Books Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good (book 2) by Timothy Zahn

I definitely got “Phantom Menace” vibes from him, but I think that was more of a narrative shorthand by Zahn to suggest that this character is more of an Unknown Regions analogue to Darth Sidious than the man himself.

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Plus, Jixtus outright refers to himself as a Grysk and Haplif alludes to having worked for him undermining societies across the Chaos for some time. So I think it’s more to set up a potential next Trilogy of novels in the Unknown Regions, rather than a direct tie-in with the films.

 

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Maybe he just the grysk version of this great mastermind like Palpatine.

 

Those are all good and valid points, but I still get the feeling that the Palpster is somehow involved in all this. I can see this being a

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Kinman Doriana situation, for instance, especially now that the events of Outbound Flight seem to have taken place in this continuity as well.

At any rate I'm pretty much willing to bet that Jixtus isn't a Grysk himself, even though he refers to the Grysks as "us". When Thrawn and Vader take Grysk prisoners in Alliances, they aren't covered in veils or helmets or the like, so I can't see why he'd be covering himself if not to hide the fact that he belongs to a different species.

Another parameter for me is that I doubt we would get a trilogy taking place in the Unknown Regions between the OT and the ST without it being somehow connected to the films. This is the biggest gap in SW storytelling at this point and it would be bizarre if the story group didn't have plans for it.

Anyway, this is not a hill I'm prepared to die on, so we can happily speculate here until the third novel is released

 

I mean, I don’t disclude the possibility that

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Jixtus isn’t actually a Grysk himself, because feasibly he could just be a henchman. Though it does bare to remember that Thrawn himself wasn’t sure if the Grysk were real or not until Alliances, so that does leave the possibility that the Grysk were more secretive in the decades before their showing in the Imperial Trilogy when they were ready to invade. Hence all the cloak and dagger stuff we see here and in the flashback segments of Alliances where they’re offscreen.

But also I get the impression that with the onslaught of television coming up, Lucasfilm aren’t too focused on the publishing side being the intermedia glue it they used to be. And I think all this stuff with the Chiss and the Grysk is moreso to give Tim Zahn his own sandbox to play in rather than play catch up with Filoni. To the extent where I think it’s entirely possible the next Trilogy doesn’t even involve Thrawn.

 

Frankly, the character Jixtus reminds me of the most so far (with the caveat that I'm still only halfway through the book) is Nom Anor.

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In fact, I would totally believe that the Ascendancy trilogy is the descendant of some idea Timothy Zahn had rattling around in the back of his head for the old Expanded Universe, where the Chiss, the Empire of the Hand, and/or possibly Thrawn himself was matching wits with a Yuuzhan Vong infiltrator who, like Nom Anor in Lesser Space, was assigned to incite wars and revolutions, bring down or weaken governments, and otherwise start as many brush fires as possible to pave the way for the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Possibly Nom Anor himself, possibly his counterpart assigned to the Unknown Regions. Especially since Outbound Flight indicated that Thrawn and the Chiss had already encountered the Yuuzhan Vong, and Survivor's Quest suggested that the Vagaari might have had Yuuzhan Vong behind them giving them a boost against the Chiss Ascendancy.

It's vanishingly unlikely that the Yuuzhan Vong, let alone the Yuuzhan Vong War, will ever appear in the current continuity, so presumably the Grysk are simply Zahn's NuCanon equivalent.

 

Now that you mention it....yeah, that feels pretty spot on. I can definitely see that.

 

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That was definitely my impression as well. If this was still Legends, that would've been Nom Anor or another Vong scout/agent.

Who knows, maybe it still is! Maybe the Grysks have been taken over by the Vong and Nom Anor is using a Grysk alias as cover!

 

With all of the focus on the large slate of new TV shows and exploring the newest part of the timeline in the High Republic stuff, I just love how Zahn is essentially building his own Galaxy along side what is known. Although just two books into exploring the Chaos, the Chiss, Thrawn and so on, he is already quickly establishing many aspects of Chiss culture (interactions, family structures, how they conduct themselves, how they identify themselves with family names and so on); as well as that of the other planets and their respective beings too. The Chaos is bigger than what I imagined and this is a really good thing (IMO) for the Star Wars Galaxy because it makes the Star Wars universe a much bigger place.

He's already had the "crossover" interaction between the two galaxies in the last novel with Thrawn and Anakin meeting and I love how that moment was from Thrawn's point of view this time; as this same moment was presented in a previous novel (possibly a Thrawn one - can't remember off hand which one it was) from Anakin's point if view if I remember rightly. Now in this Novel (Greater Good), we are presented with the Grysk - which, if Zahn continues to develop right (along with this "Chaos" galaxy and the events that unfold there), will potentially lead to them (the Grysk) invading the main Star Wars Galaxy; thus setting up the events for movies 10, 11 and 12.

I think Zahn is in a pretty enviable position with what he is doing because essentially he gets to have a blank canvas to paint in in a parallel galaxy, yet its still during the time period of the main known storyline and potentially gets to merge into the events that happen post TROS. And I love what he is doing. The books are great reads and I'm already invested in the story and the characters.

 

I haven't read the book yet. Is it good? Does Thrawn have a love interest yet?

 

I found both books to be a fantastic and entertaining read. Obviously they are abit different at first without Jedi, Sith or any other known character other than Thrawn (well, Ar'alani has been mentioned in previous Thrawn novels too), but I am finding myself immersed in their Galaxy "The Chaos"; because essentially its like the Star Wars Galaxy where there are many planets and beings too.

In respect of a love interest for Thrawn, at this stage no. He does share a close friendship with Admiral Ar'alani (despite being of a higher rank than Thrawn) because they both went to the Chiss military academy together and Thrawn has gone with Ar'alani to her family's home planet/place before. But nothing further has developed other than their close friendship. Both have a really strong mutual respect and friendship towards each other I feel.

To me, they are both worth the purchase for a read.

 

The real meat and potatoes aren’t found in Thrawn’s potential love life, but rather in his family history and what’s going on there.

During that live stream they did for the launch of this book, there were some hints that we’d be getting a whole new set of “Memories” chapters in Lesser Evil that reveal more of Thrawn’s character. Methinks it might be a former Sky-Walker from Rentor...

 

I feel like Zahn was already doing this by the time of Late Legends and just continuing where he left off more or less with NuCanon.

 

I must admit, due to money constraints in the late 2000's and early 2010's, I was unable to afford the books and haven't seen the stories of that time. I think I got up to early Yuuzhan Vong stories before new family commitments meant sacrifices needed to be made. But I'm glad to hear that he is continuing on with what he was doing at that time. Because I love the idea of another adjacent Galaxy to the main Star Wars one; it gives more places for stories to be explored.

 

Mostly building off of what he was doing with books like Outbound Flight Trilogy and Choices of One.

 

Even then this is a step beyond, since the only major traditional Star Wars character here is Thrawn.

 

That's true, but I do think t was the natural direction Zahn was going

 

I mean, what was he building towards?
Outbound Flight and Survivors Quest were closed arcs, Choices of One’s dangling plot with Nuso Esva was resolved and nearly tied into the start of Heir to the Empire with Crisis of Faith.

 

Building towards more expansion of the Chiss and their culture. Not necessarily a story point.

 

I guess, but I never got the sense that he was going to go whole hog and do a story, let alone a trilogy told entirely from their perspective.

 

I think I might search EBAY for these books. I would love to see the comparison.

 

I feel that Zahn’s Thrawn-rival-begrudgingly-becomes-Thrawn-admirer trope should be getting old at this point, but Lakinda’s character arc was somehow really convincing for me. I loved watching her grapple with her overlapping loyalties to family and to Ascendancy.

Also, the word “skytruck” made me chuckle out loud every time I read it.

 

I hope in the future Zahn can write non-Thrawn books and just focus on his acolytes and "Friends" I feel like they are more interesting characters anyway, or at least better POV characters.

 

I think Zahn’s even mentioned before with the “Imperial Trilogy” He wasn’t exactly comfortable using Thrawn in the lead role to the extent he was and it was more LFL/Del Rey who pushed for that. In this trilogy it’s far more of an ensemble story and it’s all the better for it. Thrawn’s basically absent for the entire second act of Greater Good and it does wonders for the tension.


What I want is for Zahn do a book (or three) about the protagonists of Rebels. The adventures of Hera, Chopper, Zeb and Rex during the OT and capture that pulp adventure vibe that he can write so well when he’s not doing detective stories with Thrawn.

 

I do know if I want THE Rebels characters but I wouldn't mind him doing hero characters again.