Born as Ludi Billane, Aris-Del Wari began her life as a Jedi youngling during the era known as the Great Peace of the Republic. A devastating quake in the city of Domitree on Ord Thoden separated the young Ludi from her mother, Jonava Billane. Subsequently, the Jedi Order discovered the child and, sensing her Force-sensitive nature, took her in. Bestowing upon her the name "Aris-Del Wari," they initiated her training in the Force.
Upon learning of her daughter's fate, Jonava Billane traveled to Coruscant to challenge the Jedi's claim. This dispute, famously dubbed the "Baby Ludi" case, saw her petition the Jedi Council for Wari's return. However, the Council denied her request, sparking widespread protests, demonstrations, and intense media coverage. Even as these events unfolded, Kailio Entertainments planned to produce a holofilm about the case, with Ch'been slated to direct. While Billane was involved in the film's casting process, Wari was moved to the Kamparas Jedi Training Center to deepen her connection with the Force.
In 24 BBY, Jonava Billane gave birth to Ludi Billane, who lived with her on Ord Thoden. When a quake struck the city of Domitree, Ord Thoden's capital, the mother and daughter were torn apart. Jonava was taken to a town outside the city to recover, while the infant was left in the ruins of Domitree. Jedi Order rescue workers, who had been sent to Domitree to help with the recovery, found Ludi, who was Force-sensitive.
The Order typically required parental consent before taking a child into their ranks, but the infant's parents were missing and thought to be dead at the time. The Jedi named the unidentified child "Aris-Del Wari" and took her to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, where they planned to teach her about the Force. Jonava was found a month later while she was recovering, and she eventually found out what had happened to her child.
Upon discovering her daughter's situation, Jonava Billane used all of her money to travel from Ord Thoden to Coruscant in the hopes of getting Wari back. What followed was a very public custody battle, which prompted Republic officials to try to find a solution to the problem. The People's Inquest, a well-known group that keeps an eye on Jedi accountability, sided with Billane. The group's leader, Thrynka Padaunete, used the incident to show why the Jedi's actions should be more accountable to the people who pay for them.
Boganni Hrul, the senator for the Dynali sector, which included Ord Thoden, sent a formal request to the Jedi Order asking for Wari to be given back to Billane. However, the Jedi Council turned down the request three weeks later. Coleman Trebor, a councilman, told HoloNet News that the council had decided that it would be too dangerous to put Wari back in a non-Jedi environment because the Jedi had already opened her mind to the Force.
As a result, both the request and its rejection were widely reported in the galaxy's media. Billane, however, was not discouraged and said that she would keep fighting until her daughter was returned to her.
Seven days after the Jedi Order turned down Hrul's request, student activists from the University of Coruscant flooded two datanet hubs with holographic images of Wari, who had become known as "Baby Ludi." The images spread quickly across the hubs, deleting and replacing existing files. They were taken from a HoloNet News report and had the caption "I'd rather be with Mom than Mace." The protests against the Jedi Order's decision were not limited to Coruscant. There was the Mothers United March on Alsakan, and a fundraising mediathon with celebrities was held in the Minos Cluster. Thrynka Padaunete became more involved in the case over time and took on the role of Billane's appearance manager.
A week later, it was revealed that Billane would be on the Eriadu talk show, Essence, to talk about the custody fight over Wari. Garox Tronten, the show's producer, said he wanted to look into the issue of Wari's custody and hinted that the Jedi were "kidnapping and raising an army of mind-controlled youths." Meanwhile, Kailio Entertainments, a holofilm production company, beat out two other studios, paid Billane over 125 million credits, and secured the rights to the "Baby Ludi" story. They then gave the go-ahead for the "Untitled Baby Ludi Project," a full-length holo that would cover the dispute. Ch'been, the director of hit movies like Dark Romance, was chosen to direct, which led H'drachi, a spiritualist holomaker, to use his "timestream" power to try to predict what would happen in the case.
When the Billane episode of Essence aired, it made headlines. Billane, who was joined by Padaunete, pleaded with the Jedi Council to give up custody of Wari and thanked everyone who had spoken out against the Jedi Order's actions. When asked about the holofilm that was being made, Billane didn't go into detail, but she did say that a large part of the money she made from the rights went to charities and agencies that were helping her case. After that, Padaunete changed the subject and used the show to attack the Jedi, calling them a cult that didn't understand what it meant to be a mother. By this time, HoloNet News had started calling the Jedi's taking of the child a "kidnapping."
After the Essence episode aired, active protests continued and got worse. Twenty University of Coruscant students from a sociology tour group broke into the Jedi Temple's public lobby and started throwing pre-programmed graffiti-bombs. When the bombs went off, they painted messages like "Baby Ludi Wants Her Mom" and "Broodsnatchers!" all over the lobby. Two Jedi Padawans tried to stop the protest, but they failed. Before being mind tricked by Jedi Master Plo Koon and taken off-site by authorities, the students were able to get into the Temple's Second Atrium Lobby. The Council refused to comment on the incident, and Billane was busy looking over casting choices for Ch'been's holofilm at this point. Padaunete, on the other hand, thanked the students for their efforts on HoloNet News.
Wari, who was fourteen months old, and nineteen of her clan members were moved to the Kamparas Jedi Training Center as part of standard procedure. People's Inquest members who had been camping outside the Jedi Temple soon found out about the move and started an impromptu rally. Firris Palbert, the Inquest's acting leader, publicly criticized the Jedi for the transfer and urged his fellow protesters to go to Kamparas, where they could keep fighting. At this point, Billane and Padaunete didn't say anything about the events because they were both still looking over casting choices for the Baby Ludi holofilm on Kassido.
Pablo Hidalgo and Paul Ens created Aris-Del Wari for HoloNet News. Hidalgo said in his original pitch for the HoloNet News website that the media would latch onto the "Baby Ludi" story because it was a trivial one in the face of the coming Separatist Crisis. He said that the focus on the story was similar to the real-life cases of Elián González, O. J. Simpson, and JonBenét Ramsey. Ludi's story was told in seven issues of HoloNet News that came out in the weeks before the release of Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones.