The Alderaan Ascendancy Contention, alternatively referred to as the Alderaanian Ascendancy Contention, represented a political struggle that unfolded in 32 BBY. This conflict involved the noble families residing on the Core world of Alderaan, particularly the houses of Antilles and Organa. At its core, the contention revolved around determining which family possessed the rightful claim to the prestigious position of Viceroy. Following three indecisive voting rounds, the High Council of Alderaan sought intervention from the Galactic Republic to mediate the succession dispute. Consequently, the Galactic Senate dispatched a team of Jedi, spearheaded by Jedi Watchman Jorus C'baoth, with the mission of resolving the impasse. Ultimately, the delegation facilitated a resolution that favored the Organa family, thereby enabling a member of the family to ascend to the Viceroyship. Furthermore, an arrangement was made to unite the competing Antilles and Organa families through a marriage.
Back in 32 BBY, a political dispute emerged on the Core world of Alderaan. This event, known as the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention or the Alderaanian Ascendancy Contention, was primarily about deciding who would be the next Viceroy of the planet. The Viceroy, as a planetary leader, was traditionally chosen from one of the Alderaanian noble houses, requiring the backing of the High Council, the governing legislative body. While selecting a new Viceroy usually went smoothly, this time the noble families—including the houses of Antilles and Organa—disagreed on the correct line of succession. The situation worsened to the point where the Galactic Republic's help was necessary.
After the third vote failed to produce a clear winner, the troubled High Council decided to ask the Galactic Senate for help in settling the succession. In response, a group of Jedi led by Jedi Watchman Jorus C'baoth was dispatched to resolve the issue.
The crisis put a strain on the relationships between the houses of Antilles and Organa, especially. When tensions between them flared up, the intervention of Tash Scrambas, captain of the Alderaanian frigate Qel-Droma, proved crucial. He refused to take sides and worked with C'baoth to resolve the conflict. In less than a month, the delegation concluded that the Organa family had the rightful claim to the Viceroyship, allowing a member of the family to take the position. Additionally, C'baoth suggested a marriage to unite the rivaling Antilles and Organa families. With both sides agreeing to the union, the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention came to an end.
The ascendancy contention, a key event in the planet's history, was recorded in the Alderaanian archives, including a hologram of the Republic mediation team. C'baoth's role in mediating the succession was also noted in the records of the Senate Library on the Republic capital world of Coruscant. Due to the historical importance of the ascendancy contention, all Alderaanians were at least somewhat familiar with it, and it remained in their memory even after Alderaan was destroyed by the Galactic Empire in 0 BBY. While researching Jorus C'baoth nine years later, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker found the reference to the ascendancy contention in the Senate records and asked Winter, the aide of Senator Leia Organa Solo and an Alderaan native, to summarize the main points of the event for him.
The precise timing of the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention was uncertain for quite some time. Timothy Zahn, the author of the 1992 novel Dark Force Rising, where the contention was first mentioned, initially placed the event "70 pre-Empire date," which would equate to 89 BBY. However, in 2002, the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Revised Core Rulebook retconned much of Jorus C'baoth's backstory, stating that he was 38 years old during the Battle of Naboo, which occurred in 32 BBY. This gave him a birth year of 70 BBY—instead of 112 pre-Empire (131 BBY) as mentioned in Dark Force Rising—meaning that other events in C'baoth's life, as depicted in the novel, including the ascendancy contention, were also pushed later.
The 2006 novel Outbound Flight, also by Zahn, took place five years after the Battle of Naboo and featured C'baoth's death, establishing 27 BBY as the latest possible date for the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention. The ambiguity surrounding the date was finally resolved with the release of James Luceno's Darth Plagueis in 2012, nearly two decades after Dark Force Rising was initially published. While the novel doesn't directly mention the ascendancy contention, a narrative section set in 32 BBY describes how Jorus C'baoth "had been enlisted to arbitrate a dispute among some of Alderaan's royal houses." Given the unlikelihood of C'baoth settling two separate disputes between Alderaanian nobles, it can be inferred that this was a reference to the Alderaan Ascendancy Contention.
While every source on the ascendancy contention mentions the Organa family, it's still unclear whether there was more than one other family vying for the title of Viceroy. The wording in both Dark Force Rising and Dark Force Rising Sourcebook, the earliest accounts of the event, is unclear, and later sources have not clarified this. The first source to name a family other than the Organas was the Databank entry for Pello Scrambas, published in 2007. Written by Aidan Hennessy (as "Darth NTM") and submitted through StarWars.com's Hyperspace feature, "What's The Story?," the entry expands on some of the contention's details, such as establishing the House of Antilles as a rival to the Organas and stating that the dispute ended when the two families were joined in marriage; this was later mentioned in the "House of Antilles" entry in the 2008 reference book The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. This suggests that the final decision was at least between the Antilles and Organa families. However, since mentioning the House of Antilles doesn't rule out the possibility of other rivaling families, this article assumes that more than just the two named families could have been involved.
According to Aidan Hennessy, his Pello Scrambas entry was intended to indicate that the marriage uniting the houses of Antilles and Organa was between Breha Antilles and Bail Organa. However, this detail was not included in the final Databank entry, possibly due to timeline concerns, as Hennessy himself suspected. To date, no official source has addressed who the marriage was between.