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| Who’s Who Lord Crueya Vandron |
Lord Crueya Vandron was a Privy Counsellor in the service of the Imperial State in the mid-10s rS and apparently continued throughout the
20s and 30s. He was first mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook and the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition. Although there was originally
no connection between Lord Crueya and House Vandron — he was initially mentioned only as “Crueya Vandron,” without any title or
honorific — he has subsequently been identified as a nobleman specifically from House Vandron in the Senex Sector.
House Vandron is first mentioned in Children of the Jedi, in which General Han Solo remarks that “the House Vandron runs slave farms on
Karfeddion” in the Senex Sector, near the “Ninth Quadrant” and the Greeb-Streebling Cluster and the Noopiths; Nichos Marr mentioned that
the Senex Sector was ruled by “Princes of the Ancient Houses,” and the Princess Leia of Alderaan even recalled that her aunt had once been
engaged to an unknown member of House Vandron (the engagement had been broken off because of an unspecified scandal). According to the
Princess Leia’s recollections, the Ancient Houses of the Senex were “cold-eyed and elegantly groomed descendants of ancient starfaring
conquerors” who had “even considered Coruscant déclassé” because, as another of her aunts had put it, there were “so many bureaucrats, my
dear.” According to Children of the Jedi, Theala, Lady Vandron, was “acknowledged superior among the Senex Lords by virtue of heading the
oldest and noblest of the Ancient Houses,” and permitted slavers to operate “breeding farms” on her homeworld Karfeddion. Although she is
said to be in her forties in Children of the Jedi, set in 47 rS, the Lady Vandron appeared as a fully-grown woman in Cloak of Deception, set in 3
rS; either Children of the Jedi’s description of her age is wrong, or there were two separate and successive Ladies Vandron with the given name
Theala.
After a failed assassination attempt on Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum in 3 rS, Nebula Front militants fled Republic space to Asmeru,
territory in the Senex Sector controlled by House Vandron but seized by the Nebula Front as a base of operations for raids on the Rimma Trade
Route and the Corellian Trade Spine; after negotiations with the Republic Government, House Vandron agreed to escort personnel from the
Republic’s Judicial Department to Asmeru, sending “a pair of colossal dreandaughts with fanged bows and elegantly finned sterns, prickly with
weapons and bearing the royal crest of House Vandron” (one of these ships was identified as the Famulus); an officer aboard one of the
dreadnaughts greeted the Republic’s emissaries “on behalf of Lord Crueya and Lady Theala of House Vandron,” the first chronological mention
of Lord Crueya and also the first time he has been associated explicitly with House Vandron. Valorum later mentioned that Lord Crueya
claimed that these ships “were ordered beforehand to avoid engagement, no matter what occurred,” indicating that he was acting as a sort of
spokesman for his House, possibly even as its ambassador to Coruscant.
Remarkably, eleven years later in 14 rS, a Republic HoloNet News holomedia correspondent calls Lord Crueya “Crueya Vandron, advisor to
the Supreme Chancellor” in “Republic Youths Hold Patriot Parade,” and quotes him as addressing media criticism of the greater than 95%
human composition of Sub Adult Group (SAGroup), the youth section of the “increasingly popular” Commission for the Protection of the
Republic (COMPOR). It is not clear how precisely Lord Crueya came to be considered a member of Palpatine’s official family, as he is not
even a citizen of the Galactic Republic, being a foreign national (to say nothing of the fact that he is a high-ranking member of a reigning royal
family of that selfsame foreign power). Perhaps the Senex Sector (or House Vandron at least) signed an alliance with the Republic during the
Clone War of 13 - 16 rS? If so, then perhaps Lord Crueya’s position as ambassador of a very wealthy ally allowed him to participate in the
planning of the war at the highest levels (although it is still bad form for him to comment on internal matters like SAGroup’s composition).
Unfortunately this irregularity has not been clarified.
Lord Crueya’s apparent interest in COMPOR — “little more than a social gathering for idealistic young beings who saw in the New Order a
deliverance from the chaos of the dying days of the Old Republic,” according to the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition — is appropriate,
however. According to the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition, Lord Crueya “saw the potential worth of a populist movement which could
be molded into a useful political tool,” and that he arranged for “overt encouragement and discreet funding,” so as to give COMPOR the
appearance of “a spontaneous organization enjoying phenomenal growth.” The Rebellion Era Sourcebook explains that “during its early years,
the New Order was a populist movement,” that “grassroots organizations sprang up, and commoners became actively involved in the shaping
of local and galactic politics as they hadn’t been for centuries”; via Lord Crueya’s increasing dominance of the organization, Palpatine was able
to apply “a hidden, gentle, consistent pressure” on the unsuspecting masses. When Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was acclaimed Galactic
Emperor in 16 rS, one of his first acts in the first months of his new principate was to officially re-incorporate COMPOR as the Commission
for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR), which was to form a major element of the Galactic Empire’s peculiar constitution. Under
Lord Crueya’s guidance, COMPNOR became a totalitarian ideological monolith, that “actively attempts to build the ethic of the New Order
into the life of the average galactic citizen.” According to “COMPOR Reorganized,” during the 16:5:24 ceremony held at the Pliada di am
Imperium — a large plaza in Imperial City, Imperial Center — to commemorate the formal reconstitution of COMPOR as COMPNOR, former
COMPOR spokesman Ishin-Il-Raz stated that “Advisor Vandron is in full support of our mission and has made a commitment to growing
COMPOR,” establishing that Lord Crueya did not personally hold office in COMPNOR’s ruling structure, as Il-Raz himself was Chairman of
the Select Committee.
Apparently there were elements within COMPOR’s leadership that did not approve of the direction that COMPNOR was taking, as the
Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition states that the Galactic Emperor’s “methods were patient, defeating his opponents within COMPNOR
not through violence or threats,” but with such subtlety that “those who opposed the change in COMPNOR never even knew the Emperor had
done anything to instigate the changes,” and “most could not even explain how the nature the nature of their organization differed from what
they had envisioned.” The Rebellion Era Sourcebook states that Wilhuff Tarkin’s “seminal text” Visions of the New Order “served as the
blueprint for COMPNOR-related organizations such as the Imperial Security Bureau and the paramilitary group COMPForce [sic]”; “key
members” of the organization were appointed to the all-powerful Select Committee, and “then the changes became more sweeping,”
presumably based on concepts and principles from Visions of the New Order.
Mr. Daniel Krouse has pointed out that it is possible that Palpatine himself ghostwrote this book, based on the example of his probable
ghostwriting of the Security Act amendment of 16 rS (as mentioned in Revenge of the Sith). If so, this provides a fascinating picture of a muted
ideological struggle for control within the Select Committee; one could suppose that the camisas viejas were Tarkinists rather than Palpatinists,
and unintentionally played into his hands by drawing their ideology and organizational concepts from what they wrongly thought to be
exclusively Tarkin’s book.
Lord Crueya — he had been appointed one of the Galactic Emperor’s Privy Counsellors, which makes it very likely that the Senex Sector
became an Imperial client state or even a member state — remained the dominant figure in COMPNOR for the entire Imperial era. The Imperial
Sourcebook, Second Edition states that “the efficiency, professionalism, and speed” with which the Republican Security Organization, Senate
Bureau of Intelligence, Interstellar Consortium on Technology, and Special Acquisitions Branch of the Library of the Republic amalgamated
into Imperial Intelligence frightened the leading figures of the privy council, and that Lord Crueya created COMPNOR’s quasi-official secret
police Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) in response. According to Cracken’s Rebel Operatives, Lord Crueya insisted that the children of a group
of Imperial diplomats placed in “protective custody” be “integrated into the fledgeling [sic] COMPNOR SAGroup,” and as such receive full-
year training in Imperial bureaucratic procedure, culture, military operations, and intelligence operations. In the Imperial Sourcebook, Second
Edition, it is mentioned that around the time of the Battle of Yavin in 35 rS, he had begun “trying to work the idea of ‘Imperial Infallibility’ into
the code” (i.e., the uniform codex iuris being prepared by the Justice Group within COMPNOR’s Coalition for Progress), and responded to
resistance in the group by having the ISB harass individual members and arranging show trials for less prominent members pour encourager les
autres; he also took the simple step of “assigning new members to Justice who see things the way the Emperor would like them seen.”
Virtually nothing else is known of Lord Crueya’s life or personal background. His activities after the death of the Galactic Emperor at the Battle
of Endor in 39 rS are unknown; likewise there are no known details of when and under what circumstances he died, or even if he did in fact die
and did not simply return to the Senex Sector, which remained aloof in the following years of turmoil, as seen in Children of the Jedi. This
author has given him the title “His Royal Highness the Marquess Vandron of the Blood Royal” and the nickname “the Iron Marquess,” but
both names are unattested and non-canonical.
References:
20s and 30s. He was first mentioned in the Imperial Sourcebook and the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition. Although there was originally
no connection between Lord Crueya and House Vandron — he was initially mentioned only as “Crueya Vandron,” without any title or
honorific — he has subsequently been identified as a nobleman specifically from House Vandron in the Senex Sector.
House Vandron is first mentioned in Children of the Jedi, in which General Han Solo remarks that “the House Vandron runs slave farms on
Karfeddion” in the Senex Sector, near the “Ninth Quadrant” and the Greeb-Streebling Cluster and the Noopiths; Nichos Marr mentioned that
the Senex Sector was ruled by “Princes of the Ancient Houses,” and the Princess Leia of Alderaan even recalled that her aunt had once been
engaged to an unknown member of House Vandron (the engagement had been broken off because of an unspecified scandal). According to the
Princess Leia’s recollections, the Ancient Houses of the Senex were “cold-eyed and elegantly groomed descendants of ancient starfaring
conquerors” who had “even considered Coruscant déclassé” because, as another of her aunts had put it, there were “so many bureaucrats, my
dear.” According to Children of the Jedi, Theala, Lady Vandron, was “acknowledged superior among the Senex Lords by virtue of heading the
oldest and noblest of the Ancient Houses,” and permitted slavers to operate “breeding farms” on her homeworld Karfeddion. Although she is
said to be in her forties in Children of the Jedi, set in 47 rS, the Lady Vandron appeared as a fully-grown woman in Cloak of Deception, set in 3
rS; either Children of the Jedi’s description of her age is wrong, or there were two separate and successive Ladies Vandron with the given name
Theala.
After a failed assassination attempt on Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum in 3 rS, Nebula Front militants fled Republic space to Asmeru,
territory in the Senex Sector controlled by House Vandron but seized by the Nebula Front as a base of operations for raids on the Rimma Trade
Route and the Corellian Trade Spine; after negotiations with the Republic Government, House Vandron agreed to escort personnel from the
Republic’s Judicial Department to Asmeru, sending “a pair of colossal dreandaughts with fanged bows and elegantly finned sterns, prickly with
weapons and bearing the royal crest of House Vandron” (one of these ships was identified as the Famulus); an officer aboard one of the
dreadnaughts greeted the Republic’s emissaries “on behalf of Lord Crueya and Lady Theala of House Vandron,” the first chronological mention
of Lord Crueya and also the first time he has been associated explicitly with House Vandron. Valorum later mentioned that Lord Crueya
claimed that these ships “were ordered beforehand to avoid engagement, no matter what occurred,” indicating that he was acting as a sort of
spokesman for his House, possibly even as its ambassador to Coruscant.
Remarkably, eleven years later in 14 rS, a Republic HoloNet News holomedia correspondent calls Lord Crueya “Crueya Vandron, advisor to
the Supreme Chancellor” in “Republic Youths Hold Patriot Parade,” and quotes him as addressing media criticism of the greater than 95%
human composition of Sub Adult Group (SAGroup), the youth section of the “increasingly popular” Commission for the Protection of the
Republic (COMPOR). It is not clear how precisely Lord Crueya came to be considered a member of Palpatine’s official family, as he is not
even a citizen of the Galactic Republic, being a foreign national (to say nothing of the fact that he is a high-ranking member of a reigning royal
family of that selfsame foreign power). Perhaps the Senex Sector (or House Vandron at least) signed an alliance with the Republic during the
Clone War of 13 - 16 rS? If so, then perhaps Lord Crueya’s position as ambassador of a very wealthy ally allowed him to participate in the
planning of the war at the highest levels (although it is still bad form for him to comment on internal matters like SAGroup’s composition).
Unfortunately this irregularity has not been clarified.
Lord Crueya’s apparent interest in COMPOR — “little more than a social gathering for idealistic young beings who saw in the New Order a
deliverance from the chaos of the dying days of the Old Republic,” according to the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition — is appropriate,
however. According to the Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition, Lord Crueya “saw the potential worth of a populist movement which could
be molded into a useful political tool,” and that he arranged for “overt encouragement and discreet funding,” so as to give COMPOR the
appearance of “a spontaneous organization enjoying phenomenal growth.” The Rebellion Era Sourcebook explains that “during its early years,
the New Order was a populist movement,” that “grassroots organizations sprang up, and commoners became actively involved in the shaping
of local and galactic politics as they hadn’t been for centuries”; via Lord Crueya’s increasing dominance of the organization, Palpatine was able
to apply “a hidden, gentle, consistent pressure” on the unsuspecting masses. When Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was acclaimed Galactic
Emperor in 16 rS, one of his first acts in the first months of his new principate was to officially re-incorporate COMPOR as the Commission
for the Preservation of the New Order (COMPNOR), which was to form a major element of the Galactic Empire’s peculiar constitution. Under
Lord Crueya’s guidance, COMPNOR became a totalitarian ideological monolith, that “actively attempts to build the ethic of the New Order
into the life of the average galactic citizen.” According to “COMPOR Reorganized,” during the 16:5:24 ceremony held at the Pliada di am
Imperium — a large plaza in Imperial City, Imperial Center — to commemorate the formal reconstitution of COMPOR as COMPNOR, former
COMPOR spokesman Ishin-Il-Raz stated that “Advisor Vandron is in full support of our mission and has made a commitment to growing
COMPOR,” establishing that Lord Crueya did not personally hold office in COMPNOR’s ruling structure, as Il-Raz himself was Chairman of
the Select Committee.
Apparently there were elements within COMPOR’s leadership that did not approve of the direction that COMPNOR was taking, as the
Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition states that the Galactic Emperor’s “methods were patient, defeating his opponents within COMPNOR
not through violence or threats,” but with such subtlety that “those who opposed the change in COMPNOR never even knew the Emperor had
done anything to instigate the changes,” and “most could not even explain how the nature the nature of their organization differed from what
they had envisioned.” The Rebellion Era Sourcebook states that Wilhuff Tarkin’s “seminal text” Visions of the New Order “served as the
blueprint for COMPNOR-related organizations such as the Imperial Security Bureau and the paramilitary group COMPForce [sic]”; “key
members” of the organization were appointed to the all-powerful Select Committee, and “then the changes became more sweeping,”
presumably based on concepts and principles from Visions of the New Order.
Mr. Daniel Krouse has pointed out that it is possible that Palpatine himself ghostwrote this book, based on the example of his probable
ghostwriting of the Security Act amendment of 16 rS (as mentioned in Revenge of the Sith). If so, this provides a fascinating picture of a muted
ideological struggle for control within the Select Committee; one could suppose that the camisas viejas were Tarkinists rather than Palpatinists,
and unintentionally played into his hands by drawing their ideology and organizational concepts from what they wrongly thought to be
exclusively Tarkin’s book.
Lord Crueya — he had been appointed one of the Galactic Emperor’s Privy Counsellors, which makes it very likely that the Senex Sector
became an Imperial client state or even a member state — remained the dominant figure in COMPNOR for the entire Imperial era. The Imperial
Sourcebook, Second Edition states that “the efficiency, professionalism, and speed” with which the Republican Security Organization, Senate
Bureau of Intelligence, Interstellar Consortium on Technology, and Special Acquisitions Branch of the Library of the Republic amalgamated
into Imperial Intelligence frightened the leading figures of the privy council, and that Lord Crueya created COMPNOR’s quasi-official secret
police Imperial Security Bureau (ISB) in response. According to Cracken’s Rebel Operatives, Lord Crueya insisted that the children of a group
of Imperial diplomats placed in “protective custody” be “integrated into the fledgeling [sic] COMPNOR SAGroup,” and as such receive full-
year training in Imperial bureaucratic procedure, culture, military operations, and intelligence operations. In the Imperial Sourcebook, Second
Edition, it is mentioned that around the time of the Battle of Yavin in 35 rS, he had begun “trying to work the idea of ‘Imperial Infallibility’ into
the code” (i.e., the uniform codex iuris being prepared by the Justice Group within COMPNOR’s Coalition for Progress), and responded to
resistance in the group by having the ISB harass individual members and arranging show trials for less prominent members pour encourager les
autres; he also took the simple step of “assigning new members to Justice who see things the way the Emperor would like them seen.”
Virtually nothing else is known of Lord Crueya’s life or personal background. His activities after the death of the Galactic Emperor at the Battle
of Endor in 39 rS are unknown; likewise there are no known details of when and under what circumstances he died, or even if he did in fact die
and did not simply return to the Senex Sector, which remained aloof in the following years of turmoil, as seen in Children of the Jedi. This
author has given him the title “His Royal Highness the Marquess Vandron of the Blood Royal” and the nickname “the Iron Marquess,” but
both names are unattested and non-canonical.
References:
- Balsalmo, Paul, et al. Cracken’s Rebel Operatives. West End Games, 1994.
- Gordon, Greg. Imperial Sourcebook. West End Games, 1989.
- Gordon, Greg and Peter Schweighofer (eds.) Imperial Sourcebook, Second Edition. West End Games, 1994.
- Hambly, Barbara. Children of the Jedi. Bantam Books, 1995.
- Luceno, James. Cloak of Deception. Del Rey Books, 2001.
- Wallace, Daniel E. with Pablo Hidalgo. “COMPOR Reorganized.” Republic HoloNet News 16:5:241. Star Wars Insider No. 84. IDG
Communications, Inc., 2005.
| This site is for informational and entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement of any kind is intended. Star Wars and related materials are © Lucasfilm Ltd., which reserves all rights thereto. All original material is © Julius Sykes. Please do not use without permission. |
| This biography was originally added in October 2005. It was republished on 23 April 2007. |