Thrawn: Treason

Zahn recently teased a new character from Treason:

"His name is Assistant Director Ronan. He is one of the assistant directors on Stardust, extremely loyal to Director Krennic, not really liking Thrawn much at all [...] His cape is thigh-length, not full length. He's only an assistant director."

When asked if Captain Pellaeon would make an appearance:

"It remains to be seen. Now that he's canon, he's fair game."

He also commented on the vastly different tactical approaches taken by Thrawn and Krennic respectively:

"Krennic is all about power, while Thrawn takes a different focus to getting things done. Thrawn would prefer a surgical strike with the minimal amount of necessary force to Krennic's all-out destruction."

Zahn went on to say that he has plans on pitching more Thrawn-based novels to Lucasfilm/Del Rey:

"I would like to do more. That's going to be up to Del Rey and Lucasfilm. But the problem right now with Treason, we will have two separate Thrawn trilogies. This is going to be very confusing. We need to add a fourth and have a Thrawn tetralogy. I will definitely be pitching a fourth book, maybe a fifth, and maybe a sixth depending on how things go. As long as Del Rey is willing to buy them and you guys are willing buy them, I've got a lot of stories... It's always at the pleasure of Lucasfilm ultimately, and Del Rey, Penguin Random House, whether they want what they want from me if anything. I'll say it again. If I'm never asked another Star Wars book, I've had my say. I've a lot of fun and I'm content."

And given the success these novels have had so far, I imagine they'll allow him to do pretty much whatever he wants... So hopefully we'll find out what became of Thrawn after the events of Rebels in these forthcoming projects. It's a story that I only trust Zahn to tell, tbh.

"It's treason, then."

Excerpt from the novel:
https://www.starwars.com/news/thrawn-treason-exclusive-excerpt

Good scene. I like how Thrawn was 'reading' the expressions/emotions of Tarkin and Krennic during their meeting. It is also finally mentioned in canon that there were indeed more Grand Admirals in the Empire than just Thrawn... Though it was implied that Grand Admiral Savit inherited the rank primarily due to his family's elite status or w/e... As Tarkin goes on to note that Savit's tactical skills are inferior to Thrawn's.

This was a really good read -- probably my favorite of the trilogy, tbh. I'll probably comment on it more in days to come, but some initial thoughts...

-The Grysk are definitely being set up as *the* threat to the galaxy. According to Thrawn, they are so efficiently adept at manipulating those they conquer that he estimated it would only take ~100 of them to enslave an entire world and force their complete allegiance.

-There are still 12 Grand Admirals in canon.

-Assistant Director Ronan is portrayed almost identically to Krennic: you love to hate both of them.

-Very cool to see Eli Vanto back in the fray. He and Commodore Faro got a lot of limelight.

-It expanded on the Chiss Ascendancy quite a bit(we now know some of their navigators have 'second sight' AND 'third sight'😉, though Thrawn is still considered a unique tactical genius even among the Chiss.

-Thrawn's final battle with Grand Admiral Savit displayed possibly the best tactical manipulation/warfare I have ever seen in any SW material. Thrawn dominated him utterly and completely. It was glorious.

-We find out how Captain Pellaeon came to join Thrawn's cause in the Rebels finale.

-All things considered, Zahn managed to tie this into the Rebels timeline seamlessly.

Speculation: after reading this I'm pretty sure that Thrawn allowed himself to be 'ported off to the Unknown Regions with Ezra and the Purrgil in the Rebels finale. Either that or it was just a happy coincidence things played out that way... Because by the end of this novel(which is set immediately before the finale), the Chiss Admiral Ar'alani was certain that the Chiss Ascendancy was going to be wiped out by the Grysk very soon without Thrawn's help, and asked him to make a choice between the Empire and the Chiss... And I have no doubt the Chiss still command his ultimate loyalty, so being *poofed* away like that would have presented the perfect means for Thrawn to 'defect' from the Empire, without it being considered full-fledged desertion/treason.

That being said, I imagine the next time we see Thrawn we'll learn that he has been in the Unknown Regions battling Grysk forces the entire time. I'd also bet money that he convinced Ezra to join his cause... Because once Ezra learned of the Grysk threat, he'd undoubtedly want to help fight them as well.

The new SW doesn't deserve Zahn tbfh.

I'm still not sure on this whole Grysk thing, from the way it sounds, it just seems weird that 30 years later there wasn't any mention of them, that they didn't do anything notable to the galaxy if they were so prepared and ready to invade, which the proper time would have been after the collapse of the Empire.

....Unless the Chiss wipe them out in some maneuvering that cripples them indefinitely and thus they never get heard from again. I feel like that would be a bit anti-climactic though...unless they'll appear after the ST and the Chiss were holding them back. But you'd think someone would have found out.

....Still they sound a hell of a lot more interesting that the Resistance vs The First Order.

Zahn's Thrawn trilogy in new canon is far any away above everything else. Granted there is quite a bit of canon material I have enjoyed(mostly on the comic book side of things), but Zahn's work is just on a different level.

Zahn also stated that he's definitely not finished writing Thrawn, and wants to write at least one more Thrawn novel for sure -- possibly even a whole new trilogy(likely set in the period after he and Ezra were Purrgil'd away)... Those books would undoubtedly explore the all-out war between the Grysk and Chiss following this novel.

But yeah, as of the conclusion of this novel, the Grysk still pose a huge threat to the galaxy/Empire, so clearly something must happen that stalled them from attacking the galaxy in the years between ANH and the ST. /shrug

I’m sincerely glad we get some top-quality material in canon too

Yeah this was a fantastic read.👆

One thing that's interesting about the Grysks is that it's never really been alluded to how many are actually out there. So far all we've seen are very small Grysk task forces and they have still managed to infiltrate this far into the empire AND put up this good of a fight against the likes of Vader and Thrawn.

really interested to see where Zahn goes from here. 😄

There was a reference to the Grysks' potential numbers in the previous novel:

"Grysks are a species living somewhere in the Unknown Regions," Thrawn said. "Creatures half of myth, whom few have ever seen. It is said they are nomads, with no fixed home, travelling in spacecraft so numerous they blot out the stars. They are said to be terrifying warriors, overwhelming their opponents by sheer numbers and ferocity."

That could certainly be nothing more than a story Thrawn was repeating, but I'd imagine their numbers are extremely vast nonetheless... And as I mentioned above, the Grysks' ability to enslave worlds by using their own fears against them(to the point where the inhabitants of these worlds will literally die for the Grysk) is really quite something. For all we know, the Grysk could have already conquered hundreds/thousands of worlds in the Empire, and no one would be the wiser until the actual invasion of the galaxy was commenced.

Man, would it have been better if the new trilogy focused on fight against these Grysk, with Luke’s Jedi order and the new republic as the protagonists, rather than this Rey vs Kylo shit?

It would have been a LOT more interesting.

It also seemed like Krennic and Tarkin were on the same level in the empire's command structure.

anyone else get that impression?

The novel is set just before the Death Star was operational, and Krennic was the Director of the Death Star project at the time. So where matters involving its construction were concerned, he and Tarkin were on equal(ish) footing. Once construction was completed, however, Tarkin was able to usurp command of the Death Star from Krennic, no questions asked.

IOW, Tarkin still had far more overall power/authority.

Then Tarkin had a memory wipe and forgot in ANH that the DS was completed. 😛