What enemy are the Chiss worried about?(Thrawn Spoilers)

[FaxModem1]

In the new EU book Thrawn, he notes that the Chiss are seeking an alliance with the Empire so as to enable that they can be used for when an enemy they're worried about emerges.

What enemy is this though? It could possibly be the Vong, but the old EU is dead, and they are with it, and it is highly unlikely they'll show up in the sequel trilogy. What other faction would motivate the Chiss to Ally with the Empire?

[Lord Revan]

I've not read the book but could it be an enemy that's a threat to the Accendency but might not be a threat to the Empire. After all based on what you said all this enemy needs to be is powerful enough that the Chiss are worried about their chances to beat them without an ally and the Galactic Empire is the alpha dog around, so if the chiss can convince the Empire that helping them is worth the Empire's time and resources the chiss have most powerful ally possible as far as they know.

[Q99]

'Unsubstantiated paranoia' is probably my bet.

[Galvatron]

Given's the Emperor's interest in the Unknown Regions and the "source of the dark side," don't be surprised if the Chiss are the Cadians of the Star Wars galaxy.

[Solauren]

Right now, we don't have any definite information on who the Chiss were worried about. It could be any of the unknown races from the Legends EU (Vong, Ssi-ruuvi, Nagaki, Tof), someone new to the Disney-EU, or even just trying to come off in what the Chiss would view as a positive light to the Empire.

[Shroom Man 777]

If all of Snoke's people are 50 feet tall like him then the Chiss have a lot to worry about.

[Batman]

Only makes them bigger targets.

[Shroom Man 777]

Only makes them bigger targets.

If Palpatine's "it's treason then uuulllluueeeerrrrgggggh" psycho-crusher spin attack could kill Cat Fister then a Snoke doing that could cut through an ISD. A Snoke's lightsaber would be as big as a telephone pole. 50x as large as an average Kylo's saber.

[DarthPooky]

Its been pretty well established that Snoke will be regular height based on his minifigure from the leaked The Last Jedi Lego set pictures.

[Adam Reynolds]

It was something adapted from the old EU, in which the Chiss had a mysterious enemy that turned out to be the Yuzhan Vong, even though that was not Zahn's original intention.

I suppose it could be elements of what eventually became the First Order and Snoke, but without Force sensitives within the Chiss I don't see how they would have much to do with it.

[Galvatron]

Only makes them bigger targets.

If Palpatine's "it's treason then uuulllluueeeerrrrgggggh" psycho-crusher spin attack could kill Cat Fister then a Snoke doing that could cut through an ISD. A Snoke's lightsaber would be as big as a telephone pole. 50x as large as an average Kylo's saber.

That's just excessively shoulderpaddy.

[Shroom Man 777]

Only makes them bigger targets.

If Palpatine's "it's treason then uuulllluueeeerrrrgggggh" psycho-crusher spin attack could kill Cat Fister then a Snoke doing that could cut through an ISD. A Snoke's lightsaber would be as big as a telephone pole. 50x as large as an average Kylo's saber.

That's just excessively shoulderpaddy.

Dash Rendar's shoulderpads prevent him from being decapitated? Like, if his shoulderpads were coated with cortosis then if he tucked his head in like a turtle then the shoulderpads - which would exceed his head in height - could block Snoke's saber (the blade might have a cross-section that's wider than a person).

[The Romulan Republic]

Given's the Emperor's interest in the Unknown Regions and the "source of the dark side," don't be surprised if the Chiss are the Cadians of the Star Wars galaxy.

Please don't tell me they're really stupid enough to have the Dark Side, or any aspect of the Force, have a single physical origin point. That would be far, far worse than midichlorians, for all the fuss over that. It flies completely contrary to the established depiction of the Force as "present in all living things". Its absurd.

You can have locations strong in the Dark Side (or presumably the Light Side)- this is canon going back to ESB at least. But a physical origin point? No.

[DarthPooky]

What dose the force need with a planet right.

[The Romulan Republic]

Heh.

But yeah, that's about the worst thing they could plausibly do with Episode VIII for me, short of suddenly retconning the Force to appeal to the moral relativist contingent (which the trailer makes me a little worried they're going to do).

As to the Chiss... I'm not sure what enemy makes sense for them other than bringing back the Yuzzhan Vong, which doesn't seem terribly likely or terribly intelligent. The mistake of purging the EU just to try to cram as many dubious elements of the old EU back in as possible...

Mind you, I think the whole "Unknown Regions" concept is pretty damn dubious. AotC made it pretty clear that the entire galaxy was explored (the Jedi Achives scene), which with their FTL speed makes sense, and the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War, while horrific, do not strike one as conflicts great enough in scope to cause knowledge of vast regions of the galaxy to disappear.

[Q99]

I like the idea that there is no enemy- either Sidious (or his predecessor) made him think there was, or it's something some of their leadership do on purpose.

[Galvatron]

Given's the Emperor's interest in the Unknown Regions and the "source of the dark side," don't be surprised if the Chiss are the Cadians of the Star Wars galaxy.

Please don't tell me they're really stupid enough to have the Dark Side, or any aspect of the Force, have a single physical origin point. That would be far, far worse than midichlorians, for all the fuss over that. It flies completely contrary to the established depiction of the Force as "present in all living things". Its absurd.

You can have locations strong in the Dark Side (or presumably the Light Side)- this is canon going back to ESB at least. But a physical origin point? No.

Oh, I agree. That doesn't mean they won't do it anyway.

[Adam Reynolds]

Please don't tell me they're really stupid enough to have the Dark Side, or any aspect of the Force, have a single physical origin point. That would be far, far worse than midichlorians, for all the fuss over that. It flies completely contrary to the established depiction of the Force as "present in all living things". Its absurd.

You can have locations strong in the Dark Side (or presumably the Light Side)- this is canon going back to ESB at least. But a physical origin point? No.

Clone Wars already indicates something like this, in which there are physical manifestations of the Light and Dark sides respectively with the Mortis arc. Not to mention wherever it is Yoda goes at the end of his arc in season 6. I have forcefully forgotten anything other than Dagobah and Moraband(the Sith world Korriban renamed) and refuse to look it up and remember, but there was the whole acid trip element as well that also involved a physical location.

I don't think either of those are the origin, but there is precedent for this sort of thing. I also hated both of those arcs.

Mind you, I think the whole "Unknown Regions" concept is pretty damn dubious. AotC made it pretty clear that the entire galaxy was explored (the Jedi Achives scene), which with their FTL speed makes sense, and the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War, while horrific, do not strike one as conflicts great enough in scope to cause knowledge of vast regions of the galaxy to disappear.

I see it as several filters that had an impact on reducing the overall information, enough that there were now mostly uncharted areas, in particular hyperlanes. While the Jedi had accurate maps of literally everything in the galaxy, those were only located in the Jedi temple. The next best records were in the hands of groups like the Trade Federation and Galactic Senate. When the Jedi temple was captured by the Empire, information was undoubtedly lost. The Trade Federation records were likewise lost with the end of the Clone Wars. The Galactic Senate records ended up in Imperial hands, but the strong hierarchy had a motivation to keep those records in as few hands as possible. When the Empire ultimately fell, this led to even more lost information.

By the time of the New Republic, the setting is one you could even have a Star Trek stye story about forging new hyperlanes and rediscovering now lost locations, while also establishing that the New Republic is here to stay in the Outer Rim. This was an idea for an SW RPG campaign at one point.

[The Romulan Republic]

Reg. the presence of locations strong in the Light and Dark Side, that is, as I said, established going back to ESB, and seems to me consistent. I've got not problem with that.

Mortis strikes me as a little screwy, but could perhaps be hand-waved as just a vision which may or may not be true, rather than literal beings personifying the Light, Dark, and "Neutral" sides of the Force.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Regarding the Jedi Archives and the Unknown Regions, there is the possibility that just because the Jedi or organisations affiliated with them have mapped every star position (and luminosity, spectral type, etc) doesn't mean they've actually explored them or know what's there beyond "x O/B blue giants, y A blue giants, z F/G main sequence stars" etc.

There was an explanation mentioned in one of the later NJO books that the Unknown Regions are filled with a lot of hyperspace disturbances, theorised to be a galaxy-sized mass of dark matter passing through the galactic disk.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, no, its quite clear that they don't have the resources to actually monitor what's going on in every system all the time. If a particular region of the Outer Rim (which is already more sparsely-populated than the Core) got hid badly by warfare or something and largely depopulated, then it could plausibly have a sort of Unknown Regions effect, though it would likely be mapped, and I'd expect that they'd at least have a fairly good idea of what sapient and civilizations could be found there.

Of if you had factions there that worked actively to keep outsiders out, though in that case I'd think that Palpatine proably would have conquered them at some point.

[Galvatron]

There's also Admiral Ozzel's statement that "there are so many uncharted settlements" during the OT to consider.

IMHO, Kamino's absence from the Jedi archives was only noteworthy because it was already a known planet with inhabitants who had a reputation for advanced cloning technology. There may be any number of other planets in the galaxy that have yet to be discovered or were never officially catalogued by whomever did visit them in the past.