Emperor Palpatine announces that the
Mon Calamari resistance to Imperial authority
must be crushed to restore Order in the
Calamari System...
(photo: Quackodile, 1/95)
Emperor Palpatine announces that the
Mon Calamari resistance to Imperial authority
must be crushed to restore Order in the
Calamari System...
(photo: Quackodile, 1/95)
In a recent intercepted tight beam transmission to an Imperial HoloNet relay satellite, the
Officer of the Wing Commander has found several obscure articles on the Mon Calamari and the
Quarren. It should be noted that these articles are in original format and have not yet
been edited by Imperial Propaganda Censors. In addition, it has been confirmed that the
transmission originated from a Mon Calamari communications satellite within the Calamari
System. Consequently, the versions you see below are for high security clearances only and
not for distribution to any other Citizens of the Empire. Breach of this policy is
punishable by immediate execution.
It should also be noted that these articles present a decidedly fictitious and narrow view of Imperial policy towards the Mon Calamari and Quarren. For example, it is general knowledge within the Empire that the Mon Cals initially welcomed the Imperials, but upon legal purchase of minor amounts of property within the floating cities for administrative purposes, they began to exhibit signs of hostility towards the Imperials. Several noble families migrated to Calamari for its exceptional climate only to find a bitter and hostile populace who constantly harassed and tormented them. Consequently, the Imperial Army initiated basic protective measures for the Imperial Ambassadors and the émigrés. Following several months of poor labor production from a once mighty planetary industrial complex, the Empire imposed a basic quota system on each floating city in order to improve efficiency. The Mon Calamari and their squid-like brethren, the Quarren, sat down on their jobs or just refused to perform their assigned tasks. There were several recorded incidents of Quarren workers murdering their Imperial supervisors by flinging them from the upper levels of the floating cities to the treacherous ocean hundreds of yards below. Consequently, in accordance with Emperor Palpatine's Imperial Directive No. 4343-5473gfd, three floating cities were annihilated by a small fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers in orbit above the watery planet to show its inhabitants the futility of attacking Citizens of the Empire.
Following the removal of all Imperial personnel and equipment, Calamari has joined the Rebellion. Initially, this was of no consequence. However, since the Mon Calamari have begun production of the MC80 Star Cruisers, which approach the destructive capacity of a Star Destroyer, the Mon Calamari threat to the Empire has increased significantly.
In any case, the following presents relevant excerpts as detailed in The Star Wars Sourcebook (West End Games, Bill Slavicsek & Curtis Smith, 1987, pp. 76-79:
MON CALAMARI
The Mon Calamari, or Calamarians, are an intelligent, bipedal, salmon-colored amphibious species with webbed hands, high-domed head and huge heads. Named for their world, Calamari, they share the watery planet with the Quarren.
Water covers most of Calamari's surface. The planet is tectonically stable and , as a result, mountains are rare and the islands and tiny continents which do exist contain large bogs, marshes and lake chains.
Calamari and Quarren speak a similar tongue, but most Calamarians have adopted the common language of the galaxy as their own. Because of Calamari's unfortunate recent history, Calamarians can be found in Imperial labor camps and the ranks of the Rebel Alliance. They are generally soft-spoken, gentle, and reasonable as individuals, even in the wake of their dealings with the Empire.
The Mon Calamari are shore-dwellers, land creatures with an affinity for water. Their primitive ancestors subsisted largely on fish, crustaceans, and fruit and, over the millennia, developed a rudimentary aquaculture system, farming fish in pens and cultivating kelp. Technological advances were slow by human standards, retarded by the paucity of metals in Calamari's crust. Perhaps this slow advancement explains Calamari's peaceful history; or perhaps the explanation lies in the gentility of the Mon Calamari themselves.
The Calamari discovered and contacted the deep-sea dwelling Quarren; after some initial confusion, they developed a symbiotic civilization. This began the true golden age of the planet. As the Calamari advanced, they gradually built large floating cities, which became centers of learning, government and culture. They were aided by the Quarren, who, mining ores deposited at deep-sea volcanic vents, supplied the metals needed for advanced technology. Today, these mechanical floating cities dot the oceans, artificial continents resting above the constant sea.
The floating cities of Calamari extend both above and below the water, providing needed space for fish farms, industrial centers, and living facilities. Wavespeeders travel from city to city, and shuttles move back and forth from the great sea platforms that orbit the planet to the cities that ride the waves. Quarren live in the deepest levels of the cities while the Mon Calamari prefer the levels closer to the sun.
Calamarians have created a highly civilized culture. Art, music, literature, and science are at a level of creativity unsurpassed in the known galaxy. Almost from the beginning, the literature of the Mon Calamari has depicted the stars as islands in a galactic sea. It exhibits a passionate longing to explore space in search of other civilizations with which to share hopes and aspirations, as the Calamari have done with the Quarren. (However, the Quarren see this relationship in a somewhat different light). Advanced technology finally gave them the means to fulfill their dreams of galactic community - but the dark cloud of war engulfed their watery world.
The first Calamari ship met the Empire, and made peaceful overtures. The Empire, however, didn't see an advanced civilization with which to trade; it saw instead an advanced technology and a gentle, and therefore stupid, folk ripe for conquest. the Empire saw a natural slave species whose industries could be exploited to serve the Empire's war machine.
When Imperial forces invaded, they were welcomed as friends. But when the Empire began seizing property and treating the instruments of Calamari power and government with contempt, a few were moved to passive resistance.
The Emperor would not stand for any defiance. He ordered the destruction of three Calamari cities as an example of his power. The sea swelled with the blood of thousands. That, he was sure, would cow his foes.
The response was unexpected. This peaceful race, this world with no history of war, rose as one, turning the utensils of peace - kitchen devices, gardening implements, metalworking tools - into weapons of war. The first Calamari destroyed their enemies, throwing back the first wave of the invasion.
The Emperor tried to make slaves of the Calamari, instead, he taught them war.
Now the industries of Calamari have a new purpose. They turn out weapons and armaments as the Empire wished, but not for their use. The Calamarians sought their dreams among the stars. What they found was a terrible war and a different kind of dream - a dream of freedom, a dream of hope, a dream kept alive by a growing group of races that calls itself the Alliance.
The industrial capacity, ships, and technology of the Calamari are a major aid to the Alliance, but they are, perhaps, the least of what the Calamari have to offer: they are called the "soul of the Rebellion", bringing to the Alliance commitment, fortitude, and a vision of a peaceful congress of many races, jointly creating a life-promoting civilization to span the galaxy. The Mon Calamari have taken the cause to heart, pledging to fight until the Empire is destroyed...or until the Calamari are erased from the galaxy.
The following Memorandum is posted regarding Ackbar, the Mon Calamari Leader, by the Office of the Wing Commander in accordance with Emperor Palpatine's memo posted in Newsletter No. 6.
"ACKBAR'S RESCUE"
Ackbar was one of the first Mon Calamari enslaved by the Empire. A popular and well-respected leader from Coral City, Ackbar was assigned to the flagship of an Imperial Fleet as an interpreter and personal servant. To make a good impression, a fleet officer presented the Calamarian as a gift to Grand Moff Tarkin. Following the initial conquest of the planet, Tarkin left the subjugation of Calamari to others and returned home to oversee his territories; along with him went Ackbar.
As an ever-observant slave, Ackbar learned much about the Empire and its military, knowing that one day this information would be useful. He learned about the Empire's theories of war, and listened to the reasons the Empire had to change to conform to the Emperor's Grand Plan. He also learned for the first time of the rebellion growing in the galaxy. But Tarkin wasn't worried by this rebellion; he just smiled and muttered threats of a new weapon that would make the Empire invincible.
Ackbar occasionally found himself in a position to examine secret military documents, and he devoted himself to learning all he could about Imperial strategy and tactics, hoping against hope that he'd be able to use it someday against the Empire. But always, the Empire's secret weapon haunted Ackbar; all he could learn was that this weapon could not only level a planet, but utterly destroy it.
Then came the word; they were to pack. A shuttle was to take them to the weapon of which Tarkin had hinted: a new battle station. While in transit, the shuttle was attacked by an elite force of Rebels that had been sent to assassinate the Grand Moff. A Star Destroyer came to Tarkin's aid and he escaped, but Ackbar was left behind. He fled with the Rebels.
Devoting himself and his people to the cause of the Rebellion, Ackbar's unique knowledge of the Empire quickly made him and indispensable part of the Alliance. Now Admiral Ackbar and the Mon Calamari fleet battle to restore justice to a beleaguered galaxy.
QUARREN Also called "Squid Heads", the Quarren are an intelligent humanoid species whose head resembles a four tentacled squid. Having leathery skin, turquoise eyes, suction cupped fingers, this amphibious race shares the world of Calamari with the sad-eyed Mon Calamari, living deep within their great floating cities.
The Quarren and the Calamarians share the same language, but the Quarren are more practical and conservative in their views. Unlike the Mon Calamari, who have also adopted the common language of the galaxy, the Quarren have remained faithful to their oceanic tongue, using the other only when dealing with off-worlders.
Calamari is a watery world with few land masses. What land exists is swampy, boglike marshes where the first aquacultural civilizations sprang up when the Calamarians emerged from the blue-green sea. The Quarren remained sea-dwellers, able to live in air but preferring the warm security of the sea. Eventually the two races began cooperating, the Mon Cal - as the Quarren call them - providing ideas and the Quarren providing the metal to make the ideas reality. Now great, floating cities dominate the oceans. They extend far below the waves and serve as centers of learning, culture and government. Within the lowest levels of these floating metropoli, the Quarren live and work.
The Quarren are a pragmatic people, unwilling to trust new ideas or lofty concepts. Their outlook on life, as evidenced in their art and literature, is somewhat opposited to that of the Mon Cals. They do not dream of brighter tomorrows, but hold fast to remembered yesterdays. The sea is where the people belong, not upon floating hunks of metal or out among he stars. Still, the Quarren have followed the Mon Cals from the ocean depths to the endless void of space, benefiting from the dream and aspirations of the sad-eyed race and growing considerably dependent on them.
This dependency has created friction between the two ocean peoples, as also indicated in the literature, and may be at the root of some outward hostilities that were manifest around the time of arrival of the first Imperial ships. What the Calamarians viewed as an opportunity to meet and join other species in a galactic brotherhood quickly turned bad when Imperial ships opened fire on the Calamarians, destroying several Mon Cal ships and damaged some cities on the surface. What few defenses the water planet possessed that fateful day were inoperative when called upon; rumors persist that the Quarren aided the Imperials by sabotaging the protective network.
But both races were quickly enslaved by the Empire, impelled to work in labor camps to power the Imperial war machine. Little time passed before there was again solidarity toward the outsiders, and, led by the Mon Calamari, theories of passive resistance were implemented against the Imperial forces.
The Imperial army, however, was not so easily deterred, and the resulting backlash was an atrocity the likes of which few in the galaxy even believed possible. Entire floating cities were blasted out of existence by the Imperial Fleet, turning the ocean red with the blood of the water planet's people. This act rallied the planet's inhabitants to join forces, and together they rose up desperately to repel the Imperial invaders with crude weapons and sheer will.
Since that day of cooperation, many Quarren have fled the system to seek a life elsewhere in the galaxy. They have purposely steered clear of both the Rebellion and the Empire, opting to work in more shadowy occupations. Quarren are found among pirates, slavers, smugglers, and within various spy networks operating throughout the Empire.