Eventually the two species made contact, and developed a symbolic relationship. The Mon Cals continued making their cities, and extended them so that there were levels below the oceans' surface. This allowed the Quarren to live in the cities, and in return they mined the deep-sea ores. Below the oceans, the Quarren swam to go from olne place to another, while the Mon Calamari had to use wavespeeders and under water devices for exploration.

The two species lived peacefully for millennia, and over the years the Mon Cals developed a very sophisticated culture. They kept their art, literature and music very close to their hearts, and inevitably they developed space travel. They wanted to use this as a means of making friends with other species, as they had done with the Quarren. The orbiting space platforms and docks mirrored the floating cities on the planet's surface.

They did find friends in the galaxy, but this came to an end when a Mon Calamari ship encountered an Imperial one. At first, the Mon Cals signalled that they were peaceful, but the Imperials ignored this, seeing that the Mon Calamari had great technology they could exploit. The Empire's invasion of Mon Calamari began, and resulted in three of the floating cities being destroyed when the peaceful inhabitants protested. This was Palpatine's way of showing what defying the Empire meant. But this did not work. The Mon Cals could not stand by and watch their cities being destroyed. They created their own weapons and battle ships, and after horrific battles, which resulted in much loss of life and more damage to the cities, they drove the Empire away.

When the Empire fled, they took with them Ackbar, who was one of the first Mon Calamari to be enslaved. He started as an interpreter, but was then iven to Grand Moff Tarkin as a gift. It was through Tarkin that Ackbar learned much about the Empire's infrastructure and military. He played the role of a loyal slave, and so was privy to many of Tarkin's private conversations. Ackbar learned about Tarkin's doctrine, and read many secret military documents. The Mon Cal also came to hear of the Rebellion through the Grand Moff, as Tarkin was always talking about his new superweapon which would wipe out the Rebellion.

In fact it was while enroute from Eriadu to see his superweapon, the Death Star, that Tarkin lost his loyal slave. The Rebels attacked Tarkin's ship, trying to assassinate him. Luckily for the Grand Moff Motti arrived with his Star Destroyer, and drove the Rebels away, but not before they took Ackbar with them.

Disagreeing completely with what the Empire stood for, Ackbar swore allegiance to the Alliance, an allegiance which would greatly help the Alliance later. Ackbar returned to his home planet to try to persuade his people to stand up against the Empire, and join the Alliance. They did, and soon the Mon Calamari were building some of the most beautiful, but deadly, starships for the Rebels. Engineers and technicians began building and hand-crafting the Mon Calamari starships, converting old space liners most of the time. The ships were covered in lumps and bumps, each one containing some element essential to the running of the craft. Eventually the cruisers looked to be alive themselves, each one a work of art. It was said that no two cruisers were alike.

While his people added ships to the Alliances' fleets, Ackbar sought more ways to become involved personally with the Alliance. He was eventually made a commander, and used his power to create an answer to the Empire's Nebulon-B frigate. This deadly ship could carry two TIE fighter squadrons, and boasted twenty-four turbolasers and heavy shielding. It was more than a match for the Alliance starfighters, and Ackbar could see it being a real threat to the Rebels. Therefore he travelled to the Roche system, where he talked with the Verpine, a species renowned for being exceptional ship builders. Working together with the insectoid Verpine and other Mon Calamarians, Ackbar produced the B-Wing starfighter. The project was code-named Shantipole, and it was a complete success. Although it nearly was not so, due to a betrayal by Ackbar's Quarren lieutenant, Salin Glek. The Imperials almost captured the B-Wing prototypes, but failed. When the ships were delivered to the Alliance, Ackbar was promoted to the post of Admiral, by Mon Mothma.

Although the common enemy was the Empire, Ackbar would soon find himself fighting with someone else within the Alliance. At about the same time the Mon Calamari joined the Rebels, just after the Battle of Yavin, the Bothans joined too. These furry people did not like the amphibious Mon Cals, and soon one of them would join the Alliance council; Borsk Fey'lya. He was ambitious, and tried to push Ackbar aside on order to gain more power.

Just before the Alliance moved their base to Hoth, disaster struck; a freighter which was carrying Ackbar and some of his top technicians was attacked by the Empire. Before the ship was destroyed, the Mon Calamri escaped by launching escape pods, and they landed on the planet Daluuj. The Rebels launched a rescue mission, involving Han, Luke, Leia and the droids. They had to get to Ackbar before the Empire did, and with the help of some huge, energy-eating worms, they succeeded.

Shortly afterwards, Ackbar was made commander of the entire Rebel fleet, and became one of Mothma's top two advisors. When the Empire had been ruling, non-human races were enslaved and killed; under the Alliance, these races were embraces, and given influential positions within the Alliance. This made Ackbar's work all the harder, since his place was not only military oriented, but also carried much political responsibility.

It was Ackbar and his and his advisors who developed the plan for the attack on the second Death Star when the Bothans stole the plans. His plan would have worked perfectly, but the Rebels did not realise that the whole thing was a trap laid by the Emperor. The Death Star was in fact completely operational, and the Rebels walked straight into the trap. In the ensuing battle, the Rebels lost many ships, and Ackbar felt that it was hopeless, and ordered a withdrawal. But Lando convince him to stay, reasoning that they would not get a second chance at this, and they should take the battle closer to the Star Destroyers, who were boxing the Rebel fleet in. This bought the strike team on the planet Endor enough time to destroy the power generator, and then Ackbar ordered a full frontal attack on the Death Star. He then told all ships to concentrate their weapons on the Super Star Destroyer Executor, which in the end was destroyed when an out of control A-Wing flew into the ship's bridge. The dreaded space station was then blown to pieces, and the Alliance was triumphant.

The day after the Battle of Endor, the Rebels intercepted a distress call from the planet Bakura, which was under attack from the Ssi-ruuk. Mothma and Ackbar sent a strike team to aid the Bakurans, command of which was given to Luke. The Alliance claimed victory at Bakura, the first of many in other systems. For the more important battles, Ackbar liked to personally take command. But as the New Republic grew stronger, Ackbar had to stand back and start looking at security and defense. By now he had been promoted to commander-in-chief of all New Republic military operations, and had a seat on the Provisional and Inner Council. Within these councils Fey'lya continued to bait Ackbar, and most meetings were taken up with their arguments, although Ackbar usually did not rise to the bait as much as Fey'lya hoped.

After settling on many planets, the New Republic eventually chose Coruscant, the old seat of the Empire. Mon Mothma thought it showed that the Empire was truly dead, and no a government that could right its evils was in power. The Provisional dealt with political issues, and the on-going war with the remnants of the Empire. Meanwhile Ackbar, Leia, Borsk and Mon formed asmaller group; the Inner Council. This dealt with the immediate decisions that needed to be made for the smooth running of the Republic.

The most dangerous issue the Inner Council had to deal with after Palpatine was Thrawn. Both Mon and Ackbar oversaw the Battle of Sluis Van, where they had to stop Thrawn gaining control of a fleet of dreadnaughts known as the Katana fleet. They were partially successful at Sluis Van, but then had to face another attack on Coruscant itself. Thrawn had placed the New Republic's capital under siege, with several cloaked asteroids orbiting the planet. This stopped all shipping, and no ships could enter or leave the planet. Eventually the Alliance broke through the siege, but it had cost them valuable time.

It was during these attacks that Ackbar suddenly found himself facing charges of treason and was arrested. Seeing that the Alliance was indeed a formidable enemy, Thrawn had decided to undermine the Republic's hierachy from within. He recognised Borsk's eagerness to bring Ackbar down, and provided the Bothan with all the information he needed. The Grand Admiral had placed false evidence in Ackbar's credit accounts. Although Borsk had no idea that the Empire had planted the evidence, he pounced on the chance to show Ackbar up. He charged Ackbar for the credit issues and worst of all, for milirtary mismanagement during the Battle of Sluis Van. Ackbar was later cleared, with the help of a smuggler named Ghent, but the Mon Calamarian knew that the charged would hang over his head for the rest of his life. No one would forget that the great Ackbar had been arrested for treason against the government he had helped to build.

After Thrawn was defeated, there was at last some peace and quiet in the galaxy, although this was not to last long. Six Imperial commanders gathered together and decided to attack Corsucant. They succeeded, and the New Republic had to withdraw. The Alliance placed their headquarters of the fifth moon of Da Soocha, where the Inner Council found themselves up against a clone of the Emperor. The clone had devised the World Devastators, which he used to attack Mon Calamari with. The Alliance disabled the machines, but only after much destruction had been wreaked, and many lives had been lost.

After the loss of the World Devastators, Ackbar saw that the Empire was weakened. He then planned an attack on the Imperial centres on Byss, which in the end were partially successful. During the battle, the Rebel forces had to be rescued by smugglers after the Imperials released genetically enhanced beasts, which proceeded to rip the Republic craft apart. After the attack, Palpatine ordered the destruction of the Da Soocha base, using his Galaxy Gun. Before the warhead reached the Republic's base, however, the Alliance evacuated the moon.

On their new base on the floatng city of Nespis VIII, the New Republic leaders decided that they needed to take back Coruscant. They succeeded, and retook their rightful places in the Senate chambers. With the Empire running to the outer reaches of the galaxy, the Alliance carried on restructuring the intergalactic government that they had fought so hard for.

Ackbar's next task took him on scouting missions with Luke. Han and Leia's children were young, and almost any contact with the Dark Side could turn them. Therefore Luke and Ackbar needed to find a world that was far away from the dark power. They eventually found the planet Anoth, and its location was known only to Luke, Ackbar, and Winter, Leia's chief aide.

But unbeknownst to the Rebels, one of Ackbar's own men was under the control of the Empire. Terpfen had been organically altered by the Imperials, and was unwillingly employed as a spy. He reported to the Ambassador Furgan, a Caridian Imperial. Acting on Furgan's orders, Terpfen sabotaged Ackbar's custom B-Wing, so that it crashed into the Cathedral of the Winds on the planet Vortex. It was the planet's greatest artistic treasure, and Ackbar completely blamed himself for the accident.

When he returned to Coruscant, he went before the Council. Terpfen had stated that he had found nothing wrong with the ship, and so it had to have been a piloting error by Ackbar. Disgraced and ashamed, Ackbar resigned his commission and returned to Mon Calamari, intending to live the life of a hermit. On his way home, he stopped off at Anoth to visit Winter and the children. But Terpfen had tracked the ship, and sent the planet's co-ordinates to Furgan. Back on Mon Calamri, Ackbar spent his time measuring the tectonic disturbances in the planet's crust, and never forgave himself for what he believed he had done.

It was while he was doing this that Admiral Daala attacked Mon Calamari with her three Star Destroyers. Ackbar was called upon to help protect the planet, and he succeeded in destroying the destroyer Manitcore by ramming it with a partially built cruiser. As the New Republic hypered into the system in response to the attack, Daala withdrew, wanting to keep her two remaining ships intact. Although he was recognised for his acts, Ackbar chose to remain on his home planet, wanting to strengthen its defences.

Then everything changed. Terpfen confessed his acts of sabotage, having overcome his organic programming. He also told of how he had tracked Ackbar to Anoth. Leia, Ackbar and Terpfen rushed to Anoth, and were just able to help Winter stop Furgan from kidnapping the infant Anakin. During all this, Terpfen killed Furgan, and tried to kill himself, but Ackbar managed to stop him.

In Coruscant, Ackbar regained his rank, and also brought with him a Calamarian Force healer, Cilgahl. She saved Mon Mothma, who was dying after being poisoned by Furgan days earlier. All was well in the New Republic once again, although Mon Mothma handed over leadership to Leia, as she was too weak to be in power. Meanwhile Ackbar asked Winter to accompany him to the reopening of the Cathedral of the Winds, where she expressed her happiness that he was back with the Alliance. Ackbar then expressed his pleasure that Winter would no longer be exiled on Anoth, as the Jedi children were back with their parents.

As time passed, Ackbar and Winter spent much time together, both to help the New Republic, and in private. Noone knows where it will lead, but one thing can be sure. When the history of the galaxy is written, Ackbar will have a chapter to himself.