Lit Corellian Sector Senator - Spince or Bel Iblis?

Has there ever been an explanation for the discrepancy of Corellian sector having 2 different Imperial (and technically Republic) senators? Spince and Bel Iblis both represented the sector in both governments. Maybe Corellia was allowed 2 senators?

 

A few explanations:
- Mako Spince's father might have been junior senator while Garm Bel Iblis was senior senator.
- His father was a local Corellian politician in whatever qualified as a senate on Corellia and was therefore NOT a Republic/Imperial senator in terms of Coruscanti Imperial Senate delegates.
- Mako Spince was Garm Bel Iblis' illegitimate son whom he had before his marriage.
- Mako Spince was Com Fordox's illegitimate son whom he had outside of marriage (if Fordox, Bel Iblis' predecessor) married at all.

Considering the page is un-sourced like most pages on Wookieepedia though (obviously an article untouched in maybe a decade), the information relies on "The Hutt Gambit" (regrettably I don't have the novel), Dark Empire endnotes (link?), Dark Empire sourcebook (I'll jump to d6holocron to find out more after I'm done posting) and The Official Star Wars Fact File 40 (which I don't have either).

Perhaps we should research more. I'll deal with the DESourcebook on d6holocron. Everyone else, if you have those sources I don't, it would be most helpful. The senator probably isn't even "Senator Spince".

 

Wookieepedia strikes again...

... and if anyone were to go over to it and point it out or edit the article, the changes would instantly be reverted and the person who made them banned or targeted by whoever staked out the Spince article as their personal turf.

There are soooo many unwarranted assumptions in so many Wook articles, even ones that blatantly contradict established continuity. Spince being a Corellian Senator when Bel-Iblis already had the job is just one of many.

The classic Publius article on Spince remains relevant:

https://web.archive.org/web/20081120005301/http://www.domuspublica.net/spince.html

... and when one goes to the current Wook article for Spince:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Spince_(senator)
... the part about him being Corellian is completely unsourced. It should be removed until somebody could post a screenshot of the alleged article in question.

I'll check my copy of Fact Files, but I don't ever recall any source outright saying that Spince was the Corellian Senator. Looking at the Mako article:

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Mako_Spince#cite_ref-FF_2-0

... the claimed reference is the German version of that issue of the Fact Files. Somebody should actually have to prove that with a photo of the physical copy or screenshot of the "digital version".

In this day and age, every online wiki cite should have an accompanying image of the source to verify it.

Now if Spince really was a Corellian Senator, that's yet another continuity error that needs to be addressed. Any number of solutions are possible. Perhaps he was a predecessor of Fordox and Bel-Iblis. Maybe it's just an unwarranted assumption that he was Corellian just because he had a son born later on Corellia.

 

Whenever there are multiple concurrent Senators for a single sector (even if we set aside whether or not Spince is Corellian, we have other precedents like Mon Mothma and Zafiel Snopps), I tend to assume one of the following:
1. One of the figures in question is an Associate Planetary Representative, a member of the Senatorial delegation with non-voting status but the capacity to fill in for an absent Senator (they might alternatively be titled Junior Senators or some such, hence the conflation of titles as shorthand).
2. The sector is divided into subsectors, which enjoy either their own separate voting power or non-voting honourary status (but with the full title of Senator as a symbolic gesture of respect and status). In the Corellian sector's case, the Duro sector was folded in as a subsector under the Empire to limit the influence of the Duros - further arranging for a Human to hold that seat further serves that goal, while adding insult to injury.

 

Dark Empire sourcebook just sees he was the son of a senator. No name given (not even a surname).

Mon Mothma was from Chandrila and Zafiel Snopps is from Corulag, which is both in the Bormea sector, probably put together in the same sector for some reason. Apparently Arcel Monsbee was also supposed to be a senator for Brentaal IV (another Bormea sector world) until I went to locate sources and found nothing to suggest he was nothing but a "senatorial representative" of some type. I think my question is still unanswered in his talk page.

The whole matter of senator(s) is confusing. We had 3 Gran Senators in TPM and 3 Twi'lek Senators per Darth Plagieus to explain the three different senators at the same time. Is it meant to be one per sector? Or two or more?

So confusing.

 

Looking at the Mako Spince entry in the Complete Encyclopedia has him described as the son of "a once-influential Senator". If the political fortunes of Senator Spince had fallen by the time Mako was born it would tend to suggest an earlier term for him, one before Fordox and Bel-Iblis.

 

Speaking of Senators I've always inferred that Rebel commando leader Judder Page, the son of the senator for Corulag, is actually the son of Zafiel Snopps, and the brother of Regenald Hanniper Snopps III. One can understand why he changed his name, even beyond the obvious preference for the use of an alias.

So Garm being Mako Spince's father, as @Noash_Retrac suggests, would be a fairly straightforward finessse - it would also explain why Garm showed up to some politics class when Han was at school...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

That makes sense. Unless Judder just chose his mother's maiden name .

It's one of several ideas but makes some sense hehehehe.

 

Not impossible, but if your name was Zafiel Hanniper Snopps Jr., you'd change it, right...?

And of course it was Mako who encouraged Han to ask the provocative questions out loud that caught Garm's attention...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

What's worse is that there are hundreds of human senators. No idea what's going on there.

 

Far more than 2000 since the Delegation of 2000 was a minority

That being said I think species other than humans should be allowed to be well traveled enough to just have multiple senators of multiple sectors by sheer immigration.

No need for subsectors.

 

Agreed. It always annoyed me when any non-human character was assumed to be from their species homeworld for little or no reason, especially when it was a species that showed up damn near everywhere like rodians or twiliks (and bonus points for those two having rather inhospitible homeworlds in legends so it doesn't likely they could be the origin for all the twis and rodians we see).

Things have improved on that somewhat - for instance, I enjoy that the most prominant twi'lek in the high republic wasn't from Ryloth but a different twi'lek colony world - but it can still be an issue with senators.

 

While I favor McEwoks solution, let me add on the number of Senators issues:

We know some Sectors had multiple Senators, even some planets had multiple. Add to that Junior Senators in training, Represenatives like JarJar called Senator interchangeably, too, including voting power and taking the appointed Senators role during her absence.
We know special old worlds had been granted a planetary Senator and vote in addition to the Sector one. So there may even be different Senators for a world, or the world giving the sector its name, and the Sector itself. Like City and surrounding villages may have different administrations yet under one roof in real life.

So if we take 1024 Sectors and thus Sector Senators, add special rights worlds with individual Senators which may easily be another 100-1000.. Take into account Subsectors, individual species and ethnicities having their own Representatives/Senators with or without voting powers, add Junior Senators in training, etc. we easily reach a Senatorial body consisting of 6000-10000 Senators, yet with not all holding voting powers. If for the Delegation of 2000 to be a minority voting power counts alone, we need at least 5000 Senators total if vote goes by majority. If they are like 10-20% only you'd have closer to 10000-20000 Senators. But I can't imagine all those holding voting power.
Thus, lets assume a senatorial body of 10000 Senators, yet only half holds voting power it would work. But the Delegation then was even if not a majority, far from a mere minority but a big chunk that almost made it.

And now the crux, the Republic Senate was severely reduced in size with many seceeding before the Clone Wars. I don't recall exact numbers, maybe someone can help me, but didn't AOTC lead in material state (and sourcebooks/rpg guides especially by wotc) that the Separatist Movement had 10000 or more worlds/Senators but only a tenth of it actually formed the Confederacy with the rest declaring neutral or returning to the Republic upon war? The Clone Wars map also shows many neutral worlds/sectors initially which is important.
While by war's end the Republic retook many, how many were already back with Senator and voting power reestablished instead of just being conquered and under wartime control instead of full membership? Thus how many of those count for the Delegation of 2000? Either via voting power, or when it comes to percentage of a full yet still reduced Senate numberswise?



@Thrawn McEwok While you mentioned Judder Page, given the comic verison of Heir portrayed him as alien leading to controvery, is there already a retcon that he was undercover as alien or such? Did he overdose on nanobots like those Kenobi used during the Clone Wars? Otherwise, if he is a shapeshifter, used a personal holomatrix to disguise his true looks, or else, who was his mother? Maybe he is only half-human

 

I've always thought the easiest retcon of the "2,000" is that this included junior senators of the sort already well-established with Jar-Jar and Leia... but GL may have intended to retcon the Senate to more than 1024 individual constituent spaces, I don't know for sure, and I like the suggestion that the Seperatists' actions caused a remapping of boundaries too, creating a lot of Space West Virginias...

I'm pretty sure that this guy from RotJ was identified as Page somewhere...



The funny part is that he's not actually from Endor, he's from Jabba's Palace...

No particular view on how the version in the Heir comic makes sense - all your suggestions are valid, but like the hulking Noghri, I could say it's just visual impressionism, a superb French translation...

But the only outlandish theory I'm thinking much about right now is Snoke = Luke...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

If Snoke is Luke then Ach-to Luke is Luuke!

Gesendet von meinem FP3 mit Tapatalk

 

Wait a minute....why is that guy wearing forest camo in the desert?

 

The Lambda sector (where Ando, Rintonne and the Andoan Free Colonies including Andosha II are) appeared to have at least three senators by 22 BBY. Po Nudo for Ando, Rasit Brun for Rintonne and Gorothin Vagger for Andosha II.

 

He's Smaller Luke, actually

 

Do you have any idea where? Because as far as I know, the only RotJ extra assigned to Page was the one seen on his Wook article...

 

No, it's the same Luke doing Force-projection shenanigans - he was physicallly trapped on Ahch-to, which was why he was having the First Order hunt for the navigation information...

Misdirection!

I have a recollection of some WEG lineart based on the production photo, but I can't find it where I thought it was most likely to be...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

No, Snoke is very clearly Bigger than Luke, so he is Bigger Luke.

 

@Thrawn McEwok Forceprojection? Doppelganger.. Wait... wait...

So Luke projects as Snoke and has the First Order, which he stole from under Palpatines nose, hunt for navdata to find him and release him so he can personally go and give Exegol hell? ... continuing Ben's training as next Chosen One without spoiling to him who he really is or blaming him for the Jedi massacre?

This is Dark Empire overkill, but I do feel it now.

And it rhymes with the TFA/TLJ concept art about there being more to Ach-to and Luke on it going on.

Was Ach-to an elaborate trap Luke set for the Sith Eternal to come find him and take him to their leader on Exegol, which aside LotR style Forcevision visits he couldn't locate or enter himself yet? Was he pissed at Rey finding him because she ruined his plan and would have him return to the wrong faction?

That's a rather dark calculating Luke fitting his DE self and one willingly to conquer the Dark Side from within, questing to find Palpatine and not being inactive despite looking like it on Ach-to. This singlehandedly rather turns the ST even more into DE and Luke into an Antihero or fallen Hero clawing at getting closer to the real villain.

That's kinda like what if Luke in Legends after the Zahn trilogy would have pretended to be Luuke, abandon his family and try to sneak up on Palpatine stealing his Empire from under his nose as Cronal had intended for him, had his own ploy worked (which it didn't). Only that here probably Ken Palpatine would have interfered with his plan and tried to kill Luuke who is actually Luke lol... and nobody would believe Luke to be Luke when he returns, unless he would have to kill Ken himself to not blow his cover as Fake-Luuke...

On a completely unrelated note... where does that leave Snoke and Palpatine as parents for Dathan both... which would make Rey a Skywalker and a Palpatine truly if Snoke is Luke. (plus it'd be extra weird if Kylo is actually her cousin then... or halfbrother, if Luke and Leia.. ) ok, .. excursion over. Back to the sprinkling well of ideas you just gave me...



PS: Sorry for derailing this topic, the Ewok made me do it!