Plagueis was still alive and Palpatine was Senator when the crew of the Katana fleet were infected and disappeared into hyperspace, not to reemerge until the Thrawn Campaign. It seems like such a devastating loss to the Republic might have likely been engineered by the Order of the Sith Lords. Instead of being dispersed to the judicial forces those 200 dreadnoughts were to be retained as a cohesive fighting force. If the Katana fleet had not been eliminated it could have helped to prevent the Republic from spiraling into chaos during its waning years. By eliminating the Katana Fleet fleet the Sith would also highlight the corruption and inefficiency of the Republic. Powerful guilds and corporations like the Trade Federation and Banking Clans might also conclude that the Republic simply wasn't capable of defending their business interests and take matters into their own hands, either by creating their own armed forces or accelerating already existing military buildups.
There's also the question of how the basics of the destruction of Outbound Flight managed to end up in the Katana's computer (The Last Command- when Luke's telling C'baoth he's a clone). I'd like to see Zahn write this one.
Maybe a short story in an anthology but I don't think it warrants a whole novel. I also don't think the Sith should be involved. I get your reason for wanting them involved but I'm thinking it would begin looking a bit forced. Not everything that was detrimental to the Republic has to be the Sith's fault.
I would love it if they published a novel about the Katana Fleet. It should feature non-Force users as main characters. No earlier established events and characters should be mentioned. The novel could be start-off pint for new fans! By the way, I really like movies such as Pandorum in which people go mad on starships.
Didn't Zahn want to write this as a short story for a theoretical anniversary version of Dark Force Rising?
I've actually considered this also. Not really due to the military implications, however, but just because it'd be yet another case of massive Republic bungling undermining public confidence. However, my personal pet retcon is that the Katana fleet was lost during the Star Hyperspace War. If we take Pellaeon's dating for it, the timing is perfect, and the hive virus seems like it could be linked to the navicomputer virus relatively easily. Given all the references to borging in the original Thrawn Trilogy it would be thematically appropriate to carry over, and it seems possible that a computer virus could cause hive-virus like symptoms. Or alternately the Republic blaming it on a hive virus could be better than admitting how far Stark's virus infected their hardware. Of course this doesn't solve the dating issues with C'baoth but I'd honestly rather just sweep that under the rug, as it seems to have been done so far anyway.
The EGTW established that the Militarists managed to get the production of the ships through the Senate after their rise to power following the Stark Hyperspace War.
For years I thought the hive virus was a computer virus that messed with the slave system. I didn't learn otherwise until I registered here.
I wish we got the Annotated DFR and TLC. Would have been cool to have the Smugglers Alliance emblem on one cover and the NR symbol on the third.
Could be that, by this point, Zahn had not pinned down the date of Outbound Flight's destruction, and that of the Katana Fleet. Still, that's what was written.
There's always more backstory than that. I think Zahn would be a good candidate. He likes to focus on non-Force users and he's the one who's already developed some type of history regarding it.
For some reason, I was confused while reading John Ostrandes's story about the Rendili fleet. I always thought it was the Katana fleet.
