I wonder if this will take place in-between the episodes of Rebels when Thrawn needs to convince the Emperor about his Tie-Defender project and when he gets back. Maybe it will tie in with World Between Worlds.
I'm curious if this wlil tie in anyway to Thrawn helping the Emperor with the World Between Worlds project on Lothal.
Sounds like this story is set during Season 4 of Rebels when Thrawn leaves to defend the Tie Defender (pardon the pun) project on Coruscant. Wonder if that was intentionally put in Rebels for this book or simply Zahn saw a gap in Thrawn's timeline and decided to fill it?
Nice. I need to finish Alliances. I have been reading it for literally months. My life's been so busy lately that I have been reading at a rate of about one chapter per week or less. Maybe this will be my motivation to finish it. It's a great book...I just hate that it has taken me so long to get through. Excited for this, though. It occurs to me that we now literally have a Canon Thrawn trilogy.
I finished Alliances a couple of weeks ago, and thought it would be the last Thrawn novel for now. Really happy to be wrong about that! I've absolutely loved both of the new Thrawn books, so this is great news!
I hate to get into negativity again, but Thrawn showing any loyalty to the Chiss is pretty out-of-character to his Legends self. Ah well.
I do like how the backgrounds darken... perhaps showing us how Thrawn’s soul is blackened as he goes... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
That amazing cover! Fun fact I’ve been pretty much Kindle exclusive as far as books go for a wile now but with that last to thrawn books I’ve been buying them twice one kindle and one hard back, We deafly do the same with this One
Parck, at least, paints Thrawn's goal in "getting exiled to the Unknown Regions" as "return to protect the Chiss": Vision of the Future "But again, I'm getting ahead of myself. As I said, Thrawn's action did not sit well with the ruling Chiss families. He was able to talk his way clear and retain his position, but from that point on they watched him very carefully. "And eventually, as he dealt with some of the Chiss's enemies, he pushed things just a little too far. He was brought up on charges, stripped of all rank, and sent into exile on an uninhabited world at the edge of Imperial space." "Where who should show up but a Victory Star Destroyer," Mara said. "Captained by a man willing to take the risk of bringing him back to Coruscant." She raised her eyebrows. "Only it wasn't nearly as much of a risk as everyone thought, was it?" Parck smiled. "It most certainly wasn't," he said. "In fact, I learned later that Palpatine had made at least two unsuccessful attempts over the years to contact the Chiss and offer Thrawn a position with his soon-to-be Empire. No, he was most pleased with my gift, though because of the political realities of the court he had to keep that pleasure hidden." "So Thrawn went into private military training and eventually rose to the highest rank Palpatine could offer," Mara said. "And then, what, arranged to have himself sent back here so he could make the Chiss ruling families pay for what they'd done to him?" Parck looked shocked. "Certainly not. The Chiss are his people, Mara—he has no interest in hurting them. Quite the opposite, in fact. He came back here to protect them." "From what?" Stent gave a contemptuous snort. "From what," he bit out harshly. "You soft, complacent female. You think that because you lounge around your quiet worlds behind a ring of warships that the rest of the galaxy is a safe place to live? There are a hundred different threats out there that would freeze your blood if you knew about them. The ruling families can't stop them; neither can any other power in the region. If our people are to be protected, it's up to us." "And you are? You specifically, I mean?" Stent drew himself up straighter. "We are Syndic Mitth'raw'nuruodo's Household Phalanx," he said, and there was no mistaking the pride in his tone. "We live only to serve him. And through him to serve the Chiss."
Spoiler Essentially the new Thrawn book (First One) gives the reason why Thrawn goes to the Empire in the first place.