Ante-Endor Association

The Ante-Endor Association, or AEA for short, was a pro-Imperial organization based on Mrlsst that claimed that the Battle of Endor never occurred and was a piece of Rebel Alliance propaganda. The group insisted that the Empire was still operating at full strength, further claiming that the Rebels had been responsible for the destruction of Alderaan, while testing a weapon to rival the Death Star. The group also declared that there were no more Jedi, referring to Luke Skywalker. The AEA was led by none other than Gade Yedan, the assistant to Gyr Keela, President of the Mrlsst Trade and Science Academy. When the Imperial captain Loka Hask came to Mrlsst during negotiations for cloaking technology, he made the members of the AEA his underlings, using them to steal precious datacards and frame the Rogue Squadron pilots, who represented the New Republic in said negotiations.
==Description==
The Ante-Endor Association's raison d'être was to contest the very existence of the Battle of Endor, during which the Galactic Empire was defeated by the enemy Rebel Alliance; not only did the Alliance Fleet manage to destroy the Empire's second Death Star, a moon-sized battlestation, but Galactic Emperor Palpatine himself was killed during the battle by his own second-in-command, Darth Vader.
The members of the AEA described the Alliance's account of the battle as a mere fable, putting forth their own revisionist version of the events. According to the AEA, the Rebels were too much of a ragtag army to be actually threatening to the second Death Star, a most striking symbol of the Empire's technological might. They also claimed that, a few years earlier, the Alliance scientists had blown up the planet of Alderaan while trying to invent a superweapon to match the Empire's original Death Star. In fact, Alderaan had been destroyed at the hands of the Imperial Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, who had used the first Death Star's superlaser on the planet.
The AEA also contested the claim that a Jedi was involved in the Battle of Endor, arguing that those ancient warriors did not exist anymore. Indeed, most Jedi had been systematically killed as part of Emperor Palpatine's Great Jedi Purge, which he had initiated immediately his creation of the Galactic Empire, in 19 BBY. In order to justify that slaughter, Palpatine had convinced the Senate that the Jedi had tried to assassinate him, which made their whole order traitors to the state. Despite that, the Rebel Alliance did have a Jedi in his ranks, the young Luke Skywalker, who had been trained by two of the Great Purge's rare survivors, Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
While the AEA had their own way of negating the Rebel Alliance's victory at Endor, stating that the Emperor was still alive and that the Death Star was never destroyed, their version did not coincide with the official propaganda shown at the Imperial Museum on Coruscant. That propaganda suggested that the Death Stars had been nothing but benign Planetary Ore Extractors, and that the Alliance had stolen the second of those to use it on inhabited planets. The museum's version did not deny that the Emperor had died, although suggested that he had infiltrated the ore extractor to offer the Rebels his forgiveness and his hand in friendship. However, his offer was supposedly rejected, and the Emperor was forced to destroy this Death Star himself, perishing in the process but allowing his citizens to live on. The same story also added that Darth Vader was slain in service to his Master.X-Wing: Wedge's Gamble
As a symbol of their organization, the AEA members used a variant of the six-spoked Imperial crest, which was itself a deformed version of the Order of Dai Bendu's Galactic Roundel. The AEA's version had a stylized Death Star superimposed on the right side of the crest. On the association's banner, the modified crest was inserted in a golden, diamond-shaped figure, which was itself placed on a crimson background.
The members of the AEA wore uniforms that resembled those of the Imperial Military, comprising a double-breasted tunic with a choke collar, matching flared trousers, a pair of boots, and gauntlet style gloves. That outfit was entirely black with the exception of a broad golden trim that extended across the chest on one side and across the midsection on the other. The upper part of each sleeve was also decorate with a similar golden armband. The AEA's crest was featured on the armbands and at the front center of the chest.
==History==
The Ante-Endor Association emerged on the planet of Mrlsst in 4 ABY, within the two months that followed the Battle of Endor. The AEA held meetings on the university campus, claiming to enlighten students with the truth about Endor. As the Mrlssi prided themselves on freedom of speech, no matter who spoke, nothing could prevent the spread of the AEA's propaganda. Besides, a majority of teachers of the Mrlsst academies supported the Empire at the time. The AEA was headed by Gade Yedan, a Myke who also served as the assistant to Gyr Keela, President of the Mrlsst Trade and Science Academy.
At that time, the Imperial captain Loka Hask came to Mrrlst in hopes of finding new cloaking technology from the Mrlssi, who had put up for bids their Phantom Project to the last holdings of the Empire and the burgeoning New Republic, born from the Rebel Alliance. The New Republic's representatives were the members of the Rogue Squadron, led by Wedge Antilles. Several members of the Rogue Squadron, namely Tycho Celchu, Derek Klivian, Plourr Ilo, and Dllr Nep, came across a speech being given by the association. Celchu, who had fought in the Battle of Endor, was particularly aghast at their propaganda, and decided to confront the group publicly. The AEA speakers shrugged off Celchu's argument, making a fool of him in front of the assembled students, and the Rogue pilot left the premises in a foul mood. Later that evening, the AEA members waylaid Celchu as he wandered on the campus. As he continued to insist that the Battle of Endor had occurred as the Alliance recounted, they began showering him with blows. However, Celchu still managed to defeat all members of the group but one, who struck him from behind. The Rebel was only saved by the arrival of what appeared to be the ghost of a Jedi, who struck the final attacker and then vanished.
Shortly thereafter, the AEA members stole the datacards containing the plans for the Phantom Project and doctored the surveillance footage of their heist in order to implicate the Rogue Squadron pilots. However, the Endor negationists lost the datacards to a group of war droids belonging to the band Ghost Jedi. Later, at least one member of the AEA, namely Gade Yedan, accompanied Captain Hask when he raided a Doctor Rorax Falken's asteroid laboratory to steal the technology behind the secret gravitic polarization beam weapon. Yedan, however, was shot by Hask shortly before Falken's asteroid laboratory was consumed by a hyperspace wormhole.
==Appearances==
*X-Wing Rogue Squadron 5 
*X-Wing Rogue Squadron 6
*X-Wing Rogue Squadron 7
*X-Wing Rogue Squadron 8
==Sources==
*Star Wars Handbook 1: X-Wing Rogue Squadron
*The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
==Notes and references==
Category:Galactic Empire organizations
Category:Political factions