Arali Olan

An Original Character of the Star Wars Legends brand continuity

Arali Olan (Alalio'lan)
Biographical information
Homeworld	Ryloth
Born	9 BBY
Physical description
Species	Twi'lek
Gender	Female
Height	5'4"
Eye color	Golden
Skin color	Purple
Chronological and political information
Era(s)	Rebellion era New Republic era New Jedi Order era Legacy era
Affiliation(s)	Galactic Alliance Senate

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

Next to her chief duty of representing her home system's and home sector's best interests she took effort to emphasize the importance of Ryloth to the Galaxy, 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. After her terms of service in office she still remained a diplomat and an active lobbyist during the era of the Galactic Federation Triumvirate. She was considered to be one of the most noteworthy xenopsychologists of her time.

Biography

Early life

She was born 9 BBY in Lessu, one of the two capitals of Ryloth to the relatively prominent Olan clan. It was 10 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 the Free Ryloth movement , a resistance movement led by Cham Syndulla, already a folk hero, who during the Clone Wars turned his political revolution into an armed resistance movement and formed the Twi'lek Resistance to combat the Separatist Alliance and liberate his world. About 5 years prior to Arali's birth the Free Ryloth movement started to disrupt the planet's spice production – in which one's dometstic regulation the Olan clan traditionally had great part –, fomented riots against Imperial rule that later became known as the Ryloth insurgency and continued on to 4 more years.

During these troubled times Arali displayed odd yet practical talents with the Force which her clan's leadership learned to encourage and favor. Force-sesitivity was not uncommon among Twi'lek but it still maifested rarely in 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 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.

Slave trade was integral part of the day and life on Ryloth since millennia. It was so prominent actually that it counted as currency. 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 to bring the two clans together. Hovever ever since slavery came to Ryloth the old custom was bastardized 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, and on the other hand they trusted her in that she will contact the clan later on.

Unsound outset on Coruscant

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. She later admitted with some shame that in order to survive she stole food and even valuables, often utilizing both psychokinesis and perception altering. Eventually these practices evaluated these talenets of her to solidly reliable abilities. 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 planets lower levels were somewhat less-then-endearingly called 'Twilighters' while in Twi'leki culture the twilight – with the only habitable rim on the tidally locked home planet was called the 'twilight realm' – had pretty positive connotations.

Early career and higher education

In the "galactic capital" Arali sought to find distant relatives, friends as her elders recommended that she possibly should. Eventually she found the Schaum/Yfarg/Welbig/Fabrico and Associates advertising agency and public relations firm. The company was owned by Twi'lek interests and operated out of both Ryloth and Coruscant. The Olan clan rejoiced that their daughter found a secure place to be on Coruscant. She worked at the client service department first as an assistant and used up much of her salary to pay rent as she by then lived near the corporate headquarters that was located in the Calocour Heights on Coruscant. She was proud that she made a living in the Calcour Heights, even if she rented only a larger room in an apartment owned by a retired and nearly financially broke female Gamorrean physician who formerly managed a public recreative healthcare institution and was allegedly wrongfully discharged for misappropriation of government funds.

She became relatively fast a key account manager for Cybot Galactica as the Shaum & Assoc. agency became aware of her "enhanced negotiating skills" (wich were supported by not infrequent use of minor mind tricks which ones manifested themselves in her with due course) proven to be useful luring back the important client after the infamously disastrous Blaster Proof advertising campaign. With to her more rewarding job she could afford the tuition fee to study galactic history and politology, sociology and psychology at the University of Coruscant.

Public service training on Yavin 4

When Arali needed professional practice for the university she 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 New Republic Intelligence Service (a.k.a. NRI) she applied to and was enrolled for one year training experience and she got aaigned to a project tied to the relatively newly formed Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4. Arali first was taksed to retieve intelligence data from the (by that time) obsolete Senate Planetary Intelligence Network (a.k.a. SPIN intelligence service) some years ago originally headquatered at the nearby village of Vornez and send the data back to the NRI. She also studied history and diplomacy from the Jedi masters but the New Jedi Order also allowed her train her telekinetic and mind-influencing abilities which ones she performed very well but displayed not too often. She was sent largely on missons 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. Her political ambitions firmly barred her from any direct involvment with the Jedi Order, as she was clearly made understood.

On returning to Coruscant Arali faced with the unofficial suspicion that ShaumAssoc is a credit laudering 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 laudering companies and slaver groups, ShaumAssoc was eventually never found guilty in the case, thus neither did it shadow Arali's professional 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. Shortly after that, the Twi'lek Noola Tarkona engineered a revolution that overthrew the ruling clans of Ryloth. She then assumed control of the planet and was leeching the ptofits of ryll mining she reorganizeed 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 Tarkona founded and presented to the outside world as a peaceful aliens-first movement, not unlike its alleged ideological predecessor, the late Alien Combine.

Arali along with many clan leaders and councilors was 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 agressor. Arali instead of going there sent an illusory image of herself and as much Twi’lek she could possibly figment a duplicate of with her concentration. Then she hid 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 galxy, that she was immensely interested in cooperation and mutual advancement in a diverse racial community, and that "it was about time that someone of [Nolaa's] acumen and carisma came forward to promote an edeavour like that". These statements held varying degree of honesty, as Arali knew well how Nolaa operated ryll mining on the planet. The operation was practically wrenched out of the Olan clan's administration but the Diversity Alliance still could not make do without their ages-long effective managment and many officers of the clan were left to fulfill their former funtions. Arali was in truth disgusted to find out the '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 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 however secretly cooperated with the Twi'Lek statesman and former clan head, Kur who got rescued from his banishment to the arctic wastes of Ryloth's far-Nightlands by 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 stocking up weapons to wage war on the New Republic abroad. Later both Arali and Kur were present during an New Republic Senate inspection on Ryloth to investigate the truth about the above 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 Alliance aggression. The inspection came across the darks secrets of the 'Aliiance nevertheless, and the situation quickly escalated into a firefight, yet Kur stepped forward and convinced everyone to lay down their arms. 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.

Xenopsychology journalism

The experiences of serving under Tarkoona's Alliance which originally might have concerned itself with providing a unified forum and a quasi advocacy organization apparently served as an ample pool of contacts that later proved to be cooperative in partaking xenophychological studies conducted and periodically published later on by Arali to recognized and prestigious professional periodicals.

Public Service to the New Republic during the Yuuzhan Vong War

Arali was the diploamtic 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 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 death of the Chief of State, Borsk Fey'lya, a new campaign to choose a new Chief of State began. Quis hovever 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 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 hovever put aside her political endeavours and decided to aid the New Republic military's efforts alongside the sientists 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 stonghold and main frontline during the upcoming five-years war. Her personal work involved environmetal pyschology assesments chiefly based on Danni Quee's reports from the journey along with several Jedi to the occupied Coruscant where the scentists 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 pychometric profiles and larger 'Vong behavioral patterns 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 gravitic resonance channels and also that they had a quaint aversion from droids, machnery, and electric technology in general.

A number of such of her behavioral findings and Quee's undestanding of '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 bioengeneering marvel, with the surprise it gave to the enemy the defeders could take a much needed advantage in the resisance. Also the mapped chains of behaviour that revealed the key importance of Yammosks in driving/pushing mainstream Yuuzhan Vong military tactics and relaying command contributed to the eventual development of the Gravitic Amplitude Modulator technologies that were able to interfere with the gravity field signals of the live battle coordinators were a huge surprise to the invaders giving them significant pause during wich they had to adapt their biotic technology and for a time the New Republic military gained the upper hand in the war.

A pioneer of 'Sekotan psychology'

During the years of the galactic conflict, as more information on the Yuuzhan Vong society was gained cheifly do to a few defectors and freed captives – of whom perhaps most famous being Tahiri Veila – Arali learnt 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 fist by ushering the Shamed Ones againts their betters as the saw it as the divine redemprion offered to them, and by the resolution of that internal conflivt ultimately pacifying the Yuuzhan Vong. Arali admitted in a xenopsycology onference that it had been much easier to incapacitate the invaders if they (the New Republic) have understood their reiligion better and had the means to fan the flames on the 'heresy'.

After peace returned to the galaxy. Arali became a distant collaborant of the team that remained to observe further field sudies still led by Quee as she was very interested with any possible findings that was on the planet to collect while being still uncomfortable with the notion of actually residing on the sentient world herself. She paid visits every once in a while nontheless. Study of the entity of 'Sekot' and a number other extragalactical sentience was a huge step forward into uncharted territories and unpecendented extents in xenopsychology, and it reapt due professional renown for her as a quasi pioneer of those particular fields of study.

Quee's team of sientists claimed that Olan essentially just published materials that they themselves devised over the decades but Arali refuted the accusations stating that she merely used the documentations of findings pertaining to her field of academic discipline only to corroborate her own theories and rethoric alone. Athough the academia leaned to her side in the matter of this wronfully accused plagarism – as it recognised her work in extrapolating findings from source data with the psycological and behavioral patterns undeniably being of her original invention – or maybe because of that, her disposition with the field sientists on Zonama dropped significantly and she had to rely on personally conducted studies therafter.

Senatorial service

As the Yuuzhan Vong invasion was stopped and as the newly hatched Galactic Federation of Free Alliances' stenghtening govenment that has outgrown the infrastructure and provisions of Dac moved to the ecumenopolis planet of Denon, Arali too returned to politics and soon found herself as appointed senator of the Ryloth System. She held the office from 27 ABY sucessing after Senator Quis as his new duties in office requried him presiding over the Commerce Council.

She became elected as galactic senator of the 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 from Denon.

In office, her primary arrangements were the slave trade reduction measures on Ryloth what she ensured by the raising of thecnology import to the Ryloth System and by the increase of research and production industy by diplomatic agreements with the Thyferran Vratix and a host of other pharmaceutical, medical and gene-therapy companies – of coures, with the solid backing of her senatorial predecessor, Chairman Quis of the Commerce Council. Senator Olan also persuaded and convinced the Senate of Galactic Alliance 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’un, tho what end she utilized among others, the argument that no proper office of the prestigious Kellmer Institute can take place in a conniption- and crime-infested world.

Another important accopmlishment of her was that she fostered by lawful and also less-than-lawful ways the Twi’leki 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 intersts that she supposed 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 colsely 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 in epecially considering her control over regulatory policies of medical drugs and spices she was especially resourceful at passing though the Policy and Resources Council.

Her ventures gradually positioned her into antagonistic order with 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 bastardized into what become a factual slave-trade agreement according to which 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 that the planet as a whole "enjoyed" for millennia under the so-called "protection" of the Hutt cartels. Much of  Senator Olan's endevour was to break this hold on her people and thus she gradually earned herself considerable enmity from the Hutt cartels.

Arali was 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 diversitiy. Following visits to Zonama Sekot and numerous meetings with its Yuuzhan Vong, Ferroan and Langhesi inhabitants at initally government funded so-called "xenopsycology workshops" inteded to foster a better understanding between the Vong species and the galaxy's natives Senator Olan brougth 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 ctiticized, understandably, by the Techno Corporation and its various clients and sympathizers. This lead to the eventual revoking of the projects government funding. Following that she personally funded futher 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 Zonama Sekot it did not really stop her from publishing essays and articles based on organic mental entanglements.

Her senatorial office ended only in 41 ABY with the first fragmentation of 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. In 43 ABY she 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 in to the most favorable outcome.

Rylltech exploits

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 while the system's senator, Arali Olan who also held significant sway over the drugs, medicines and healthcare products regulatory affairs of the Science and Technology Council, all that resulting in providing thus a unique status to the world where galactic regulations and even customs laws were relaxed in order to pusue advanced scientific and medical research.

Certain experiments conducted in Rylltech Inc. laboratories resuled 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-drugs usually had the same effect. Failing to meet the demand of the substance for a subject that developed the addiction resulted substantial Midi-chlorian count drop in short notice followed by overral 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 treatment. Introducing more than the required amount of the substace caused mental disorders, and nerve system burnouts. The alleged 'right amount' was an ever-incresing portion of the Ryll compound. Careful administration of doses provided a lasting, yet not substantial benefit on one's health and of course 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 Commissiner for Victuals and Drugs with the only permission to evaluate its final results to a safe level.

Officially the researsh was abolished with the nonsentient test subjects eventually died of old age and/or natural causes, while sapient patients succesfully went through withdrawal treatment. Notes and evidences were classified, allegedly turned in to the hands of the eventual Joint Chief of State, Jacen Solo.

Unofficially the compound was used to enhance Ryloth's homeworld defence military personnel and also used by the clergy and supposedly in the planet's internal medicine.

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 rightfully suspected 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 they were said to be learning interesting things yet 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 personally made the journey 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 pigmentetion and spiritual customs tied to 'caste'.

Arali's theroies and approach in xenopsychology represented and formed the backbone of a stong school in this applied mental science, and even if publishings from her ceased to appear with a growing 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.

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 politcal power she changed her homeworld's main export from raw Ryll drug, slaves and prostiutes to that of legally mined, processed, and distributed Ryll-products, and educated and well-trained businesspeople, attorneys and professinal 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 ower them, although in an informal an covert way.

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 delgated diplomats and later (if any official) senators of the Ryloth System to the subsequent imperial Galactic Senate what suggested that she maintined 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 lifestile 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 scolar 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 imige 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 develeop 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 nontheless.

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 into slavery. 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 pervalent 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 phylosophical statment – 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 cephallic sectioning". She was also multiple times recorded usige 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.

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

Headpiece

During her later terms and after her senatorial service she was often seen –especially outdoors, and while traveling– wearing a very characteristic mask-like hadpiece 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.

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 lifestile 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 acually did their best to keep Ryloth safe from further suffering and exploitation by aligning their and their System's interests with that of the Hutts and their cartells. 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 personally founded 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. She was a stern antagonist of slave trade, especially wich ones involved Twi’leks, and spoke out and did as much as she could against it. She insisted Twi’leks outside their home world must be businessmen, politicians and professional entertainers (according to her belief for astronomical fees) instead of being slaves to anyone. Also a great deal of PharmaRyll's products were well usable to treat posttraumatic stress disordes or were psychologically rehabilitizing supplements.

She however was not naive and understood, that some parts of the galaxy's economy were dependant on salve-labor to be even feasible, and she personally considered transforming slavery in to the legal contition of "indentured sevice" a significant improvement – much to the surprise or shock of her anti-slavery allies (and former 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.

Arali had strong opinions and never really hid what was on her mind, wich gave her a number of allies and enemies as well. Hutt cartels and slaver organisations went so far as hiring sniper hitmen to shoot and kill her with a recently outlawed (with her vote included) disruptor riffle aimed at her forehead. Only her alertness and presence of mind saved her, thumbling away from the disruprion ray with unnatural speed. After that she was facing criticism for hiding her alleged precognitive abilites. Since the assault she was often seen wearing the characterisic headpiece or helmet that became a hallmark associated with her. Its encased violet gem was rumored to be some sort of spiritual charm.

She had an inquisitive personality and a caustic mind, which she only briddled 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 weener of intricate subtlety and soft-spoken presentation of mind sometimes brutally straightforward, even outhright 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 in to every eduacation 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 desination of worth throughout the galaxy, inciting Art-tourism on a galactic level.

In retrospect she consideredher 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 fianally afforded for herself as she and more precisely her retainers all under the employ of Rylltech possessed of such an obcenely 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 creditworthyness of any of the Alliance industrial and commerce guilds.

Despite that, Arali cared little for exerting her power and prefered 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 – respactively

She was sometimes called Aola ( meaining "flower" in Twi'leki) by close friends - AraliO'LAn - as per the capitalized characters, was condensed from her actual name.

Relatives and Associates

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 realtively wealthy clan (Olan meaning "rich" in Twi'leki) with ties to Ryll mining and ceremonial 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 geoscience or busines 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 were natural in synchronizing others’ agendas and wise to provide refreshing events to keep up the high standards in productivity.

• Cazne Olan was the actual clan leader during her youth and younger adulthood.

• Firith Olan was a disowned family member who was a minor crime boss active on Tatooine.
• Kur was a Twi'lek statesperon a wise and charismatic leader of the people on whom Arali looked up ans treated as a role model for and in her political career.

• Cola Quis was her senatorial predecessor and employer as diplomatic aide, and they remained colleagues at the Galactic Alliance Senate.

• Siolo Valla was Senator Olan's diplomatic aide. A male Rutian Twi’lek, who was a pharmacologist of xenomedicine by trade. Rumor had it that theirs was not just a professional relationship – 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 Apartmet 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 brougth 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 telpathically 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 toward Zonama 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 holo-projectors, and one holocam 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 finnally 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 Nightlands area on Ryloth which was in a reasonable proximity to the capital, Lessu, and also had a pesonal 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 conjoied 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 the overt powers in public, for she knew, that being a politician with telepathic abilities usually can easly present her as being morally and/or ethically questionable.

• Force Sense
• Telepathy – with such aspescts as Empathy, and Meld
• Magnify Senses
• Comprehension
• Persuasion – a power used by Arali with subtlety, yet also relatively frequently
• Force of Will
• Subjugate
• Farsight
• Illusion – with Projections like Dopplegänger ^{(conditionally overt) –} Basic Alter Image ^(overt)

• Barrier ^(overt)
• Basic Telekinesis – as object or air current manipulation, buoyancy, slow fall ^{(overt) –} Telekinethic Strike ^(overt)

• 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 helmet was much inspired by the looks of Elesh Norn [1] from the Magic the Gathering collectable card game set, New Phyrexia.