Originally posted by Gideon
No one denied that.Right, because military genius is going to somehow deal with the logistics nightmare of facing an opponent whose military complex is quintillions of lightyears ahead of your own. Your hypothesis doesn't form itself to be canon.
Neither do yours.
The fact of the matter is that Ackbar was facing, at the very least, twelve individuals with high authority within the Empire who demonstrate parity with him in genius. Not to mention that their resources firmly outclassed his. Hence why he didn't bring the Empire to its knees.Apparently not, since you sought to pin Vader for their defeat at Endor.
Already acknowledged that a LONG while back.
It was because of Palpatine that the Empire lost, you moron.
That makes it the Emperor's loss, not Ackbar's victory
Ah. That's why Vader used the Force to manipulate the environment against Roan Shryne, Luke Skywalker, and Galen Marek in their duels. Because he's a brute with no concept of strategy or tactics.
This is the Pro Thrawn arguement.
Upon assuming command of the Empire, Thrawn immediately began to seek ways to destroy the Republic despite their numerical advantage. A data raid on Obroa-Skai provided the answer - Mt Tantiss, the Emperor's storehouse, which contained a massive array of Spaarti Cloning cylinders, as well as a working cloaking shield. He also discovered something else - Joruus C'baoth, the clone of the Jedi Master he had killed aboard Outbound Flight. With the promise of new Jedi to mold as he pleased, Thrawn convinced C'baoth to aid them, coordinating the Imperial fleet as the Emperor had originally done.
While this put Thrawn in a strong position, he was confronted by the Imperial Navy's lack of ships. To this end, he raided Sluis-Van with mole-miners stolen from Lando Calrissian, hoping to steal much of the unmanned Republic fleet. He was thwarted by Calrissian turning the mole miners against him. Despite this setback, he continued to prepare for the Mt Tantiss campaign, removing Ackbar, his most formidable opponent via political intrigue. His dilemma over ships was soon solved when he discovered leads on the Katana fleet, a lost fleet of 200 Dreadnaught class Heavy Cruisers. While political intrigues on Coruscant delayed a Republic response, Thrawn seized all but 21 of the ships, and crewed them with his massive new army of clones.
Thrawn then launched his campaign. His tactical and strategic insight allowed him to score huge gains against the Republic (the New Essential Chrononlogy records that he added over a quarter of the galaxy to the Imperial's existing territory, allowing him control over half the galaxy). He would even blockade Coruscant with a subtle bluff that made them believe they were surrounded by invisible (cloaked) asteroids. However, Thrawn was at the same time being slowly undone. Princess Leia had managed to convince the Noghri, Thrawn's army of silent killers, of the Imperial treachery to keep them in servitude. At the same time he was engaged in a power struggle with C'baoth, who had declared himself the true ruler of the Empire, eventually consigning him to Mt Tantiss. The Republic sought to strike back by hitting the Imperial shipyards at Bilbringi, but Thrawn outguessed them and had his fleet waiting for them.
Thrawn was assassinated during the battle. His bodyguard, Rukh, discovered the betrayal of the Noghri race by Darth Vader, the Emperor and Thrawn, and took vengeance against the only one he could, stabbing him aboard his flagship the Chimaera in the middle of the climactic Battle of Bilbringi. Thrawn's last words were simply: "But…it was so artistically done." With the cloning tanks at Mt Tantiss also destroyed, the Empire was left in full retreat once more.
About ten years later, Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade discovered that Thrawn had created a clone of himself, which would have awoken exactly a decade after Thrawn's defeat. While Skywalker and Jade debated the ethics of killing it, the fire of the security systems caused the wall to give way, drowning the clone.
The Chiss knew of the Yuuzhan Vong long before the Republic or Empire. It was in fact then-Commander Thrawn's superior officer, Chiss Admiral Ar'alani, who had engaged a scout group of the species. This first encounter was concluded with a Chiss victory against the force, but Admiral Ar'alani noted that they had fought with an impressive ferocity.
During the Outbound Flight project, a Trade Federation task force dispatched by Darth Sidious to defeat Outbound Flight was intercepted and soundly defeated by Commander Thrawn. During the surrender of the remaining Republic forces, Thrawn was put in contact with Lord Sidious. Sidious had foreseen this new alien threat and saw it critical to prevent the large Jedi and Republic citizen populace from being captured and interrogated by the Vong. Such an occurrence would give the Vong a critical informational advantage over the Republic and the Chiss, perhaps throwing off chances of a successful defense against the alien species.
Thrawn was not oblivious to the threat this posed to his people. He required that Outbound Flight change course or be destroyed. Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth and the other Jedi aboard the Flight were oblivious to the threat known thus far only to the Chiss and the Sith. C'baoth at this time was also falling to the dark side, after assuming a dictatorial role over the Outbound Flight populace. He had become incredibly arrogant and was unable to see past his own pride and belief in his invincibility. C'baoth ignored Thrawn's peaceful request for them to simply leave the area and continue their journey on another course. And so Thrawn orchestrated Outbound Flight's defeat. This maintained the Chiss Ascendancy's protective isolation from both the Republic and Vong.
When Thrawn eventually returned to the Unknown Regions, having been made a Grand Admiral by Emperor Palpatine, he carved out a huge empire, going by the name Empire of the Hand. When Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker investigated Thrawn's personal fortress, they encountered the Imperial officer who had first brought Thrawn to the Empire - Admiral Voss Parck. Parck indicated that Thrawn's campaign against the Republic was not solely out of a personal desire to gain power, but to prepare the galaxy against a coming threat - likely the Vong.
Thrawn was considered a true warrior by those who served under him. If a battle Thrawn planned could not be won, Thrawn preferred not to waste troops and equipment in futile displays of power; he would withdraw and adjust his plans. He also encouraged Captain Gilad Pellaeon to voice his ideas, because, unlike many egotistical Imperial commanders, Thrawn could accept valid ideas even if they were not his own. Thrawn was not concerned with his own personal glory, only with winning the fight against the New Republic (which he refused to acknowledge as such, instead constantly referring to it as "the Rebellion"😉. It was later postulated that Thrawn did not support the Empire per se, but rather wanted to establish order in the known galaxy in preparation to combat as-yet unknown threats he had discovered during his time in the Outer Rim (probably early scouts of the Yuuzhan Vong).
Thrawn was more tolerant of the failures of those under his command than other Imperial officials, who were known for their lethal reaction to minor failures. Unlike Darth Vader in particular, Thrawn would not regularly terminate individuals under his command for "errors." However, he did order the execution of a conscripted crewman responsible for operating the tractor beams when Luke Skywalker escaped a trap he set, but only because the crew member was so inept that he was unable to translate elements of his training to an unfamiliar situation, and placed blame on his commanding officer for his own shortcomings. Later, when Skywalker escaped a similar trap, the man running the tractor beams had tried an innovative solution in an attempt to capture him. Instead of having the man killed for failing to do so, Thrawn recognized the crewman's initiative by promoting him to Lieutenant.
Thrawn is known for a supremely unique command style. He would view the native art of a given species or planet to understand them better as a race or planet, and so too, gain insight into their military style. He believed the study of this art would somehow give him an advantage in battle, since it provided him with information on the psyche of his opponents and informed him of their psychological blind spots. Examples include the invasion of Ukio, where he determined that the defenders had a strong superstitious fear of the unknown and the unexplained. Therefore, his attack with cloaked vessels frightened them into submission when a more adventurous people might have continued to resist. His immediate subordinate, Pellaeon, voices the opinion that Thrawn's analysis of art was merely a cover for his true military analyses, which he would want to keep secret to stymie enemy spies. He was known as one of the most brilliant military commanders in the Star Wars universe and was superior to even geniuses such as General Garm Bel Iblis who only later joined the New Republic due to personal issues with the Rebel Alliance's leader Mon Mothma, and Admiral Ackbar, who led the Rebellion to victory in many crucial battles.
Unlike the Emperor, Thrawn had a distinct grasp of his economic situation. He preferred to use existing technologies in novel ways rather than spend billions of credits on super weapons that might or might not have worked. Thrawn turned medium-sized capital ships like Carrack cruisers and Victory-class Star Destroyers into formidable weapons. Unlike many prominent imperial commanders, he had no Super-Star Destroyer under his command.