much a personal philosophical statement – that a Twi'lek is not to be forced to ascribe to the expectations of the "hegemony of human high-culture" by trying to virtually adjust one's anatomy to emulate "human cephalic sectioning". She was also multiple times recorded using snide remarks while referring to customary Twi'lek headgear such as "head-panties" and "lek-thong".

As a diplomat and especially during her relatively long senatorial term she was famous for wearing her lekku in elaborate styles. For example one large lek and the opposing small one often twisted around her neck, while the other large lek let loose on her back and the small one tucked forward to deck her décolletage.

Arali olan 2

Senator Arali Olan wearing her iconic headpiece during a holocam record by HO5.

Headpiece[]

Following her attempted assassination, during her later terms and after her senatorial service she was often seen – especially outdoors, and while traveling – wearing a very characteristic mask-like headpiece made of transparisteel and adorned with a single violet gem encased. It was barely translucent form the outside, but gave a clear, and possibly enhanced sight from the inside. Evidently, if the need ever arose it could be even converted into a functional space-helmet and breather as well, as it was large enough to house and protect all of her lekku.

The headpiece became a signature of Senator Olan and various depictions of her wearing the distinctively shaped helmet was widely used on the HoloNet in context of public and social commentary often in terms of impersonating the senator to give commentary on matters as the creators of the holo animations believed she would. Arali herself was alarmed by the spread of this cultural phenomenon but quickly realized that embracing and even endorsing it will deliver her a very useful outlet that spins along her message.


Personality[]

Arali Olan was a well-mannered and generally soft-spoken woman, but if it was needed she could be quite ruthless. She was a pragmatic person and sometimes she relayed on her strong suggestive powers, but she never turned out to be a selfish manipulator despite she was the mastermind behind the PharmaRyll and its Ryll monopoly, what finally resulted a handsome profit and constant source of credits for her home world.

Senator Arali Olan disdained the lifestyle of her former predecessors the decadent Chom Frey Kaa and Orn Free Taa. She perfectly understood their position though, including the fact that they paraded with Twi’lek females similarly as did any slaving crime lords. She knew that the corpulent and corrupted senators actually did their best to keep Ryloth safe from further suffering and exploitation by aligning their and their System's interests with that of the Hutt. She believed however that what and how her older predecessors did represent was the very display of what was rotten within the "Old" Republic.

She was firmly against the custom of slave trade and slavery, especially which ones involved Twi’leks, and spoke out and did as much as she could against it. She however was not naive and understood, that some parts of the galaxy's economy were dependent on salve-labor to be even feasible, and that a galactic level abolition would possibly if not surely bring greater strife to both galactic and local economies. She personally considered transforming slavery in to the legal condition of "indentured service" a significant improvement – much to the surprise and shock of her anti-slavery lobby allies. Regardless of what others thought or publicly projected she went on with her way to alleviate unacceptable conditions and improve them on a macro scale – with or without help, in the face of divided opinions or even so amidst adversity.

She had an inquisitive personality and a caustic mind, which she only bridled for any extent and for the time when she was officially acting and being in public. She was often sarcastic in humor and despite her veneer of intricate subtlety and soft-spoken presentation of mind sometimes brutally straightforward, even outright ruthless in matters of diplomacy.

Senator Olan was a patron of the arts. Tyrian Twi'leks were naturally draw towards aesthetics. They possessed an artistic sense and often followed artistic pursuits. Not being anything unlike that, Arali enjoyed attending concertos, theater, musical and dance performances. She was also a great admirer and even collector of fine art as well. She insisted to incorporate performed arts into every education curriculum on Ryloth, with the goal building excessively cultured youth who can become professional entertainers and/or artist themselves, and during her term as senator continually arranged means of cultural exchange, scholarships and programs for the people of Ryloth to nearly every possible destination of worth throughout the galaxy, inciting Art-tourism on a galactic level.

Arali was noted for her welcoming humor especially as she consciously chose to give the wink to the holo cartoons that unmistakably used her likeness to actually make a parody of her, but Senator Olan not just too the criticism well but actually capitalized on the running joke that was made in her image, to the point were she rolled with it and kind of appropriated it herself – what only made her more relatable in the eyes of the public.

In retrospect she considered her political and public service career as an important premier stage and being useful only for so long as it garnered the resources in connections and filled up assets in kind whereupon she was revealed to valued her personal independence and privacy above almost anything else – what then she could finally afforded for herself as she and more precisely her retainers all under the employ of Rylltech possessed of such an obscenely large galactic leverage that some accounts claimed that as a whole, in the later years of the Legacy Era, the PharmaRyll Corporation had a net worth rivaling the creditworthiness of any of the Alliance industrial and commerce guilds.

Despite that, Arali cared little for exerting her power and preferred to work through her agents who were either ideologically or financially bonded with her. She supposedly made expenditures to be considered luxury, but she believed that those were tools that served a specific purpose for her or were for nigh-limited publicity or for posterity. Customized communication droid, spacecrafts and her eco-dome villa – respectively

She was sometimes called Aola (meaning "flower" in Twi'leki) by close friends – as per the capitalized letters condensed from her actual name: AraliO'LAn.


Relatives and Associates[]

Siolo2

Siolo Valla with Senator Olan in background

  • The Olan clan was her extended family on Ryloth, mostly based in Lessu, one of the two capitals of the planet. It was an influential and relatively wealthy clan (Olan meaning "rich" in Twi'leki) with ties to mining and to ceremonial and cultural institutes. Since the clan itself was largely composed of Tyrian and Darian Twi'lek – also known as "music" and "stone" Twi'lek, respectively, also both being above-world polulations – artistic expression was just as significantly present as hands-on geologic knowledge or business savvy in the Olans' daily life. The clan had a disproportionally large count of capita in the Sesk'bumat caste, offering much charismatic persons who had a natural proclivity for synchronizing the agendas of various groups of people, for adminiatsration and also have been wise enough to provide refreshing events to keep up good morale.
  • Cazne Olan was the actual clan leader during Arali's youth and throughout her young adulthood.
  • Firith Olan was a disowned family member who was a minor crime boss active on Tatooine.
  • Kur was a Twi'lek statesperson, a wise and charismatic leader of the people to whom Arali has looked up and saw him as a role model, especially regarding her own political career.
  • Siolo Valla was Senator Olan's diplomatic aide. A Rutian Twi’lek, who was a pharmacologist of xenomedicine by trade. Rumor had it that their relationship was mor than merely professional – they however did not express affection for another publicly, at least.


Notable assets[]

However Arali did not dismiss the luxury usually accruing to a galactic senator, generally she tried to live moderately and was know for her temperance.

  • Senator Arali Olan had an apartment in the Ambassadorial Sector in the Senate District of Coruscant, actually where the late Senate Apartment Complex and 500 Republica used to be before the Yuuzhan Wong terraformation of the planet and the following rebuilding of Galactic City. The apartment was accessed via a turbolift on the exterior of the building, rising up to a small reception room. From here, visitors were welcomed into the main room sporting immense transparisteel windows and a central lounge area. It was crossed by a passage which at one end led into the study and work rooms and at the other end led to Arali’s private quarters. An open-air veranda with adjacent balcony was also available. The senatorial suite was tastily decorated. It displayed many of the oddly beautiful luminescent crystalline plant life of the Nightlands of Ryloth.
  • Her personal consular space-vessel was a Nubia Star Drives Incorporated manufactured yacht. Once she earned a hefty sum of money from the pharmaceutical business contracts, she called a tender for Twi’lek artists and designers to contribute plans that evoke the class of the old Nubian yachts but are amalgamated with a generous Twi'leki touch, and than the new ship was built by the successor of the original factory. The result was the Twilight-class Nubian Yacht named Ayy’lekki (meaning "Starry leks" in Twi'leki).
  • Following visits to post-war Zonama Sekot and numerous meetings with Yuuzhan Vong, Ferroan and Langhesi inhabitants, Senator Olan brought the incentive to devise organic and part-organic technologies using minerals and plant life during what was initially government-funded xenopsychology workshops. Not quite unlike the Sekotan ships produced by the late Zonama Sekot Shipbilders , the Aster cruiser emerging from the workshops' design was telepathically linked to Arali and took the shape of a coat of spiraling ceramic-like petals folding on and fused to one another complemented with large elastic leafs as a sort of sails. She had to swear an oath of utmost secrecy to Sekot.
  • She planned and ordered a unique, spherical diplomatic mediation and protocol droid from Cybot Galactica, of which company she was a key account manager during her time at the Schaum Assoc. many years ago. OH5 was programmed exactly like the protocol droids of the time and had a masculine programming (with 1+1 photo-UV-heat sensor, audio sensor and olfactory sensor, translator unit, audio recorder unit, multiple holoprojectors, and one holocamera recorder unit as well, followed by vocabulator, SyntheTech AA-1 Verbobrain combined with the fabulous TranLang III Communications module allowing over six million forms of communication, and finally a restraining bolt module.) Programmed to emulate male personality, he was not anthropomorphic, instead he had a levitating, spherical body of five interconnectable and separable parts, golden exterior with a bright violet sensor in the middle. His body could split in to a "head", two "torso" parts, and two manipulator "hands", each of these five parts having a dedicated repulsorlift support. (Hence the number 5 in his name.) This modularity allowed him to holo-project and take on every virtual shape he needed to, making him able to take on literally any sort of holographic form, wich feat was very useful in cross-species metacommunication to which Arali – as a xenopsychologist – paid painstaking attention to to a fault. OH5 could also provide legal advices as he could be outfitted with a chip dedicated to such programing extension, often supporting or sometimes substituting Arali's aides as well.
  • After her resignment from public service she lived at a botanic villa in an eco-dome in the Ningtlands area on Ryloth which was in a reasonable proximity to the capital, Lessu, and also had a personal spaceport with swift-access to the Rylltech' 'hot labs' on Or Tuma. The villa was perceptually concealed and protected with deflector shields. Inside of the conjoined domes the structures were 'grown' from bioengeneered Ningtlands-fungi controlled through and fueled by cultivated Kyber crystals. This 'organic' architecture was designed in order to provide sustainable housing in the Nightlands' direction from the (still not weather-proof, yet the naturally most hospitable) relatively thin 'twilight zone of Ryloth, and with further advance on Or Tuma.


Force-realted abilities[]

Arali Olan was reported to use and presumed to possess a number of Force-related abilities. It must be noted though that her abilities rooted from mental origin and did not invested her with the agility and physical prowess of such Force Adepts as the Jedi or the Sith. She either needed keen concentration of will, strong presence of mind or clear meditation to manifest a power. On the other hand she was reportedly resistant to Force powers, especially to those of mental origin. She preferred not to display her unusual abilities, let alone overt powers in public, for she knew, that being a politician with telepathic abilities usually can easily present her as being morally and/or ethically questionable. Though she publicly admitted after an assault aimed at her in 32 ABY that she is in fact "Force-sensitive to an extent" she also claimed that "Anything I have possibly ever manifested certainly do not merit me as anything that is on par with being adept in the Force."

  • Spark – a relatively weak discharge capable to temporarily Stun organic life forms and Ionize electronic technology, including droids (overt)
  • Healing – enhanced cellular metabolism and regeneration to mend injuries to some extent (overt)


Behind the scenes[]

Arali's protective headpiece was inspired by the looks of Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite[1] from the Magic the Gathering collectible card game set, New Phyrexia from the Scars of Mirrodin block.

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References[]

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