Books Thrawn - New canon Star Wars book by Timothy Zahn (Spring 2017)

Thrawn said: there are more than one threat in the Unknown Regions.

 

Nagai, check. Yuuzhan Vong, check. I suppose Snoke could be a Nagai...

 

The problem with this example is Xavier and Magneto have teamed up regularly against Apocalypse.

But yes, if Thrawn is going to fight a Sith then he'll of course turn to another Sith.

The price of Jedi allegiance--freedom, democracy, and equality--is too high.

 

I do wonder if anyone has close read this versus Mist Encounter.

 

Magneto usually turns against Apocalypse only after Apocalypse has already used him as a power source for his machine (The Twelve storyline in the comics), or after Magneto has devastated parts of the world under Apocalypse's orders before the X-Men talk him out of it (X-Men: Apocalypse movie).

And considering by ROTJ that Palpatine was actively searching for a replacement for Vader to fill the Rule of Two... By the time Palpatine realizes he can't side with Snoke, whole swaths of the galaxy might already be in ruins, including the Chiss. Contrast this with any Jedi who would be against Snoke right from the start.

 

Maybe Thrawn doesn't know if the "Unknown region threat" has anything to do with the dark side. He doesn't seem to understand the Force very well, as the Chiss do not seem Force-sensitive (in Legends at least). He doesn't really trust the Jedi (cf what happened in Outbound flight with C'baoth being a Jedi AND trying to kill him), so maybe he doesn't make the difference between Jedi and Sith, for him they are crazy people with power he doesn't understand well. After what happened with C'baoth I don't see why he would want to work with Jedi ever again (he made the mistake to do that in TTT because he thought he was protected by the ysalamiri).

Maybe Thrawn's new Empire is not named "Empire of the hand" in the new canon but "First order", maybe he's the one who created it, and someone later stole it from him and made it something more evil (with superweapons, etc). No? I didn't read the other canon books so maybe I'm wrong with that theory.

 

Well, we now have a canonized best friendship between Anakin Skywalker, top knight of the Jedi Order, and Thrawn, back in the Clone Wars. Surely Anakin educated Thrawn on the basics of the Jedi...

Also, if Thrawn doesn't know the Unknown Regions threat has anything to do with the Dark Side, then it's highly unlikely he would recognize Snoke as the Unknown Regions threat to the point he would refuse to work with the First Order.

 

He can see Snoke as a threat by other ways, maybe Snoke did evil things or launched a superweapon or made slaughters, to convince Thrawn that he is evil, even without the Force.

 

Well, that explains why Thrawn would want to avoid using them in any conflict or make any form of alliance.

 

Makes me wonder now what is it in new canon that is hidden in the unknown regions. I mean, from wendig's trilogy we saw how the unknown regions become important and how in the first book is allueded that Palpatine believed that the dark side something was in that area. Now in Thrawn he mentions the unknown threats which we know now cannot be the Vong. In legends they were and they were bad arse, but now in new canon who the heck really knows. But there is something out there and I know that we will definitely find out between Episode 8 and 9.

 

Your entire argument is based on the assumption that Thrawn is fully aware that Palpatine is the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. There's nothing within this novel to suggest that.

 

My argument was based around the fact that Palpatine and Vader killed all of the Jedi. Thrawn doesn't need to know Palpatine = Sidious for this (although in Legends he did know, per Heir). Someone as smart as Thrawn must think it's very odd that all Jedi, even younglings, need to be killed just because a few Jedi tried to kill the Chancellor.

 

This requires a monumental naivete of politics. I think Thrawn would understand it was a coup and eliminating political opponents even if he has otherwise the instincts of a rock.

 

In any case, Vader and the Inquisitors brandishing red lightsabers and hunting down all Jedi long past the dissolution of their organization should tip Thrawn off that Palpatine really likes hanging out with those darksiders. Tagge even outright calls Vader a Sith Lord in the deleted scene in ANH at the recent Celebration, although it's unclear if it's canon (I don't see it contradicting anything, and personally believe it very well could be).

Also, Vana said that the Chiss don't seem to be Force sensitive in Legends. Sev'rance Tann and her boyfriend Vandalor, both Chiss, were dark side Force users working for Dooku in the Clone Wars. (And there's nothing preventing fans from thinking these two also were around in canon--Galactic Battlegrounds Clone Campaigns, which features Sev'rance, can still fit, the New Droid Army game with Vandalor can still fit, etc). So Thrawn may very well know lots more about the Force than he's letting on--The New Essential Guide to Alien Species outright suggested Thrawn sent these two into Republic space.

Legends Thrawn also spent a lot of time hanging around Inquisitor Jerec. In fact, they have this wonderful conversation in one of the Dark Forces audio plays:
Jerec: "Palpatine is not the only man in the galaxy who can command the Force."
Thrawn: "But he is the only one who commands those who command it. For instance, he commands you, Lord Jerec."
Jerec: "Mind your place you blue-skinned fool. With the Force I could crush you where you—" [chuckles] "Well done, Captain. Well done. It's not an easy task to make me lose my composure. You are indeed a formidable tactician."
Thrawn: "Yes, sir."

I don't know about canon Thrawn, but Legends Thrawn would definitely recognize Snoke and Palpatine as dark side Force users. He deduced that the Guardian of Mount Tantiss would be a dark Jedi before he even landed on Wayland. And Legends Thrawn figured out Palpatine = Sidious by Heir to the Empire--when reminiscing about Outbound Flight Thrawn says Palpatine ordered it, yet in the Outbound Flight novel itself Thrawn gets the orders from Sidious.

 

I wonder how long it will take Thrawn to figure out that Vader = Anakin. I think Thrawn's going to "scan" Vader and make the connection in no time. lf even Tarkin is almost certain about this fact, for Thrawn it must be an easy task.

 

I'm pretty sure that when he noted Vader's enormously confident body language, that was exactly what he was doing.

 

Finished the book today. What a great read. Probably the best of the new canon. I'm a little confused about how close the ending of the book is to Rebels Season 3. Pryce mentions Lothal insurgents to Thrawn, and mentions speaking to Tarkin and needing Thrawn's assistant.

Is the conversation between Tarkin and Pryce in the beginning of Season 3 just a redudant conversation of matters they have already discussed then? I can't imagine Season 3 takes place more than 2-4 weeks after the end of Thrawn.
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Sev'rance Tann was not canon even before Disney bought the franchise. I made research about her because I was curious and even at the time, her story was declared "not canon".

The young Chiss Jedi who appears in some books for children may be canon but I'm not sure. But anyway Chiss in general do not know about the Force, see how Thrawn seems to be unfamiliar with that when Maris tells him about Jedi and the Force in Outbound flight. He has never heard of them before and the Force seems something totally new to him.


And about Anakin killing children in the Temple, I don't think it's the kind of thing Palpatine would brag about in public. "Hey my "assistant" killed many children in the Jedi Temple! did you hear that?"

I guess that no one knew about what really happened there.


Oh, I wondered: so we do not know how that "Chimaera design" on the stardestroyer was created, by who and when, then? I thought we would learn about it in the book... but no...

 

When was Sev'rance Tann declared non-canon in Legends? This is the first I've heard of this... There are plenty of guidebooks referring to her outside of the Galactic Battlegrounds game, which as far as I know has never been declared non-canon in Legends.

Maybe Thrawn didn't hear about Jedi younglings getting killed, although it wasn't just Anakin who killed them (I believe all clone troops had orders to do so too). If Thrawn has doubts about working with Snoke, he would have to know something the audience doesn't yet. From what we see in TFA, and even the Aftermath Trilogy, I'm not seeing how Snoke is more of a threat to the Chiss than Palpatine was. The only difference is that Palpatine made a deal with Thrawn and Snoke hasn't (as far as we know), but I don't see why Thrawn couldn't make a similar deal with Snoke if needed.

 

Yes, and as the end of the book is almost the beginning of season 3 of Rebels, I don't think it happened between the 2. Maybe it was too complicated to justify why so much money had been spent in the painting of a Star Destroyer just because the Grand Admiral likes art...

-sidv88 : well most of the time, what comes from video games/roleplay SW guidebooks, etc, are not considered canon. I've read at the time that she was not considered canon because a lot of things about her were in contradiction with some official books, and her name didn't even sound Chiss, her behavior was very unChiss, etc. It was also in contradiction with Hand of Thrawn for several reasons (including the fact that the Chiss race was not known by the rest of the galaxy before that time). Well now with the new book it's different because Thrawn seems to tell anyone who wants to hear it that he's Chiss, but well. Sev'rance is the one who's definitely not canon anymore anyway, if she ever was.

I guess that in that game they just needed a female villain looking evil so "oh, blue skin and red eyes, she's make a perfect villain, even if we respect nothing about the Chiss".

 

I was surprised - when Thrawn got Chimaera, she already had that name. I always thought it was Thrawn who named her.
And Sato wasn't in the book. When he and Thrawn first meet in Rebels they already know each other from somewhere. I expected this to be covered in the book too... mayby in the next one?