I R WINAR! AGAIN!

First things first.

Mea Culpa. I have sullied my name by mispelling Pello's surname multiple times. In fact, there's so many variations in the databank entry that I can't even remember what the original correct spelling was.

So blame me, not Pablo.

Poor old Pello .... I bet even Jimmy Smits never got his name right.

So, let's do the usual thing and go through it bit by bit, shall we?

Word among those under his command said that Lieutenant Pello Scambras had a wrinkle for every battle he had fought in. When he heard of this, Scambras would smile wanly and admit it wasn't strictly true: "Only one?"

As I've said before, starting off with some purple prose is always nice.

Pello's father, Tash, had been the captain of the frigate Qel-Droma, serving a vital role during the Alderaanian Ascendancy Contention. When the tensions between the House of Organa and the House of Antilles had boiled over, Captain Scambras refused to take sides, assisting the Jedi Watchman Jorus C'Baoth in resolving the crisis. At C'baoth's behest, the two families joined in marriage, ending the dispute. On that historic day of Alderaanian history, 15-year old Pello joined the Alderaanian armed forces.

This paragraph ties together a few disparate EU threads, notably just what was it that C'Baoth negotiated on Alderaan in the "ascendency contention". The finished databank differs slightly from my original, mainly in that my entry specified that the marriage was that of Breha and Bail (which may have been changed due to timeline issues) and named the frigate the Ulic Qel-Droma.

Looking back at that, its probably good it was changed, since otherwise the Alderaanians would have named a ship after a war criminal who, in the words of Dan Wallace, "spread death on a genocidal scale".

Yikes.

As an aside, the Qel-Droma is intended to be a Alderaanian War Frigate, yet that isn't explicit in the final text.

With the start of the Clone Wars, Scambras, now a sergeant, had been told to expect limited action. His superior officers dismissed the war against the Separatists as a mere "brush fire" that the clones alone would easily handle. Those in the Core were expected to be insulated from the worst of the fighting. Scambras knew better.

Consider this an oblique reference to World War I. Just like the Clone Wars, World War I shattered a long period of peace, was followed by another conflict, and had people dismissing that they'd even get a full scale war at all. I can imagine the Republic tellings its troops that they'd be having "Next Life Day in Serenno!"

The wars engulfed the entire galaxy, and even the greatest worlds of the Republic were not safe. Alderaan was even threatened by droid forces multiple times, especially after the fall of Duro, and Scambras found himself fighting on the front lines. After multiple tours, Scrambas was reassigned to the personal guard of Bail Organa, yet Scambras still found himself in the midst of things -- the Senator was taking an unusual level of interest in the war, visiting fronts as diverse as Boz Pity, Qalydon and Metalorn.

It's long been established in the EU that Alderaan had a fairly traumatic experience during the Clone Wars, yet we saw little of it directly. This was my attempt to have the war "hit home" in Alderaan a little more. Boz Pity and Metalorn were pre-established visits for Organa, whereas Qalydon was a new wrinkle. Credit Abel Pena's "two old, one new" idea for introducing EU lore for this tidbit.

Scambras forged a close, personal friendship with Organa during the wars and would later come to regard Bail's daughter Leia as he would any child of his own flesh. Appropriately, it was Leia that Scambras died defending, the blaster wound that killed him becoming the final scar earned in the protection of his homeworld and its royal family.

And finally, a poetic, yet bittersweet end for our seasoned veteran. And, perhaps, a feeling that his sacrifice wasn't in vain.