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Abacus wrote:

Galvatron wrote:Maybe after Zahn's new novel gets published, Marvel will put out another series about the adventures of Thrawn. Would you like that, fella?

You have to ask?

Actually, yes. How much of Thrawn's appeal depends upon his old EU backstory? How would you react to Zahn (and other writers) totally reimagining his entire origin?

I honestly can't imagine Zahn changing his core personality -- that mix of Rommel and Sherlock Holmes -- nor his origins as a Chiss. Those two form, in my opinion, the core pillars of Thrawn. Everything else is accretion of his actions and the effects his command had on galactic events.

As long as those two core pillars are unchanged, I'm fine with the other changes that Zahn or other authors may make. Not to mention that most SW writers hold Zahn with a great deal of respect and would likely try to remain true to his vision and past writing examples for Thrawn.


Now if you ask how much his appeal depends on his old EU backstory? Just about all of it. We haven't seen him in-canon enough yet to give him a true foundation for the future. It will also greatly depend on the writers of SW: Rebels to do the one thing that they usually don't like doing -- letting the bad guy win. I don't mean the occasional sniffing out of a rebel plot (like Thrawn did in that episode back on Lothal and the sabotage of the factory). I mean that either mid-season or the end of season three, the Empire has to win, hard, due to Thrawn's machinations. Without that, or more stories that are canon and show his brilliance the way it was shown in the old EU, then his appeal *as* Thrawn will remain rooted in the old EU.


Not sure if I'm explaining myself well enough...is most of that understandable? >.>

I wonder if Zahn will try to salvage the Outbound Flight story or any of his other characters (Pellaeon, Jade, Karrde, C'baoth, etc.). Frankly, I hope he leaves the noghri and the ysalamiri out of the new EU.

Galvatron wrote:I wonder if Zahn will try to salvage the Outbound Flight story or any of his other characters (Pellaeon, Jade, Karrde, C'baoth, etc.). Frankly, I hope he leaves the noghri and the ysalamiri out of the new EU.

On the last point, I think he will. They mentioned in one of the panels Filoni did how ysalamairi would not be making a comeback.

Mara Jade is iffy, C'boath would be dead in an OT-era novel (which AFAIK is when Thrawn will be taking place, given the cover art) but Pellaeon and Karrde could certainly exist.

Though honestly I have enough faith in Zahn to come up with new characters, instead of pulling a Luceno and trying to jam as much of his old stuff into New Canon as he can get away with.

Mara Jade might depend on how the whole "Rey's parentage" thing goes.

While you could do an alt-universe Mara Jade who was very different, a huge part of canon Mara's story is her marriage to Luke and the fact that she is the mother of his child. If Rey is Luke's child, and Mara is the mother, that needs to be factored into the films, and I doubt they'd want to make a piece of the old EU so integral to the new films based on how they've proceeded so far. If not... that's a huge change to Mara's story.

Then again, they managed to reintroduce Thrawn even though the era that he was best known for has been completely rewritten, so...

What would you prefer?

Galvatron wrote:I wonder if Zahn will try to salvage the Outbound Flight story or any of his other characters (Pellaeon, Jade, Karrde, C'baoth, etc.). Frankly, I hope he leaves the noghri and the ysalamiri out of the new EU.

I hope that the Outbound Flight story remains Legends/Old EU. Considering the fact that nothing in the Clone Wars TV series mentions C'Boath, etc, then it'd be hard to find a way to shoehorn him into things.

Other characters:

Pellaeon: His character could easily enough be included, though it is unlikely that he'd reach the height of rank, power, and influence that he did in the EU. He might become a favored ISD captain that works under Thrawn.

Jade: Depends on how far they'll go to differentiate between the Emperor's Hands versus the Inquisitors -- if they try to do that at all. I've always liked the way that the Hands included Force-sensitives and non-Force sensitives. If the Emperor had some more in-canon, skilled operatives that don't rely on the Force would be nice.

c'Baoth: no thanks.

Voss Parck: I'd like to see him, especially since he had a career in the Republic as well as the Empire.

I want to say Pellaeon has already been mentioned in the new EU, but I'm probably wrong.

I haven't seen any sign of Pellaeon yet. He's probably being reserved for Zahn.

had a dream a few days ago where i was woken from a coma in 2019, mostly weird dreamish stuff, but i can read in dreams and one of the books on my shelf had been titled 'Thrawn: the silent command' and the cover was a black X-wing with the an upper foil melted off.

Galvatron wrote:Not sure if this is a necro since I created the thread, but I just wanted to see if everyone's aware that this series came to an end at issue #25. I think it neatly bridged the gap between ANH and TESB and told a good story about how Vader worked his way back into the Emperor's good graces to inherit supreme command of the fleet.

The art remained consistently superb throughout the series, so I highly recommend buying the TPB if you have both the means and the interest.

Given what happened to Tagge, Palpatine was clearly in a merciful mood that day.

Anacronian wrote:I don't really think that Vader was ever ment as the Emperors "Right-hand man" - there is a deleted scene in Return of the Jedi where Vader can't even get permission to see the Emperor which pretty much tell us how little the Emperor thought of Vader: Linky 7:04

Of cause the scene was cut out of the movie but still.

The clip did show how dedicated the Emperor's Royal Guards were.

They were willing to take on Vader, even though it would likely end with them being carved up with a lightsaber.

Galvatron wrote:I haven't seen any sign of Pellaeon yet. He's probably being reserved for Zahn.

Apparently does not exist anymore; Thrawn has a new right hand man, Ensign Eli Vanto

Maybe they just haven't even met yet.

Abacus wrote:

Galvatron wrote:I wonder if Zahn will try to salvage the Outbound Flight story or any of his other characters (Pellaeon, Jade, Karrde, C'baoth, etc.). Frankly, I hope he leaves the noghri and the ysalamiri out of the new EU.

I hope that the Outbound Flight story remains Legends/Old EU. Considering the fact that nothing in the Clone Wars TV series mentions C'Boath, etc, then it'd be hard to find a way to shoehorn him into things.

Other characters:

Pellaeon: His character could easily enough be included, though it is unlikely that he'd reach the height of rank, power, and influence that he did in the EU. He might become a favored ISD captain that works under Thrawn.

Jade: Depends on how far they'll go to differentiate between the Emperor's Hands versus the Inquisitors -- if they try to do that at all. I've always liked the way that the Hands included Force-sensitives and non-Force sensitives. If the Emperor had some more in-canon, skilled operatives that don't rely on the Force would be nice.

c'Baoth: no thanks.

Voss Parck: I'd like to see him, especially since he had a career in the Republic as well as the Empire.

I wonder if it would be possible to retcon Jade as an Inquisitor.

Could be done, I think. Fairly easily.

we even have handful of inquisitors unaccounted for IIRC, though the exact number depends on if the Grand Inquisitor is the "First Brother" or not

Interesting thing that just occurred to me: despite the long-standing idea of the Empire being prejudice against non-humans, and Imperial ranks being filled almost entirely with humans, all the Inquisitors thus far on Rebels have been non-human.

But then, the Inquisitors are Vader's personal subordinates, and as far as I recall, Vader has never shown much in the way of anti-human prejudice. He seems like someone who values competency above of all else.

It seems in later Legendaries and in the new EU that was retconned into that the Empire isn't prejudice against non-humans per say but rather a lot of high ranking imperials are (as well as a signifigant portion of the lower ranks), but the Emperor and by extension the official imperial policy doesn't care what your species is as long as you're off use to the Empire. It's kind like the Sith Empire in SWTOR where the elite was prejudiced against people who weren't humans or purebloods but the empire uses who ever is of use Spoiler That isn't to say that as a whole the Galactic Empire isn't prejudiced against non-humans but if a non-human is found usefull enough they're allowed into the imperial hierarchy and in case of the Inquisitors it might be partly to secure their loyality as being aliens they have 0 personal authority within the Imperial Hierarchy so they know should they go renegade they'll loose everything. Basically the Galactic Empire isn't officially biased against non-humans but it doesn't imperial officials and officers who are from acting on their personal bias to make sure non-humans don't get a fair chance after all any non-human we see in position of authority in the empire is one of 3 things, 1) someone who proved themselves to be valueble during the end times of the Republic, 2)Someone who is too talented to go to waste like Thrawn seems to be 3)someone with special talents or abilities that make them too useful to be wasted (like the Inquisitors who are all Force users).

I think that Palpatine may or may not like non-humans, but ultimately he's someone who will use whoever can be useful to him, and kill whoever gets in his way, regardless of their identity. While Vader, as I said, only ever seemed genocidal towards Tuskens and Jedi, and mostly just values competency above all else in his subordinates.

However, Palpatine probably found racism a useful tool politically. Also, it makes a certain amount of sense that the Imperial military would be largely human, as they are seemingly the most common species, and its probably easier to standardize all the equipment if you recruit primarily from one species for your troops. Whereas the Rebellion, being a rag-tag collection early on (and drawing its support from those the Empire persecuted) had to take whoever it could get.