Lit Books The Third Canon Thrawn Trilogy

Sinny, you’re breaking my heart!

 

I feel like even if he does die in the films, we will get more Thrawn book by Zahn - after all, Zahn wrote plenty about Thrawn after killing him off himself in legends after all. As long as Zahn is willing and Thrawn is popular, it feels inevitable to me.

My first idea on how such a trilogy would likely play out is a book about Thrawn on Peridea, another in the middle of the various Thrawn saga shows, and finally one set right before the finale.

But thinking more, I wonder if we might get two tilogies - one on Peridea (ten or so years is a lot of time for things to happen) and one after his return to the galaxy.


Though, personally, I am more interested in some of his non-Thrawn ideas, like the Chiss vs First Order story.

 

I’m somewhat cynical that we’d get any more Thrawn novels in the immediate future, because obviously he’s predominantly in the realm of tv and film now and they keep all that storytelling closely guarded. I imagine it’ll be a few years before Zahn gets clearance to work in the Peridea/Far Galaxy setting. Zahn himself didn’t seem that confident at Sioux Falls last month.

Personally I’m just hoping his proposed Chiss Trilogy gets the greenlight. With Eli Vanto, Ar’alani and the rest working together in a pseudo-Empire of the Hand to fight a war in the Unknown Regions. That seems like something that would be free of larger Lucasfilm restrictions and could potentially be very tense now that those characters don’t have Thrawn to save the day for them.

 

I think the show revealling that Thrawn was stuck on one planet for the whole ten-ish years was a waste in the long run.

 

You've done that yourself.

Happy to be of service!

Agreed.

And yeah, in particular, I am reading the Ascendancy trilogy and am finding myself enjoying it the most when Thrawn isn't around, so it would cool to see all those characters try to deal with a threat without Thrawn to come up with unbeatable strategies.

Not to mention I could see the First Order be a considerable enemy for the Chiss, unlike anything they have faced before. For one, it is clear that standard galactic technology is borderline superweapon level for the Unknown Regions - and while Thrawn had plenty of time to send the Chiss tech and plans to reverse engineer, the first order could still be one of the few times the Chiss go up against someone with equal or better tech, and multiple ships a lot bigger than anything flying around the UR.
(And frankly the Chiss are arrogant enough I kind of wish someone would give them a wake up call. Like, Thrawn and his compatriots clearly know there are real threats out there, but he is so good at neutralizing those threats before they can act most of the ascendancy doesn't even know about them, and continues to think the only enemies out there are minor warlords they can just whap on the nose to cower into line)

I am genuinely curious how that conflict would play out - I doubt Zahn would have his protagonists lose, yet the First Order needs to be around and in fighting shape for the ST, and they don't see, like the types to give up before exhausting their resources. Perhaps a negotiated settlement like the Chiss had with the Sith in SWTOR?

I can see the sentiment, but it is a planet of ancient wonder and horror. I think a lot can happen on a single planet.

Plus, even if they were stuck in that galaxy, who says they didn't venture to some other nearby systems? Or that threats from other systems didn't come to them?

 

My presumption is, Zahn would probably have the Grysk be the ones who engineer any conflict between the nascent First Order and the Chiss, with the result being that rational actors from both factions coming to terms after defeating this mutual foe. Which would explain why elements of the Hegemony are seemingly absorbed into the FO by the time of TLJ.

Well, it’s a planet full of mysticism and madness. If there was ever a scenario where Thrawn’s unbeatable genius would conceivably be tested in an interesting way, it would be in a that setting.

 

Thrawn: Pay No Attention To That Movie You Just Saw

 

I'm hoping we get something like this one way or the other - either parallel Thrawn and Chiss Regency stories between Rebels and Mando or a full-on prequel to Ashoka about at least three of Thrawn, Ezra, Sabine, Ashoka, Baylan, Shin, or Morgan and what they were doing before 7ABY

 

Good point, maybe Erza and Thrawn had some forced team ups in that time frame

 

Oooohh. Yeah, that does sound like a very Zahn story to make.

Though honestly I have some trouble imagining rational actors in the First Order. They are kind of defined by insane fanaticism and arrogance.

XD

There are certainly big parts of the fandom who would love that, and I think I heard Zahn being open to the idea. Don't quote me on that though, might just be an internet rumor.

 

When Zahn spoke about this hypothetical story, he was talking about it being pre-ST, pre-Kylo/Hux. So you’d be looking at the era of Rae Sloane calling the shots, and she seemed far more reasonable than some other Imperials.

 

I wouldnt be surprised if in the New Canon it is Thrawn who helps the Imperial Remnant flee to the unknown regions to create the First Order maybe Thrawn or Pellaeon are the creators of the First Order or at least one of the first Supreme Leaders the problem would be where Palpatine would fit into all this since it seems that the First Order was also the work of Sidious

 

He did a pretty good job with Pryce and Krennic, so I’d be very curious to see him utilise Rae Sloane, Hux Sr, Snoke etc…

 

Basic survival seems like a major step to tackle at Peridea. Chimaera got damaged - so may have lost some of it's (copious) supplies.

What do we know of the Chiss vs First Order proposal meantime...?

Finally - the Grysk inciting a looming Chiss civil war was the biggest loose thread left dangling from the the first trilogy. Treason dealt with all of that not really at all.

Speculation of a Rebels follow up series had included rumours of whole Chiss characters facing off against the Grysk years back (before Ahsoka finalized) and maybe helping Ahsoka.

 

Off the top of my head, and while the caffeine is fresh in my system, some of the ideas Zahn’s mentioned for the Chiss spinoff trilogy were:

-It’s a trilogy of books, a “Donut Trilogy” or a Thrawn trilogy without Thrawn in it.
-The story was about the protagonists trying to solve a big crisis without Thrawn there to guide them.
-Eli Vanto and Admiral Ar’alani are the primary protagonists, but would feature a lot of cast introduced in the Ascendancy books.
-It would feature the Grysk threat.
-Snoke was involved and would show some of how he rose to power within the FO (I doubt this one will make it through editorial/Lucasfilm filtering).

 

Man when I saw this thread I thought I missed some major news lol

 

Ah, I see, that does make sense.

Agreed.

Honestly she is such a Zahn like character I forget he didn't actually make her.

Indeed. Both versions of Battlestar Galactic got good stories out of spaceships trying to supply and maintain themselves away from their traditional support network.

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Chiss Civil War thing, that is something that would need to be resolved before they could do any plots after that, and since we heard of that before Thrawn disappeared presumably that would be over one way or another by the time of the First Order or even proto-first order
(Though them trying to interfere in the civil war could be interesting in and of itself)

Yeah there were definitely a lot of people hoping that the Grysk would be the big bad and that everyone would team up against them - but it always seemed to me that just because Thrawn thought the Grysk were worse than the Empire it doesn't mean everyone would agree, especially people like Ezra or Ahoska who suffered so much at the empire's hands.

I see. That does sound pretty interesting.

And true about the last idea probably not flying with Lucasfilm, which is a shame because that does sound like an interesting story in and of itself.

 

The Grysk need to be sorted out, narratively, one way or another. They’re one big dangling plot-thread that isn’t going to be covered on screen or in any other media/publishing besides Zahn’s stuff, but they’ve been established as a significant enough thing that something needs to be done with them.

 

Could easily go the way of the ssi-ruuvi.

 

I suppose it’s somewhat more egregious here since there have been more novels focused on them and their mounting threat.

(in hindsight I wonder what LFL/editorial were thinking when they let this faction into the story, since it was plain as day that Thrawn’s arc was headed towards HttE and not a NJO remix.)

 

They probably thought that zahn could wrap it all up in a trilogy or two.

Also, since by the ST there is already a strong faction in the UR that could threaten all of known space, worst comes to worst they can say that Sloane conquered them offscreen if Zahn didn't wrap it up.

 

Which is basically what they did with the Ssi-Ruuvi...

It *is* possible that they want to save the Grysk for the NJO era, and do an invasion storyline with Rey/Ahsoka/Cal's NJO.

What would be ideal though would be if Zahn got to write his donut trilogy and it helped explain how we go from Rae Sloan as Supreme Leader to Palpatine's Puppet Snoke. Aftermath III made it clear that Palpatine was always planning on taking over the UR Remnant, but how... I wanna know how!