The familial structures of the Chiss showed significant differences when compared to those of other sentient species. The Chiss Ascendancy's form of government was an oligarchy, with the Nine Ruling Families at its core. The Chiss Syndicure and Aristocra were comprised of high-ranking officials hailing from both the Ruling Families and the lesser, yet still influential, Great Families. Mirroring the broader structure of Chiss society, Chiss families were organized in a highly hierarchical manner. These families maintained a hierarchy based on both political standing and social or familial rank. Family ranks were universally applicable to all members. Political hierarchies were relevant to those engaged in politics, policy-making, and public service, as well as those affected by the decisions made by family officials. The leader of a Chiss family was known as the Patriarch, a position not necessarily held by a male. The family name formed the initial part of a Chiss name, such as "Mitth" in "Mitth'raw'nuruodo," and also the first part of one's core name.
Each of the Nine Ruling Families had an insignia, which appeared as a shoulder patch on their military officers' and warriors' uniforms, as well as the formal clothing of their civilian officials.
The process by which a Chiss individual joined a new family, thereby departing from their original one, was known as rematching. The Chiss Defense Force drew its members from all Chiss families. Conversely, Chiss families frequently sought to recruit promising students, cadets, and even officers into their ranks. It was expected that family politics would remain separate from the operations of the Defense Fleet. This separation was so deeply valued that Chiss Defense Force officers, upon reaching flag rank, were formally divested of their family ties, irrespective of their prior standing within their family. This measure aimed to prevent favoritism or rivalries from influencing the upper echelons of the Defense Force. Despite this, the Syndicure occasionally interfered in Defense Force matters, often with the tacit involvement of members of the Defense Hierarchy Council.
Typically, the Great and Ruling families of the Chiss maintained "family fleets," which served as planetary defense forces for worlds associated with their respective families. Under specific circumstances, Chiss families could declare family emergencies, enabling them to draw officers and warriors directly from the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet to bolster their family fleets and safeguard their interests. The near instigation of a civil war within the Chiss Ascendancy arose from the cunning manipulation of ambitious Chiss civilian officials from three Great Families, leading them to declare such emergencies.
Prior to the Clone Wars by millennia, Chiss families resembled those of other sentient species, consisting of individuals linked by blood relations and marriage. During that era, entry into Chiss families was restricted to birth or marriage. Patriarchs of Chiss families viewed these limitations as leading to decline and undesirable stratification. Dissatisfied with these perceived shortcomings, certain Patriarchs began exploring methods of recruiting Chiss into their families without relying on marriage. These experiments ultimately led to the Chiss family system as it existed in the final year of the Clone Wars, in which promising Chiss could be brought into a family as merit adoptives, and those who demonstrated their worth could ascend to the rank of Trial-born or possibly even ranking distant.
In 1 BBY, the Chiss Ascendancy's families were experiencing increased tensions. Admiral Ar'alani believed that these inter-family conflicts had pushed the Ascendancy to the verge of civil war.
Chiss family ranks, listed from the least to the most privileged and prestigious, were:
- Merit adoptive [1]
- Trial-born [1]
- Ranking distant [1]
- Cousin [1]
- Blood [1]
While most Chiss who joined a family through rematching entered as merit adoptives, it was not uncommon for families to extend invitations to highly sought-after individuals to join at higher ranks.
The process of a Chiss individual joining a new family and leaving their previous one was termed rematching. Chiss families frequently recruited promising young students, cadets, and officers from the Chiss Defense Force to become members of their families. A Chiss' core name included the concluding part of their family's name. Consequently, upon rematching, a Chiss would acquire a new core name. This occurred when the Chiss born as Kivu'raw'nuru was adopted into the Mitth family, thereby becoming "Mitth'raw'nuru" and changing his core name from "Vurawn" to "Thrawn".
Upon promotion to flag rank (commodore or higher), Chiss officers underwent a ceremony in which they were stripped of their family ties. This was implemented to prevent family favoritism or rivalries from influencing the higher echelons of the Defense Force. Nevertheless, the Syndicure sometimes interfered in Defense Force affairs, often with the covert participation of members of the Defense Hierarchy Council.
Ozyly-esehembos, known as sky-walkers, were also removed from their family of birth at a young age, being a member of no family during their tenure among the sky-walker corps. However, upon their departure from the corps, former sky-walkers were sought for recruitment by many families as a sign of prestige. In the case of Cohbo'rik'ardok, the older sister of Senior Captain Thrawn, she had been born as "Kivu'rik'ardok," taken as a sky-walker at the age of five under the name "Rik'ardok," adopted into the Irizi family upon loss of her powers of Third Sight and given the name "Irizi'rik'ardok," and finally married a man of the Cohbo family named Bomarmo, thus taking on the name "Cohbo'rik'ardok" with the core name "Borika."
The known political ranks within Chiss families, arranged from highest to lowest, were:
- The " Patriarch " of a family served as its leader. [1] Patriarchs were not necessarily male, and there was speculation that certain female officials could potentially become their family's patriarchs in the future. [5]
- The " Speaker " led a family's delegation of Syndics to the governing Chiss Syndicure and held the second-highest position within the family. [5]
- A " Syndic " was a member of the Syndicure, the primary political body of the Chiss Ascendancy. [1] Some families employed the rank of Syndic Prime, which was the highest-ranking Syndic and immediately below the family's Speaker in terms of power. It was a title mostly hidden from the other families, as they should not know about the internal hierarchy of the Syndics.[5]
- A " Patriel " managed family affairs at the planetary level. [1]
- A " Councilor " handled family affairs at the local level. [1]
- An " Aristocra " was a mid-level official within a family. The term "Aristocra" also referred to an organization within the Syndicure. [1]
The Chiss Ascendancy was governed by the Nine Ruling Families, which possessed significant prestige, power, wealth, and influence. Below them were the "Forty Great Houses," commonly known as the Great Families, which still held considerable influence, albeit less than the Ruling Families. Families outside of the Ruling and Great Families had substantially less power, prestige, and political influence. It is worth noting that families could be promoted or demoted within the Ruling or Great Families. While there were Nine Ruling Families and Forty Great families in 19 BBY, neither of those groups had a legally fixed number of members. Chiss historical records showed times when there had been as few as three and as many as twelve Ruling Families. Chiss legends of the dawn of the Ascendancy even claimed that the Stybla family had once been the only Ruling Family. Members of the Nine and the Forty had family crests to represent them, whereas other, lesser families merely had stylized names.
Central to Chiss culture was a strong sense of duty to one's family and a desire to bring the family honor, glory, and power. This attitude was prominent among high-ranking family officials such as Syndics and Patriarchs, but often also among Chiss who joined a family from another family of lower status. Some families, such as the Xodlak family, took that attitude to extremes beyond the norm.
"Family politics" encompassed the rivalries, competition, alliances, and partnerships among the Ascendancy's families. Family politics frequently played a dominant role in decision-making within the Ascendancy, although it was often not cited as the official reason for specific courses of action. Family politics were not supposed to affect Defense Fleet business in any way. The desire to separate Fleet operations from family politics was so ingrained that, upon promotion to Flag rank, Officers of the Chiss Defense Force were stripped of their family ties, regardless of what their rank within their family had been. As such, official explanations cited other reasons when family politics were the true reason behind decisions affecting the military
Many Chiss remarked that Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo "Thrawn" was completely oblivious to the nuances of politics, despite being a tactical genius in combat. At times, some Chiss officers such as Laknym wondered whether Thrawn was "playing politics," to which their superiors such as Mid Captain Ufsa'mak'ro would reply that Thrawn didn't even understand politics. Years later, many Imperial personnel had similar thoughts on Thrawn's political obliviousness.
Each Chiss Ruling and Great Family possessed a fleet of warships that functioned as planetary defense forces for planets associated with that family. Each family's fleet had particular types of warship design, and officers and warriors of the Expansionary Defense Fleet were trained to know their family's vessels' strengths and weaknesses well. Ruling Families were permitted much larger, more powerful, and more modern fleets than Great Families. In the event of a Ruling Family's demotion to Great, they would lose the right to the majority of their fleet and the most advanced craft. Nevertheless, Great Families retained fleets for planetary defense.
Great Family fleets included the Xodlak fleet, the Coduyo fleet, and the Pommrio fleet. Family fleets were typically used for smaller-scale engagements than the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet would be deployed for, and in certain cases consisted of vessels at least one-hundred years old. In 18 BBY, the Grysk Hegemony and Agbui led by Haplif attempted to instigate a civil war in the Chiss Ascendancy by causing the Xodlak, Pommrio, and Erighal family fleets to attack one-another to claim a planet supposedly rich in the valuable metal nyix. Each of those three great families declared a family emergency, recalling their officers and warriors from their Defense Force assignments to crew their family fleets to try to claim the world Hoxim.
Each family's warships had their own set of unique peculiarities in their design and operations, and each family emphatically taught its Fleet warriors about their family fleet's strengths and weaknesses. This came in handy for Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo at the Hoxim incident, where he employed Xodlak, Pommrio, and Erighal soldiers under his command to target their own families' ships with "a maximum of ferocity and a minimum of actual damage," a tactic that had been dubbed a "light show."
The initial mention of Chiss families as political entities occurred in the 2019 novel titled Thrawn: Treason, which served as the concluding volume of Timothy Zahn's canon Thrawn trilogy. Their first appearance was in the 2020 novel Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising, the first novel of Zahn's Star Wars: The Ascendancy Trilogy. Chiss families originated in the 1998 Star Wars Legends novel Vision of the Future, and first appeared in the 2004 novel Survivor's Quest, both written by Zahn.