Pello Scrambas

Pello Scrambas was a lieutenant in the service of the Royal House of Alderaan. The son of Tash Scrambas, captain of the Qel-Droma, Scrambas joined the Alderaanian armed forces on the last day of the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention. Rising to the rank of sergeant, he saw combat frequently in the pan-galactic Clone Wars, as General Grievous made his moves towards the Core Worlds. After serving in several tours of duty, Scrambas was transferred to Senator Bail Organa's personal guard.

Despite his new role as a guard, Scrambas still saw plenty of action during the remainder of the war, on planets as diverse as Metalorn, Qalydon, and Boz Pity. When the war came to a close in 19 BBY, Scrambas stayed on with Organa, having formed a close and personal friendship with the senator. Nearly twenty years later, Scrambas came to serve Organa's daughter, Princess Leia Organa, who had succeeded her father in the Imperial Senate and had ties to the Alliance to Restore the Republic. It was those ties that attracted the attention of Lord Darth Vader, who's forces boarded the Tantive IV in 0 BBY. During the boarding, Scrambas was killed in action against Imperial stormtroopers.

Early career and the Clone Wars
Pello Scrambas was sired by Captain Tash Scrambas of the Qel-Droma, during the Republic Classic era. The elder Scrambas took part in the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention, serving Jedi moderator Jorus C'baoth during the crisis. On the day that C'baoth ended the contention, Pello Scrambas joined Alderaan's armed forces, aged fifteen. By 22 BBY, Scrambas held the rank of sergeant, and when the Clone Wars broke out, he was told to expect "limited action" in the coming conflict, as it was thought that the clone troopers would be able to adequately suppress the Confederacy of Independent Systems.

From the perspective of those in the Core Worlds, the conflict was seen as a "brush war," and one that the Core would be insulated from. Scrambas was not satisfied with the assessment however, and he was vindicated in his thinking when the Clone Wars spread across the galaxy. Alderaan itself was threatened by the Confederate advance many times, and during Operation Durge's Lance, Duro fell to the Confederate General Grievous, making Scrambas' homeworld particularly vulnerable. He found himself constantly fighting on the front lines against the Confederacy, and after several tours of duty, he was transferred to the personal guard of Senator Bail Organa.

The Organas
Despite the fact that he was now guarding a senator, Scrambas still found himself actively fighting the Confederacy. Organa participated in the war frequently, witnessing the battles in the Outer Rim Territories, particularly Boz Pity, rescuing waylaid Jedi Knights such as Shaak Ti on Metalorn, and visiting fronts such as Qalydon. During those particular adventures and conflicts, Scrambas and Organa became close friends. In 19 BBY, the war came to a close with the deaths of Grievous, Confederate leader Count Dooku, and the Separatist Council, and the Galactic Republic was replaced with former-Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's Galactic Empire.

After many years of service, Organa was succeeded as senator by his daughter, Princess Leia Organa, and Scrambas, now a lieutenant, came to regard the young woman as he would his own daughter. In 0 ABY, approximately twenty years after first serving Bail Organa directly, Scrambas was aboard Princess Leia's CR90 corvette Tantive IV when she received a transmission from spies within the Alliance to Restore the Republic containing plans to the Empire's new Death Star battlestation. The ship was pursued from Toprawa to Tatooine by Darth Vader's Imperial I-class Star Destroyer Devastator, and was eventually disabled over the latter. Scrambas and his fellow guards were deployed to repel boarders, but he was fatally gunned down as the first wave of Imperial stormtroopers barged onto the craft.

Personality and traits
As a young man, Pello Scrambas was perceptive enough to realize that the Clone Wars were going to be far more than just the local brush fire that his superiors predicted. He gained a considerable amount of combat experience during the war&mdash;so much so that in his later life his exploits were almost legend amongst those under his command. Scrambas himself jokingly entertained the rumors, even going so far as to enhance them.

Behind the scenes
The character of Pello Scrambas first appeared in the 1977 film, George Lucas' Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, as an unnamed extra in the opening scenes. In 1996, he was identified in the "A New Hope Limited" set of the Star Wars Customizable Card Game, on the card entitled "Rebel Squad Leader." The character's story was fleshed out by Aidan Hennessy (writing as "Darth NTM") through StarWars.com's Hyperspace feature, "What's the Story?" Hennessy's winning entry, published in the Databank, made connections to a wide variety of dispirate Expanded Universe elements, such as the alluded-to Alderaan Ascendancy Contention from 1992's Dark Force Rising, the fall of Duro from 2004's CIS Shadowfeed Dispatch 15:2:29 Edition, and Bail Organa's mission to Metalorn from 2006's Bailed Out.

For chronicling the early stages of the Clone Wars, Hennessy drew inspiration from the attitudes people had towards World War I. By his own admission, Hennessy also, inadvertently, misspelled "Scrambas" as "Scambras" several times in his entry.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope