Chiss/Legends

The Near-Human Chiss were perhaps the most famous inhabitants of the Unknown Regions, the remote outlying areas of the Galaxy beyond the frontier of the Outer Rim.

Overview
The Chiss were a tall Near-Human race, marked out from the majority Humans of mainstream Galactic civilization by their pure blue skin, gleaming black hair, and glowing red eyes. Physically striking and instantly recognizable, and armed with a typically cool and disciplined manner, the mystique of the Chiss was further increased by the remote location of their territory. But their positioning in the Unknown Regions also meant that they were largely disconnected from the Galaxy-spanning nexus of hyperspace travel and subspace communications that bound together the Old Republic, Empire and New Republic in turn, and thus detached from the associated pan-Galactic networks of economic, cultural and political contacts.

There is, in fact, evidence that intermitent, clandestine and low-level encounters between the Chiss and groups within the Old Republic had been ongoing for perhaps a millennum prior to the era of the Galactic Civil War; but these encounters left no visible, lasting impression on the Galaxy as a whole, and the isolation of the Chiss can be gauged by the fact that they remained largely unaware of standard demotics such as Huttese and Basic, with communications with outsiders being conducted instead through local trade-languages such as Minnisiat.

The pace of contact began to accelerate shortly before the Clone Wars, but it was only after the Battle of Endor that they became visible for the first time on the wider Galactic stage and even then, contact remained largely restricted to encounters between outsiders and Chiss military personnel.

The pattern for these contacts was set by the exiled Expansionary Fleet officer named Thrawn, a military genius who became the only non-human Grand Admiral in the Imperial Fleet. Thrawn’s distnctive character has undoubtedly influenced subsequent popular perceptions of the Chiss as cool, enigmatic warriors, but he was a highly controversial figure among his people. It must be noted firstly that the primarily martial nature of this and subsequent encounters may not reflect Chiss society as a whole, and moreover, that contact was made at this time with two distinct and entirely independent Chiss military forces, apparently reflecting two sharply diverging trends in Chiss opinion.

The first of these was the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet, which served the Chiss Ascendancy, the government which apparently commanded the loyalty, or at least the acceptance, of the vast bulk of the Chiss population, and which exiled Thrawn for breaking its strict codes of military conduct. The other faction was Thrawn’s own Household Phalanx, personally loyal to him and his radical ideals, and allied with the Imperial forces that he brought to the Unknown Regions &mdash; the faction that came to be known as the Empire of the Hand.

The frequent confusion between the CEDF and the House Phalanx was just one indicator of how little the wider Galaxy knew or understood about the Chiss. Although Thrawn’s fame ensured that they rapidly became one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable of all "alien" peoples, much about them remained mysterious to Galactic civilization at large, even as the Unknown Regions began to be opened up in the age of the Galactic Alliance. Moreover, what was known about them was often hard to fully understand, and sometimes seemed paradoxical &mdash; they were a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. And that may well have been exactly how they wanted the rest of the Galaxy to think of them.

History
The Chiss population is believed to have been concentrated in a volume of space in the Unknown Regions, extending across several tens of thousands of star systems. The Chiss claimed to have occupied this area for at least a millennium, but while it had been mapped by astrogation missions over the centuries, it was by no means fully explored, still less intensively colonized.

At the centre of Chiss space lay the ice-locked planet Csilla, their homeworld &mdash; or at least, the apparent political, cultural and military centre of their civilization; alongside this, they controlled 28 major colony worlds scattered across Chiss space, united in a political federation known as the Chiss Ascendancy. But their control over outlying systems such as Klasse Ephemora and Yashuvhu is tenuous.

Moreover, Chiss space only occupied a tiny fraction of the Unknown Regions, which the Chiss themselves saw as a bastion of calm and order in a chaotic galaxy. Considering their proximity to aggressive and expansionist species such as the Nagai, the Tofs and the Ssi-ruuk, this is perhaps no surprse: in particular, the Chiss were close neighbours to the Killiks and the Vagaari. Still, Chiss relations with the rest of the Galaxy were governed by a strict policy of non-aggression. The Chiss did not attack others &mdash; but when they were attacked, retribution was swift and relentless.

In the final years of the Old Republic, it appears that a new sense of urgency sent tremors through the strict façade of Chiss society. A vast interstellar fortress began to be prepared in the Redoubt Cluster, and Thrawn, then a young officer in the Expansionary Fleet, called for the abandonment of the hallowed doctrine that outlawed preemptive strikes. It seems evident from these that a concern with external threats lay at the back of the disquiet; but even now, however, it is unclear exactly what combination of circumstances led to these developments.

On a local level, this period is known to have been marked by vicious conflict with the Vagaari, but the Chiss seem to have been slowly growing aware of events in the wider Galaxy. Corellian traders had apparently reached the Ascendancy a few years earlier, and the Jedi expedition known as Outbound Flight had been destroyed by Thrawn’s own squadron when it violated the Ascendancy’s frontier &mdash; an incident which also brought the Chiss into direct contact with agents of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine.

This was, of course, the period of the Clone Wars, the fall of the Old Republic and the rise of the Galactic Empire; and also the time of the first Yuuzhan Vong scouting missions, as a result of which the living planet Zonama Sekot fled to a refuge in Chiss space. Nor was all contact at this time outward from the Old Republic: a handful of individual Chiss had participated in the Clone Wars, such as the Separatist commander Sev'rance Tann and her lover, the bounty hunter Vandalor. Any or all of these events could have affected the course of developments in Chiss society at this time.

Thrawn, persisting in his challenges to received wisdom, was exiled by the Ascendancy – but in 19 BBY, he was discovered and recruited by the Empire. For almost three decades, however, his true capabilities, and his true status within the Imperal hierarchy, were kept carefully hidden even within the ranks of the military.

It appears that for much of this time, Thrawn was supervising a program of Imperial exploration and conquest in the Unknown Regions, joined not only by line elements of the Imperial military, but also by the Chiss warriors of his Household Phalanx. While the government of the Ascendancy turned their back on events beyond their borders, the influence of Thrawn’s ideas continued to spread, and over the next forty years, a steady flow of CEDF defectors and civilian volunteers left Chiss space to join the House Phalanx. Of course, tensions exist in any society between official policy and popular opinion, between inflexible conservatives and idealistic radicals; but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Thrawn’s actions polarised the situation.

In 9 ABY, however, Thrawn left the Unknown Regions to take supreme command of the Empire's war machine, and launched his campaign against the New Republic. This was the first time that a Chiss became a major figure on the Galactic stage, and Thrawn made a dramatic and distinctive mark, comparable to that of Darth Vader or Tsavong Lah. In spite of his death at Bilbringi, his legacy endured, not least in the form of the House Phalanx and their allies in what was now known as the Empire of the Hand.

By 19 ABY, it would appear that the Empire of the Hand embraced a vast area of territory, up to thirty times the size of the Imperial Remnant within the Rim frontier. Yet the only recorded direct encounters with its forces took place on the largely uninhabited world of Nirauan. While often described as the capital of the Empire of the Hand, the fortress here, known as the Hand of Thrawn, seems to have served officially as a liaison post between the Remnant and the Ascendancy.

It is not clear exactly what the purpose of the negotiations undertaken by General Baron Soontir Fel were; their only immediately obvious result was that his son Jag was sent as a cadet to a CEDF military academy, though primarily as a hostage to ensure his father’s integrity.

Outwardly, it would appear that the Ascendancy itself had changed little over the decades since Thrawn’s exile. But Thrawn was privately revered by many in the CEDF, and by 22 ABY, one of the Ascendancy’s leading diplomats, Aristocra Formbi was flirting with Thrawn’s doctrines: negotiating secretly with the Imperials, and luring the resurgent Vagaari into starting a war.

Years later, Formbi would claim that the Third Vagaari War subsequently caused a significant labour shortage in the Ascendancy, leading indirectly to a radical shakeup of the factional politics of the Chiss elite. What is certain is that over the next few years, largely during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, a highly confusing series of events took place, affecting both the Ascendancy and the forces loyal to Thrawn.

First of all, Baron Fel assumed direct command of House Phalanx forces, and Jag returned from service with the Ascendancy to join, and then lead, the Chiss pilots of one of the Clawcraft squadrons under his father’s command. The rise of human officers to command positions within the House Phalanx was accompanied by the unexplained end of all mention of the Empire of the Hand, and then by the equally unexplained promotion of those same human officers to high office within the Ascendancy itself.

By 28 ABY, it would appear that Baron Fel had been appointed to the position of Assistant Syndic in the Expansionary Fleet, and in 30 ABY, his son was named as the Ambassador from the Ascendancy to the Galactic Alliance. By 36 ABY, Jag was the primary Chiss military commander serving under Aristocra Formbi in the first skirmishes of what would become the Swarm War. Throughout all this, the Ascendancy continued to maintain its ostensible policy of eschewing first strikes; but at the same time, we can note the clandestine cooperation of Chiss military scientists with New Republic Intelligence on the Alpha Red project.

The context of these events &mdash; and their effect on Chiss society and politics &mdash; remain largely unknown, and what little is known is, for now, largely unexplained.

Society
Even in the era of the Galactic Alliance, the wider Galaxy seems to have had no direct contact with Chiss civilians. What was known about them was, as mentioned above, mediated largely through encounter with military units, and through a few high-level contacts with political and diplomatic delegations. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that these were the best understood aspects of Chiss society – or at least, the best documented.

Military Forces
The front-line armed forces of the Ascendancy were referred to variously as the ‘Chiss Expansionary Defense Force’ or ‘Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet’, and sometimes by shorter forms such as ‘Chiss Expansionary Defense’, ‘Chiss Expansionary Force’, or ‘Chiss Defense Fleet’, or by the acronym ‘CEDF’. This oscilation in terminology may have reflected only a quirk of translation or idiom, but given the complex semantics and linguistics of the Cheunh language, it is not impossible that the differentiation carried subtle inflections of meaning for the Chiss. We might compare the concurrent use of the terms ‘Fleet’, ‘Navy’ and ‘Defence Force’ under the New Republic, the usage of which sometimes reflected the subtle complexities of linguistic register, political ideology and inter-service rivalry &mdash; and sometimes meant nothing at all.

Beyond this, a study produced by the University of Sanbra in the last years of the New Republic makes a clear-cut distinction between the CEDF, whose duty was to guard the frontier and retaliate against attacks, and the Colonial Phalanxes which defended the twenty-eight colony worlds of the Ascendancy: these units were apparently designed to serve as a second line of defence against invasion, and to provide reinforcements for the fleet when required. It appears, however, that both services made use of a shared system of military academies, and the precise parameters of connection and differentiation between them are unclear.

Much of the Chiss rank structure seems to have paralleled the patterns that would have been familiar to contemporary Basic-speakers, though it is unclear how much the semantics of the original Chiss terminology survived the translation from Cheunh. The title of Commander was common, denoting the officers in charge of many elements, varying from a cadet squadron upwards through a frontier patrol and a space station, to a major battlefleet. Junior officers, including personnel in cadet units, were titled Lieutenant, the ranking officers of naval ships were styled Captain, and at least some senior officers bore the rank of General; but it is not clear whether other conventional ranks, such as Major and Colonel, existed outside the Imperial-influenced forces of Thrawn’s House Phalanx.

One military designation that was largely unique to the Chiss was that of Syndic: there is some evidence that this was the title borne by the commander-in-chief of CEDF line forces, and also the local commanders of each of the Colonial Phalanxes; but the highest-ranking personnel known to have been encountered by outsiders were the ‘Assistant Syndic’ and ‘Chief Navigator’ of the CEDF: both posts were occupied in 29 ABY by human ex-Imperial officers &mdash; Soontir Fel and Peita Aabe.

Uniforms
All Chiss military personnel wore sharply-cut black uniforms, varying according to rank and occasion from ornate ceremonial dress to practical combat jumpsuits. All uniforms appear to have at least a little coloured trim, increasing in quantity on more formal attire, and alongside the essentially horizontal divisions of uniform style, a further lateral distinction seperated officers whose uniforms bore red flashes from those with green trim, although the exact meaning of this differentiation is unclear. Red piping was borne by senior officers such as General Prard’ras’kleoni, and also by military cadets, for whom it represented a military ideal known as ‘Red Flame’, while green tabs were worn by the captain and crew of the diplomatic ship Chaf Envoy. Given the apparent philosophical importance of ‘Red Flame’, it might be speculated that red denoted the front-line forces of the CEDF while green indicated the locally-based personnel of the Colonial Phalanxes.

Somewhat confusingly, the officers of Thrawn’s House Phalanx normally wore uniforms which in cut and colour broadly resembled those of the CEDF &mdash; black, black with red trim, and burgundy with black patches have been recorded. The problems, discussed above, with distinguishing personnel from the two organizations, cannot have been helped by the fact that a variety of styles of uniform were evidently worn by both House Phalanx and Ascendancy personnel, with varying quantities of coloured patches and turnbacks according to status and occasion. There is some evidence that the traditional Chiss uniforms of the House Phalanx were burgundy with black trim, as opposed to black-with-burgundy of the CEDF, and the ‘black’ uniforms of some personnel may simply be Imperial lancer tunics and flight suits, perhaps with the red piping of an elite unit as worn by Baron Fel’s former command, the 181st Fighter Wing. Nevertheless, it is clear that there are complexities that cannot be fully understood from the evidence to hand: at Ithor, Jag Fel wore a uniform and flightsuit remarkably similar to those of his father’s former unit; but the House Phalanx pilots under his command wore white full-dress uniforms.

Nevertheless, one thing that is clear that the aesthetic of Chiss military uniforms was part of a wider visual pattern, in which specific colours were associated with specific social groups. The black uniforms of the Defence Force represented the fact that personnel were drawn from all branches of the Chiss community, black being perceived as a combination of all the colours. The predominantly burgundy dress of some House Phalanx personnel may indicate a red colour associated in some way with Thrawn; but the Chiss civilians who the wider Galaxy had most contact with, the diplomats of the Chaf Family, dressed in yellow clothes with grey trim.

The Ruling Families
The Chaf seem to have been at once a lineage-group and a specialized professional caste, and they, or more exactly, their leader Aristocra Chaf’orm’bintrano, apparently had an oversight role with regard to the military. During the events surrounding the rediscovery of Outbound Flight in 22 ABY, and the subsequent outbreak of the Third Vagaari War, and also later during the conflict with the Killiks that began in 36 ABY, the Aristocra seems to have served in the role of civilian proconsul, with operational authority over the military deployment.

At this point, however, we must turn to one of the most perplexing disjunctures in the evidence for Chiss society. In 22 ABY, it was said that there were nine Ruling Families, with the Chaf Family being the Fifth, and responsible for diplomacy and foreign affairs. In the University of Sanbra study mentioned above, however, written about five years later, only four ruling families were identified. According to ths report, House Csapla was responsible for relationship between Csilla and the colony worlds, and the associated distribution of foodstuffs and the allocation of economic resources. House Nuruodo was responsible for relations with outsiders, including control of the CEDF. House Inrokini was responsible for technological research, manufacturing, and the information infrastructure. And House Sabosen was responsible for law and order, healthcare and education. When a Jedi delegation visited Csilla in 29 ABY, they were met by supposed representatives of these four Families, wearing cloaks in bronze, rust-red, grey and copper-green.

According to the Sanbra material, these four families were lineage-groups allegedly stretching back to the ancient past before the formation of the modern Chiss political systems; but while the criteria for membership are unclear, it seems that at least up to a point, blood descent, through either the male or female line was sufficient: this meant that at least some Chiss were eligible for membership of more than one family, sometimes for all of them. Thus, Family affiliation, while determined in part by territorial allegiances and cultural expectation, was at least partially a matter of personal choice.

The official explanation offered for the discrepancy between the Nine Families of 22 ABY and the Four Families of 29 ABY is that in the aftermath of the Third Vagaari War, safeguards designed to prevent Chiss from being absorbed by the hive-minds of their newly-contracted Killik labourers were compromised, resulting in two of the Ruling Families becoming Joiners. A subsequent ‘disagreement’ over how to respond to the crisis saw three other families removed from power, apparently by the intervention of Thrawn’s Household Phalanx. However, it is not at all clear how seriously this information can be taken, as it was conveyed by Aristocra Chaf’orm’bintrano, of the Chaf Family: the Aristocra himself represented one of the five Families absent from the Sanbra material, and he referred in passing to Fel’s opponent Commander Ganet, apparently a member of House Nuruodo, as being a scion of one of the ‘destroyed’ lineages.

Government Structure
Given the caveats noted above, it is perhaps best to treat the rest of the University of Sanbra material on Chiss government with some caution, in emphasis if not precisely in content. The report claimed that the twenty-eight colony worlds were led by a democratically-elected governors, known as House leaders, who held executive authority on their own worlds &mdash; for instance, appointing the commanders of the Colonial Phalanxes. These governors also came together to form the Chiss Parliament, sitting in a building known as the House Palace, located on Csilla in the capital city of Csapla (the name of which was obviously related to that of the putative House Csaplar).

However, the House leaders' powers in federal politics were largely limited to voicing concerns that would then be responded to by a central oligarchy, consisting of the informal Family hierarchy acting in conjunction with the Cabinet, a cadre of administrative officials appointed by the Families themselves. It was this elite that was apparently responsible for all aspects of policy and strategy, shaping and directing Chiss society across the Ascendancy through controlling the allocation of resources in a highly-controlled and money-free command economy.

Sources suggest that the Chiss prized stability and tradition, but it is, in the final analysis, entirely unclear how transparent or influential the democratic process represented by the Parliament truly was, and utterly unknown how effective the Families and Cabinet managed the means of distribution, or whether any sort of black economy functioned alongside the state aparatus.

Language & Names
The Chiss language, Cheunh, was complex and densely-constructed, expressing complicated ideas by combining smaller elements into intricate words and phrases. It was hard for outsiders to understand, and the Chiss believed that it was quite impossible for non-Chiss to learn to speak it properly. Given the near-human genealogy of the Chiss, is unclear how much store can be put by their suggestions that ‘aliens’ such as baseline humans simply had inadequate vocal mechanisms: simple chauvinism may have factored into this perception, or alternatively, understanding might have depended on subtle phonetic contrasts which non Cheunh-speakers would lose the ability to distinguish or articulate in infancy.

Linguistically, Cheunh was highly synthetic, which is to say that complex meaning was conveyed by forming compound words from conjunctions of sense-bearing word-elements known as morphemes. While not unusual as a linguistic principle, synthetic construction appears to have been taken to extremes by the Chiss, and it may be that communicating in Cheunh required a conscious awareness of individual morphemes and phonemes and a subtle ear for complex linguistic relationships, far more than was demanded of, for instance Basic-speakers. Such a sensitivity would also explain the remarkable accuity shown by at least some Chiss in picking out important recurring agglutinations from long phrases of alien languages that they had not previousy encountered. One factor that certainly added to the complexity of the language was the fact that written Cheunh was not set down in a phonetic alphabet like the Aurebesh, but rather, assembled using ideograms. And on top of all this, at least some phrases in the language were highly idiomatic – the pejorative moactan teel meant literally ‘fair-haired’, apparently implying that something about the addressee was metaphorically non-Chiss, and hence barbarous.

Outsiders, however, had little exposure to Cheunh except through Chiss personal names. A Chiss was most often known and addressed by a short ‘core name’, which was an abbreviated form of a longer full name, consisting of three distinct primary sections and, predictably, often hard for those who were not native Cheunh speakers to pronounce correctly. Usage of the full name appears to have indicated politeness or formality, whereas the core name was apparently used with in situations where brevity and simplicity was preferred, as among friends, in combat communications, or with aliens such as Basic-speakers, who could not easily master the complex phonetics of the full name. The predominance of core names, at least in communication with outsiders, was such that a number of such names were recorded without the full name being known, such as ‘Prakk’, ‘Kayree’, ‘Lev’, ‘Szardra’, ‘Voss’ and ‘Zilvad’.

It seems clear, however, that the core name was typically formed by combining the short central section of the name with the last sound of the preceding section and the opening sound of the following. Thus Thrawn was more formally "Mitth'raw'nuruodo", Commander Stent of the House Phalanx was “Kres’ten’tarthi” and Captain Talshib, the line commander of the diplomatic ship Chaf Envoy, was “Brast’alshi’barku”.

However, some evidence suggests that several somewhat different semantic and phonetic patterns were used in constructing the full names of different Chiss. Most notably, it appears that a primary familial relationship could be indicated by both the opening and closing elements.

On the one hand, the Chaf diplomats Chaf’orm’bintrano (“Formbi”) and Chaf’ees’aklaio (“Feesa”) bore the name of the Ruling Family to which they belonged as the first element of their full name, and this also defined the opening sound of their core name. A similar family relationship is implied between General Prard'ras'kleoni (“Drask”) and Station Commander Prard'enc'iflar, although it is not known whether "Prard" is one of the Nine Families.

In contrast, the name of House Nuruodo was attested only as a final element, in the names of Mitth’raw’nuruodo, Ind’ganet’nuruodo and Hess’irolia’nuruodo, and in the differently-presented names of military accademy commandant Gimald Nuruodo and Clawcraft pilot Shawnkyr Nuruodo. Compounding the problem, all these names with the exception of that of Mitth’raw’nuruodo diverged to a greater or lesser degree from the expected transcription pattern outlined above.

In the case of the female CEDF officers Ind'ganet'nuruodo ("Ganet") and Hess'irolia'nuruodo ("Irolia"), while the overall structure of the names was broadly the same, the core name and the central element of the full name appear to have been identical with, without obvious input from the opening and closing sections. In contrast, the names of Gimald Nuruodo and Shawnkyr Nuruodo appear to have combined core name and House name, in a manner more typical of other species’ forename-surname usages.

Other Chiss with anomalous names included the important historical figure Jer’jo Cam’co, and Sev'rance Tann, a Seperatist General from the Clone Wars. The name of Jer’jo Cam’co may have predateed standard Chiss naming conventions, but it is worth noting that as the founding Syndic of the CEDF, he is likely to have belonged to House Nuruodo, along with most of the other individuals recorded with anomalous names.

A number of factors may have contributed to the variety within Chiss naming patterns. There may have genuine variety of naming systems in use, some more subtly differentiated than others. The dense and complex phonetic and morphological structcure of Cheunh may have had unusual effects on pronunciation. Or, alternatively. at least part of the distinction may have been due to the use of varying standards of transliteration conventions &mdash; not least because written Cheunh was apparently a primarily ideogramatic language, and ‘literal’ transcriptions may not have adequately reflected pronunciation.

With questions of transcription and pronunciation in mind, we can consider the name of Aristocra Mitt'swe'kleoni ("Tswek"), the legate dispatched by the Ascendancy to Coruscant in 35 ABY. The first element of his name looks as though it corresponds to the "Mitth" found in Thrawn’s full name, but compositional factors would appear to have influenced pronunciation of the final phone, with a sound corresponding approximately to a dental fricative in one name, and an alveolar stop in the other. It is unclear how, if at all, such a distinction would have been marked in written Cheunh.

Turning from questions of linguistics to questions of meaning, two possible, if perhaps only partial, solutions can be suggested that might explain the apparent inconsistencies in Chiss naming patterns. Although "Chaf" and "Prard" are only attested as opening units, and "Nuruodo" only as a closing one, the fact that the opening and closing sections of names alike could apparently indicate lineage descent may mean that both were typically tokens of ancestry, perhaps indicating the families of the father and paternal grandfather, or the father's male-line ancestry and the mother's female-line lineage. Additional to this, it can be observed that some Chiss could chose to allign themselves with more than two houses, so unless such a choice implied a name-change, it may be that a Chiss could belong to a House not directly indicated in his full name, explaining the utility of the core name plus House name construction. For instance, it might have been permissable to refer Chaf'orm'bintrano as "Formbi Chaf" and to Thrawn as "Thrawn Nuruodo", while Shawnkyr Nuruodo may (speculatively) have had a full name in which the first and last element indicated familial ties without incorporating the name of the House to which she belonged.

Alternatively is not impossible that most of the apparent inconsistencies are simply discrepancies of flawed or eccentric Aurebesh transcription, and that ‘Sev’rance Tann’ and ‘Shawnkyr Nuruodo’ should have been something like ‘Sev’rance’tann’ and ‘Shawnk’yr’nuruodo’ under the standard transcription, with the conventional core names ‘Vrancet’ and ‘Kyrn’.

Ultimately, however, as with all aspects of Chiss culture, much still remains unclear about how the Cheunh language and the associated pattern of personal names operated.

Culture
Chiss culture, at its core, was about discipline. Beyond their cold calculation, there were parts of Chiss culture that exhibited an intriguing mix of elegant beauty, which may have been attributed to the differences caused in Chiss society after the glacial movement that plunged Csilla into its long ice age. Elements of the pre-glacial Chiss culture were visible in the smooth, striking lines of Chiss technology, as well as in Cheunh, the native tongue of the Chiss. Cheunh was a complex and creative language with an intricate syntax involving compound words made from a relatively small core of primary words, and the Chiss used detailed ideograms to represent concepts and combinations of images to represent complex ideas. A simple example of Cheunh can be seen in the three-part names used by the Chiss. For example, Grand Admiral Thrawn’s full name was Mitth'raw'nuruodo. The first component, "Mitth", has an unknown meaning, but the second component "Raw" is the primary name, while the third component "Nuruodo" denotes the family a Chiss is from.

The Chiss were also said to have incredible works of art, but none have ever been seen or described. Aspects of Chiss cultural practicality were visible in the Chiss societal divisions and approaches to decision making. At birth, each Chiss claimed affiliation to one of the four ruling families, whose divisions predated modern Chiss civilization. While the actual bloodlines were mixed and convoluted, the Houses were more than just as a cultural holdover, but rather a practical method of dividing Chiss society into focused, specialized segments. Chiss were taught to approach their areas of specialization with intense focus and harsh logic, driving Chiss culture to suppress emotion and avoid hasty emotions such as anger, fear and revenge. From this emotional coolness, and despite a socialist economic model, Chiss culture stressed individual responsibility and self-discipline. Further exemplifying Chiss cynicism was the frequency among the elite families of what were known as shadow children. Never knowing when a rival family might attempt to wipe out one's legacy, and thus, their place in the Ascendancy, prominent Chiss families would often hide one or two children from the public entirely, never acknowledging their existence.

A strange diversion from this shrewd analysis was the Chiss consideration of a pre-emptive strike as equivalent to the most horrible murder. This unspoken law dated back nearly a millennium before the Battle of Endor, and was one of the strongest points of Chiss honour and morality. Within Chiss society, children matured very quickly, never truly having an adolescent period before becoming adults. The concept of open aggression was utterly alien to the Chiss. They did control a large expanse of the Unknown Regions, but this territory, divided into 28 colonies, was taken only as a matter of logic or self-defense, to better maintain Chiss society or to end the threat of a particular enemy.

Another cultural norm was a distrust and dislike of other species, viewing them as inferior. Yet again, the Chiss made exceptions and were known to accept non-Chiss members into their society, even to go as far as to welcome them into the Chiss military, as they did with Baron Soontir Fel, Jagged Fel, and Peita Aabe. Later, during the Yuuzhan Vong crisis, Chiss scientists worked closed with a New Republic staff in Alpha Blue.

In 35 ABY, the Chiss faced an expansion by an unknown species of aliens later revealed to be the hive-minded Killiks into Chiss space. Under the influence of the Dark Nest, the Killiks attempted to absorb all species into a single hive mind. In 36 ABY, the Killiks hijacked the Victory-class Star Destroyer Admiral Ackbar and used it to launch an invasion of Chiss space thus starting the Swarm War.

Technology
Chiss technology was generally practical and efficient, as well as adaptive and elegant. A good example of these characteristics was the Nssis-class Clawcraft, a hybrid of Imperial and Chiss technology. The clawcraft used the cockpit and engine of Sienar Fleet Systems’ standard TIE Fighter, but replaces the solar panel wings with a set of four laser cannon tipped wings that projected forward from the cockpit. In a demonstration of their practical application of technology, the Chiss equipped the clawcraft with limited hyperspace capabilities, striking a balance between the cost-effective TIE Fighters and the New Republic’s highly mobile fully hyperspace capable starfighters. Instead, the clawcraft used a set of realspace anchor points based around each Chiss colony, allowing the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force to quickly respond to threats while not overbearing the clawcraft or increasing their cost. Other stylish Chiss technology included the paired pyramid shape of their military space stations, the flattened sphere shape of the Paskla-class cruisers and the angular shape of their courier ships.

Known Planets & Locations
In the Chiss Ascendancy
 * Csilla &mdash; ice-girt homeworld and political capital of the Chiss. Site of the city of Csaplar and the Expansionary Library.
 * Sarvchi &mdash; colony world from where Chaf'orm'bintrano sent a message to the Jade Sabre in 22 ABY.
 * Crustai &mdash; colony world where Chaf'orm'bintrano later rendezvoused with the Jade Sabre en route for Outbound Flight.
 * The Redoubt &mdash; dense star cluster developed as an interstellar fortress by the Chiss. Site of Brask Oto and the unnamed planet on which Outbound Flight came down.
 * Brask Oto &mdash; CEDF space station serving as the barbican for the Redoubt.
 * Thrago &mdash; site of a CEDF supply depot anchored around a small moon, destroyed by rogue Jedi in 28 ABY.
 * Rata Nebula &mdash; an H II region, within which lies the system containing Rhigar.
 * Rhigar &mdash; site of a Chiss military academy in the Rata Nebula, with three moons: the green-hued Asdroni, the forest moon Rhigar 2, and the more distant, blue-tinged Rhigar 3
 * Yashuvhu &mdash; remote hinterland planet with a Force-sensitive human population; homeworld of the duuvhal, and of Force-talent Valara Saar.
 * Klasse Ephemora system &mdash; remote hinterland system surrounded by navigational anomalies, centred on the star Klasse A; location of the gas-giant Mobus.
 * Mobus &mdash; gas giant in the Klasse Ephemora system. Zonama Sekot sought refuge in a lunar orbit around Mobus after its flight from its home system in 29 BBY, and from 30 ABY, Zonama Sekot was resettled by the Yuuzhan Vong remnant.

Outside the Ascendancy
 * Nirauan &mdash; home to a large House Phalanx garrison at the Hand of Thrawn, nominal liason post between the Imperial Remnant and the Ascendancy, also command post for the Empire of the Hand.
 * Numerous other House Phalanx academies and bases on remote worlds.
 * Taat &mdash; Killik Nest with many Chiss Joiners; based on Jwlio in 35 ABY, later relocating to a planet in the Utegetu Nebula; by 37 ABY they had largely transferred aboard a colony ship to fight in the Swarm War.
 * Thule &mdash; millennia-old Sith garrison world, with a Chiss colony among it inhabitants.

Known Chiss Individuals

 * Jer'Jo Cam'Co, ancient Chiss hero, responsible for founding the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet
 * Chaf'orm'bintrano (Formbi), diplomat from the Fifth Ruling Family from c. 30 BBY onwards, serving as Aristocra between at least 22 ABY and 35 ABY.
 * Mitt’swe’kleoni (Tswek), Aristocra and envoy to the Galactic Alliance in 35 ABY.
 * Mitth'raw'nuruodo (Thrawn), Imperial Grand Admiral and former CEDF officer responsible for stopping Outbound Flight in 30 ABY, and nearly destroying the young New Republic in 9 ABY.
 * Prard'ras'kleoni (Drask), General in the CEDF in 22 ABY.
 * Sev'rance Tann, Dark Jedi and General with the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars.
 * Prard’enc’iflar Station Commander at Brask Oto in 22 ABY.
 * Gimald Nuruodo Commandant of the military academy in the Rata Nebula in about 20 ABY.
 * Kres'ten'tarthi (Stent), Commander of Thrawn’s House Phalanx between at least 19 ABY and 22 ABY.
 * Hess’irolia’nuruodo (Irolia), Commander, apparently in the CEDF, who escorted ’’Jade Shadow’’to Csilla in 29 ABY.
 * Ind’ganet’nuruodo (Ganet), Commander, apparently in the CEDF, in conflict with Soontir Fel in 29 ABY.
 * Brast’alshi’barku (Talshib), naval Captain, and line commander of the Chaf Envoy in 22 ABY
 * Chaf’ees’aklaio (Feesa), aide and niece to Formbi, member of the Fifth Ruling Family in 22 ABY.
 * Shawnkyr Nuruodo, academy classmate to Jag Fel in about 20 ABY, subsequently his wing guard from approximately 24 ABY to 28 ABY, subsequently commander of Vanguard Squadron.
 * Eprill, Colonel Fel's squadron executive officer following Shawnkyr's return to the Unknown Regions in 29 ABY.
 * Brosh, Sorn, Dreel, pilots in Thrawn’s House Phalanx in 19 ABY.
 * Sumichan, Jocell, Miza, pilots in Jag's squadron in 29 ABY.
 * Tris librarian at the Expeitionary Library at Csilla in 29 ABY.
 * Tlarik, Gintish, cadets at the military academy in the Rata Nebula in around 20 ABY.
 * Obersken, mechanic at the military academy in the Rata Nebula in around 20 ABY.
 * Vandalor, bounty-hunter during the Clone Wars, lover of Sev’rance Tann.
 * "Spiker", member of Big Gizz's swoop gang on Tatooine in the years around the Battle of Endor.

Behind the scenes
The Chiss first appeared in Timothy Zahn's novel Heir to the Empire, in the form of Grand Admiral Thrawn, but the name of his people was not revealed for another eight years, until Zahn's The Hand of Thrawn Duology.

Although the basis of the Chiss naming pattern and the distinction between the House Phalanx and the Ascendancy were established in Vision of the Future, these were apparently misunderstood by or imperfectly communicated to some of the authors of the New Jedi Order novels and concurrent sourcebooks. This led to some continuity uncertainties in Red Sky, Blue Flame and Dark Journey, and Force Heretic: Refugee.

Chiss bartenders appear in the two most recent installments of the computer-game series focusing on Kyle Katarn. In Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, Kyle has a brief conversation with a Chiss bartender on Nar Shaddaa, who has not yet mastered all aspects of the grammar of Basic. In Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, his apprentice Jaden Korr also encounters a Chiss bartender.

Appearances

 * Mist Encounter
 * Command Decision
 * Heir to the Empire
 * Dark Force Rising
 * The Last Command
 * Specter of the Past
 * Vision of the Future
 * Red Sky, Blue Flame
 * Dark Tide: Ruin
 * Dark Journey
 * Force Heretic: Remnant
 * Force Heretic: Refugee
 * The Joiner King
 * The Unseen Queen