Trials

The Trials were a process that merit adoptives of a Chiss family underwent to secure the higher family rank of Trial-born within the family. Merit adoptives who failed the Trials lost their rank within the family, and could not take the Trials again.

Merit adoptives were recruited by Chiss families through a process called rematching. The rank of merit adoptive was probationary, and those brought in as merit adoptives through military service would lose their status if they did not complete the Trials before the end of their service. The Trials were typically conducted on the family's homestead.

The Trials consisted of several written test involving general knowledge, logic, problem solving and the history of the Chiss Ascendancy. But there were also several non-written test such as crossing a river without getting wet, riddles, puzzles and climbing a mountain. While merit adoptives were completing the Trials they were completely alone, only being guided by a disembodied voice. The Trials took about two days to complete, so merit adoptives completing the trials would get rest periods to eat and sleep during their Trial.

When Mitth'ali'astov undertook her Trials at the Mitth family homestead in 19 BBY, Mitth family Patriarch Thooraki personally congratulated her "elegant" solutions to the Trials' problems and welcomed her as an official Trial-born of the Mitth.

On rare occasions, a family would sometimes offer a highly desired individual to join their family at or above the rank of Trial-born without having to conduct the the Trials. The Irizi family once made such an offer to Senior Commander Mitth'raw'nuru, and later extended another to Senior Captain Irizi'in'daro.

The Trials of Chiss families first appeared in Timothy Zahn's 2020 novel Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising, the first installment of Star Wars: The Ascendancy Trilogy.