Alcona Honour
The Alcona live by a strict code of honour, with ‘honour’ being both the possessing of the various virtues of that code, and its outward manifestation in appearance, deed, and reputation. It is said by the Alcona that virtues never come into conflict, though they only appear to do so to outsiders.
One of the chief virtues is craftiness. To the Alcona, this involves deception only sometimes. Craftiness may be defined as `the use of intelligence to achieve an end`. It should be noted that they champion deception, while frowning generally on outright lies; to blatantly misrepresent oneself and issue an out and out lie is, usually, viewed as cowardly. Short-sightedness and foolhardiness are also frowned upon.
After this is fortitude. This also includes courage, understood as which means not the absence of fear, but its mastery. A goal of Alcona meditation is the identification of fears, so that they can be faced. Further, it includes ones’ ability to both remain true to their ways and the goals which have been set.
Fidelity is also highly valued, whether to the clan, companions, or ones self. Oddly enough, this is where the rules about honesty also come in: it is not considered dishonourable to blatantly lie in protection of another. An Alcona never gives his or her word lightly; once given, unless one must break with their code to fulfil it, they cannot retract it. The exception is when their word has been obtained by a dishonourable method, or is not freely given.
There is a premium placed on self-reliance, though again, under the restriction that this is not to go to foolhardy levels. It’s considered self-reliant to use your own abilities to hack a system, but just stupid not to hire a professional when needed.
One will note the absence of such things most people look upon as virtues, such as hospitality or gentle demeanours. Outsiders often call the Alcona `tactless,` but this is because of the most cardinal virtue, honour. One shows respect appropriate to the display of honour one has. Further, they believe that coddling does no favours: that the galaxy is a harsh place is something to be accepted and faced. You don’t go out of your way to be brutal, but you don’t go out of your way to be coddling, either.
The Alcona in Battle
One of the places where Alcona honour is seen as being most visible is on the battlefield. It becomes quickly clear that all of their battle tactics are designed to be quick and effective. Overwhelming force is seen as brutish; overcoming a superior force through craftiness is to be admired and encouraged.
Striking an enemy who cannot defend themselves is dishonourable. So too is hiding behind those who cannot defend themselves. Whether or not you can kill defenceless people who are being hidden behind depends upon the situation, with the general rule of thumb being that you should try to find another way, but if you can’t, you’re allowed to meet dishonourable tactics with dishonourable provided you do not initiate them.
A favoured tactic is to use Melee weapons or hand-to-hand fighting.
Social Structure Notes
Varies by clan. In general, each clan has a single leader, or a small council, depending on size; if a clan gets too large, they will grant permission to small groups to form new clans. Ever since the Mandelorian Wars, there has never been a mass gathering of the Alcona clans in one place.
Position is determined by a combination of ability to lead, and honour; when it doubt, the Alcona perceived as having the greater honour leads. In the rare occasions when a clan-action occurs, to be asked to lead the action is considered a great honour.
Of special note is the rituals employed.
There is a ceremony of joining, in which an outside member may join a clan; usually, these people are required to have shown some great dead. Afterwords, they are subject to the same expectations of the Alcona, and would be trained in the ways of the clan and of combat. A member of the clan must witness for the initiate, and is afterwords adopted as the son or daughter of them; which results in the strange situation sometimes of a person having a son/daughter older than them.
There is an exception, when the initiation doubles as a marriage to the outsider; in both cases, both must slash their hands and mix blood. The oaths taken depend on the initiation type; and the regular marriage ceremony involves the mixing of blood as well.
Funeral rights are reserved from those who lived with honour in life, and did not die in a state of dishonour. Someone close to the deceased, when available, lists their greatest accomplishments. This occurs in afternoon of the funeral; afterwords, the body, or a representation of the body if one is not around, is then cremated. Thus concludes the solemn part of the ceremony, and begins a ritual feast which extends through dawn the next day.
Birth ceremonies are not quite as elaborate; but after birth, the child is kept for three days. Close associates of the parents, appointed before birth, then examine the child; a physician must certify the health of the child, and the associates are then responsible for both vouching for the honour of the parents and the birth, and that the child is free of defect. When all of this is passed, the parents lift the child into the air, acknowledging it as their own.
At the age of three, formal education begins; by the age of five, the Alcona begin training. Age Sixteen is considered the Coming of Age for both sexes, at which point the child is liberated completely from any control of the parents. Traditionally, the parents will present to the child a sword of some sort or some other weapon.
At the Coming of Age, a council is established within the community, and the child examined on the Virtues. This may take the form of an oral exam, or in some more traditional clans, a task or series of tasks. Completion of this ceremony marks the full entry into adulthood, and of the Clan.
Offences are handled by varying legal assemblies, with punishments including shunning for a period, and on occasion, banishment from the clan; banishment always includes with it the destruction of the offender’s armour, so that they must begin again from scratch.
There is a Ceremony of Returning, but this is almost never used.
Most complex are the varied Honour Challenges. One may challenge anyone in the leadership on the basis of inadequate honour. Most formally, this is done before at least six other members assembled, who must vouch for the honour of the challenger, with at least two others accusing the challenged of lacking honour; in the field, these technicalities usually go to the side.
An Honour Challenge results in single combat, unarmed and unarmoured. This combat may end in death or, when the opponent is pacified, in giving his or her life over to the rest of the clan.
The more informal honour challenge is sometimes used as well, where two people meet and challenge each other. This is not done to assume any status, and others may intervene, but only to prevent the challenge from going through and require them to state a case when there is room for doubt.
Disputes are resolved by all members involved agreeing on the number of wronged parties, and a committee being appointed, one member from each party, to sit as arbiters; rather than deny that we would try to appoint people who are biased in our favour, the Alcona embrace this, and try to eliminate the bias by its very use.
Culture
The Alcona have no formal government; each `clan` is free to set its own governing system, and usually all have varying traditions borrowing from other worlds. As such, identity is usually viewed in terms of culture and a shared experience and stories. Some interesting notes:
-An Alcona Clan is not always exclusively human; non-humans may gain admittance
-The above described rituals hold for the more militaristic clans, like Clan Merrol; other Clans will adopt other rituals as well, and some, alter the form
-A number of the clans have started to rediscover their more peaceful past; the clan on Alderaan, for example, has produced a rather decent composer and two painters.
-Honour challenges are many things, but they aren’t common, and are risky things in a clan setting – more than a fair share have seen the challengers challenged in turn for opportunism.
-The Alcona respect the Jedi for their abilities and general ability to uphold honour. However, receiving training in the ways of the Jedi (as distinct from training in the Force) is considered an immediate banishment from Alcona society without formally renouncing all ties to the Jedi Order.
They view the Jedi practice of removing children at a young age as both a threat to the clans, and as being dangerous for eroding the natural bonds that are supposed to form between people.
Expanded History/Legends
Alcona history stretches back some 4,500 years; after 500 years as a colony on the Outer Rim, they managed to finally begin to civilise the world and region. The Alcona were the local cultural centre for their sector of the Rim: you went to the Alcona homeworld to study things like art and literature.
It is a time which the Alcona now refer to as The Age of Legends – a time when the Alcona were ruled by a series of Sages, known for a high amount of learning, and still doing what they could to battle pirates and other sabotours.
All of that came to an end with the Sith War when Exar Kun travelled to Korriban after conversing with the disembodied spirit of Freedon Naad. Kun took Ulic Quel-Droma as his apprentice, and launched an attack on the Republic.
It was not the Sith which destroyed the Alcona, however. That fell to the Mandelorian Wars which came a few years later.
The Alcona homeworld was one of the first on their path of conquest. Legends speak of the Sage Utillis, who had a vision while in meditation, and prepared for an evacuation years in advance – an evacuation which saved hardly any of the Alcona, but enough to allow several new clans to form in the wake of the war.
It was this singular event which triggered the change in Alcona culture and scattered them; it took nearly 1,000 years for significant clans to begin to emerge again, but the Mandelorians, and Sith invasion which followed that, left an indelible stamp upon them: their code of honour developed primarily as a way of preserving their traditions and identity.
Major Literature
Each clan has been known to adopt stories from various other cultures and times. There is, however, a small body of stories and legends, aside from the story of Utillius which survives.
The Saga Cycle
Each Saga, like Icelandic literature, generally follows several generations. In their present form, the Sagas are mytho-historical tales. Each clan tends to have at least one Saga, following the first generations to escape the Mandelorian slaughter, and reunite parts of the clans. Most clan members are familiar with their own Saga.
There’s also a few more Sagas which are generally known. The most famous is Saga of the Alcona-Nite, (the e is not silent) using the Alcona word for Jedi. This Saga follows the story of several Jedi Knights, Alcona force-sensitive members who refused to surrender their beliefs to the Jedi Council. It’s also the only Saga which takes place within a single generation.
Saga of the Volsarrs follows several generations within the Volsarr clan after it evacuates from Dantooine, following the re-establishment of Republic power in the Sector. It’s one of those stories which is regionally popular even outside of the Alcona, dealing with pirates and frontier settlements, skirmishes with local settlements, and even a mild Sith incursion.
The Legends of Penrath Nagrodur
Usually described as pure mythology by anyone who studies the Alcona. This name is given to a collective group of legends around clan Nagrodur – a clan who appears nowhere in the historical record – set in the time of Elder Penrath, about 300 years after the founding of their original colony world. None the less, Clan Nagrodur is accepted as historical fact by the Alcona.
This is not collectively counted as a Saga, due to it being set in the Age of Legends. It does, however, contain a Saga-like story, in which several smaller clans are united after their infighting by Penrath Nagrodur under their banner.
Much of the cycle is occupied, however, by the tales of individuals and their coming of age into society. In these tales, individual warriors experience a fall after a false success, caused by a defect in one of the virtues. The point of the story is the correction of this deficiency, the integration of it into the individual hero’s character, and finally, their integration into society.
Individual Heroic Tales
There are stories of individual heroes, which normally take the form of ballads. Each clan keeps record of the tales they tell, to be passed on in case their bard dies. Each clan also has their own heroes, though there are a few `national` heroes of all the clans. These Heroes usually date between 3,000 and 2,500 years ago, after the era of the Sagas.
These are tales of great deeds, usually those deemed `worthy of song.` It may involve battle, some individual quest, or even a romance. These ballads are usually used as forms of entertainment, or told at celebrations.
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