Books Thrawn Alliances Book - Summer 2018

To build on my earlier post, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor ironically builds on why Legends Thrawn probably thought Legends Luke wasn't up to the task of fighting the Vong.

Thrawn: Luke was asking for a war crimes investigation into himself after the Battle of Mindor?! He did what he had to do, but then he wimped out and resigned his generalship?! This self-pitying moper isn't who we need to defend the galaxy from the Vong, time to rebuild the Empire.

Which probably confounded Thrawn all the more once Luke was stopping his plans left and right circa Thrawn Trilogy.

 

Hmm that is a good analogy. I've compared him to Zemo myself, at the end of the day for all the noble intentions and personal code...it's still about ultimately setting up an authoritatian society.

 

I think there was a mass of great arrogance in Thrawn who only believed he could be the one to defeat the Yuuzhan Vong. Also, the disarmament of the New Republic was already full in force as we saw with the fact battle cruisers were ferrying freight ala Star Trek in HTE.

I admit, it probably would have been a hard sell to begin with, "By the way, we need you to increase the military size of the New Republic by....ten times. Honestly, a hundred might not be unreasonable. Something genocidal would also be awesome. The Death Star is very unwieldy but maybe something like the Sun Cru...hello? Hello?"

 

Even if Thrawn got Luke on board, there's no guarantee the Republic would even listen to Luke. I remember in the beginning of Dark Empire 2 Luke was practically shouting at the Republic not to attack Byss because it's way out of their league, and they gleefully ignore him and attack anyway to disastrous consequences.

And that's not going into the fact that Luke destroys weapons like the Galaxy Gun which Luke himself later realized would have been useful against the Yuuzhan Vong (this quote from Luke himself was in one of the reference guides). I can see Thrawn sadly shaking his head while Luke wastes time on diplomacy, etc.

Thrawn: Ok, with these Spaarti clones, we will now have an army to defeat the Vong!
Luke: I won't make the old Jedi order's mistake, we do not use clones as slaves. These clones are free men--you're all free to go.
Thrawn: Whose side are you on??

 

Mind you, Luke has NO REASON to believe the Vong are coming and Thrawn never told anyone.

The one major blindspot of his so-called genius.

 

"I'm on hold, aren't I? Again."

 

A smart guy like Thrawn would have kept evidence etc for such an occasion. And Luke might actually have believed him. He ran into a survivor of the early Vong wars back in the Marvel comics (Riders in the Void). This is Legends Luke we're talking about, not the "Leave me alone, it's not my problem" canon Luke.

Thrawn's weakness is that he never told anyone (mainly due to in real life Zahn retconning this idea into his motivation late). It's not something we ever got a proper explanation for in Legends, Rebels and canon Thrawn's contempt of Jedi we see is probably the closest explanation we'll get.

 

Back in the day, not even Thrawn knew they were coming...
Part of the problem with an evolving storyline that kept adding new content in different time lines. So much scope for contradiction / retconning...
I hope new canon fares better.

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I can hear you, can you hear me?

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Skywalker? Pasty guy, whines about wanting to pick up power converters...?

 

Look, I can't hold forever, if you get him, tell him Thrawn has an urgent message for him. About his father.

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Hello, this is Luke Skywalker's dark side nephew. He can't come to the comlink now (muffled screams heard in background) but if you leave your name and holonet address, I'll come eliminate you as soon as I can. Have a nice day.

Unfortunately Luke's answering message was sliced with the above line in both Legends and canon.

 

I wonder if we will see the 501st Legion and/or Ahsoka in the flashbacks. Maybe she will learn the Marg Sabl maneuver from Thrawn himself

 

I think Zahn (along with Kathy Tyers, Michael A. Stackpole, Dave Wolverton and Paul and Hollace Davids) actually wrote Luke post-ROTJ very well. LS&TSOM felt off to me as a Star Wars book and I'm often reluctant to include it in any future Legends reading. The Dark Empire concept was cool but at the same time it could've been better if it hadn't been written in the early-90s - late 2000s after we had the 4-9 ABY timeline thought out definitely. Jedi Academy trilogy onward just wrote Luke as an arse (Black Fleet Crisis being one of the worst offenders - that felt off to me despite loving the Fifth Fleet) until Zahn got him again in Hand of Thrawn.

 

I'm curious how he'll go writing Clone Wars Anakin. There's some potential for it to be like the more classic novels, with a Jedi hero involved in some wild adventure.

 

I always had problems to see this version of Vader as the same character as what he became later on.

Wonder how everyone else reconciled this depiction with the later stuff.

 

The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader by Ryder Windham said this depiction was Vader having his aggression influenced by the nearby Kaiburr crystal.

 

Now that I think about it, maybe the Vong is too strong a threat to combat. They nearly decimated the New Republic with their exotic biotechnology and I don't know if watering them down just for the sake of Thrawn and Vader squashing them, is fair to their character. Maybe it would be better if it were the Ss-ruuvi, Yevetha, Nagai, Killiks or some new threat. They would be easier to stop then the Vong.

 

Maybe this is the Snoke prequel novel we've all been waiting for! Anakin and Thrawn give Snoke his injuries, and he swears vengeance in... about 50 years time.

 

It’s interesting that they went to Batuu, which is where the new Star Wars land at Disney parks will take place. Talk about synergy!


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Yeah I heard about this. So, will we see Thrawn at the new Disneyland expansion?

 

Hopefully, he'll say the expansion is artistically done.

 

I want to see Batuu inhabited by anthropomorphic mice, dog-like creatures, and of course anthropomorphic ducks. We can't forget those ducks. The richest duck in the world, the superhero who is the terror that flaps in the night, and those 3 kid ducks who look alike.

Thrawn will find a massive asset in discovering that learning about an enemy from the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook is far easier and superior than trying to learn about them from their art.

 

What? In Legends he admitted to base delta zeroing a world when he couldn't win.

Pretty consistent portrayal with Zahn's portrayal.

He prefers a Gul Dukat approach when possible but will practically embrace the Weyoun approach when he's losing.

 

Oben is described as "razed" and "levelled" but it's safe to say it wasn't reduced to a sea of molten lava at least - because its ruler, Sk'ar, was waiting in his headquarters after the devastation, when the Imperials showed up, to surrender and offer his services to the Empire:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bentilais_san_Sk'ar