Legends works in 2012 According to Zahn,
Lou Aronica of
Bantam Spectra had negotiated a book deal with Lucasfilm in 1989, and the publisher put Zahn's name at the top of their list of possible authors. He said, "My original instructions from
LucasArts consisted of exactly two rules: the books were to start 3–5 years after
Return of the Jedi, and I couldn't use anyone who'd been explicitly killed off in the movies." saying that they "saved me from having to reinvent the wheel many times". Introduced in the
Thrawn trilogy (1991–1993), In 2010,
Star Wars: The Clone Wars creator Filoni expressed interest in using Thrawn in that series. Some fans of Zahn's
Thrawn series had long hoped the books would be adapted, and after the 2012 announcement that
The Walt Disney Company had acquired Lucasfilm and planned to produce film sequels to
Return of the Jedi, Zahn commented that if material from the expanded universe were used in the films, "we'd all be thrilled to death". Though Lucasfilm made it clear that new media would "not tell the same story told in the post-
Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe", it was also established that "creators of new
Star Wars entertainment have full access to the rich content of the Expanded Universe."
Thrawn trilogy (1991–1993) The '''
Thrawn trilogy,
also known as the Heir to the Empire trilogy,'
was written by Timothy Zahn between 1991 and 1993. Approximately five years after the events depicted in Return of the Jedi'', the
Rebel Alliance, now known as the New Republic, has driven out the remnants of the old Imperial Starfleet to a distant corner of the galaxy and is attempting to set up a functional government.
Princess Leia and
Han Solo are married and expecting twins.
Luke Skywalker has become the first in a long-awaited new line of
Jedi Knights. Thousands of
light years away, Grand Admiral Thrawn, the last and most brilliant of the 12 grand admirals, has taken command of the shattered Imperial Fleet and prepared it to attack the New Republic. Thrawn is searching for a
Dark Jedi to join his side and is confident he can restore the Empire. In
Heir to the Empire (1991), Thrawn plots to destroy the New Republic despite their numerical advantage over the remaining Imperial forces. He sets his sights on the
Wayland storehouse of the late
Emperor Palpatine, which contains a massive array of Spaarti cloning cylinders and a practical cloaking shield. To this end, Thrawn and his subordinate
Gilad Pellaeon, captain of the
Star Destroyer Chimaera, enlist the help of smuggler Talon Karrde and his second-in-command
Mara Jade to obtain several salamander-like creatures called
ysalamiri. Thrawn uses the ysalamiri, which possess the natural ability to disrupt the Force, to subdue the storehouse's guardian
Joruus C'baoth, a twisted clone of a
Jedi Master whom the Grand Admiral had killed years before. C'baoth offers his allegiance in exchange for two acolytes to bend to his will: Darth Vader's twin children, Luke and Leia. Thrawn sends some of his
Noghri killers to capture Luke and a pregnant Leia, but their attempts repeatedly fail. Leia defends herself from one attack and is surprised when the Noghri suddenly surrenders. Thrawn launches his first offensive, a series of hit-and-run attacks into New Republic territory, and then steals a complement of mole miners from
Lando Calrissian's mining operations on
Nkllon. In need of warships, and with his previous tactics having forced over 100 lightly crewed ships to be stationed at the
Sluis Van shipyards as he planned, Thrawn invades. His
stormtroopers use the stolen miners to board and hijack the ships, but they are thwarted when Lando seizes control of the miners remotely. The Grand Admiral withdraws his forces, but thanks to Thrawn's plotting, his New Republic nemesis
Admiral Ackbar is soon arrested for treason.
Dark Force Rising (1992) reveals that before the
Clone Wars, the
Old Republic had constructed a fleet of highly automated
heavy cruisers, known as the
Katana fleet. A virus infected the crews of the entire fleet and drove them insane. The fleet was not seen again until smuggler Talon Karrde discovered it (several years before the events of the first book). With access to Palpatine's private storehouse on the planet Wayland, Thrawn presses his advantage to marshal more forces for the battle against the New Republic. Mara Jade, in an attempt to exonerate the Empire's warrant for Karrde's arrest, goes to Thrawn and offers to reveal the location of the
Katana fleet. Instead, he has her followed and Karrde is captured. Luke and Mara rescue Karrde from Thrawn's Star Destroyer as Thrawn attempts to capture another man who knows about the
Katana fleet. Meanwhile, Leia learns that the Noghri serve the Empire because they revere her late father,
Darth Vader, who they believe saved their planet
Honoghr from ecological disaster. Leia convinces them that they have been deceived and effectively enslaved by the Empire, and they switch sides. With Ackbar temporarily neutralized as a tactical opponent, Thrawn leads an army of clones to claim the so-called "
Katana fleet", outmaneuvering Luke, Lando, and
Han Solo. In
The Last Command (1993), set about a month after the previous book, Thrawn uses the
Katana fleet, crewed with clones, to mount a successful offensive against the New Republic. Seizing one planet after the other, the Grand Admiral soon immobilizes the galactic capital world,
Coruscant. He has placed multiple cloaked asteroids around the planet, and through a ruse, he has led the New Republic leadership to believe that Coruscant is surrounded with them. Learning of the deception, the Republic fleet attacks the Imperial shipyards at Bilbringi to capture a device that can find the cloaked
asteroids, but Thrawn's forces intercept and surround them. Meanwhile, Luke and Leia lead a group to destroy the cloning facility on Wayland, killing C'baoth and destroying the
cloning cylinders. Just as Thrawn and Pellaeon learn that the Noghri aided in the attack on Wayland, Thrawn's Noghri bodyguard,
Rukh, kills the Grand Admiral—whose last words are, "But ... it was so artistically done." The tide of battle at Bilbringi turns, and with the hope of victory dashed by Thrawn's death, Pellaeon orders the Imperial forces to retreat. A record surfaces called the Caamasi Document, which indicates that a small group of
Bothans were perpetrators in the tragic destruction of the planet Caamas and causes more than a hundred alien warships to gather in orbit over the Bothans' homeworld, which the Empire hopes to use to its benefit. In
Vision of the Future (1998), Admiral Gilad Pellaeon admits that the Empire, down to only a few sectors, is now fighting a losing battle, and initiates peace talks with Princess Leia. However,
Moff Disra hires a con artist,
Flim, to impersonate the deceased Grand Admiral Thrawn to motivate the Imperial forces. Major
Grodin Tierce, the clone of a former stormtrooper imbued with Thrawn's tactical intellect by the grand admiral himself, strategizes that the false Thrawn could also rally support for the Empire and intimidate the New Republic. The tactic is successful until Pellaeon and Talon Karrde—on opposing sides but both desiring peace—expose Flim. Meanwhile, at a fortress called the Hand of Thrawn, Luke and Mara discover a gestating and near-complete clone of Thrawn, which is killed during their escape. Before the theatrical release of
Attack of the Clones, Lucasfilm suggested that Zahn write a prequel-era book. Newly discovered by the Chiss, the remains turn out to be the lure in a trap laid by the bloodthirsty
Vagaari to avenge themselves on the Chiss. Zahn's 2006 novel
Outbound Flight is set fifty years before ''Survivor's Quest''. It follows the story of the doomed titular expedition, led by Jedi Master
Jorus C'baoth, that is attacked by a young Chiss commander named Mitth'raw'nuruodo—informally known as Thrawn. In the story, a Republic fleet comes across the Chiss for the first time. The alien commander, Thrawn, can handily defeat the Republic ships despite inferior weapons and numbers. Darth Sidious, Palpatine's alter-ego, seeks to destroy the
Outbound Flight, and he and his agent
Kinman Doriana convince Thrawn that the ship and its Jedi pose a threat to the peaceful future of the galaxy. Thrawn agrees, hoping to get C'baoth to turn back before taking more drastic action. The Jedi refuses and Thrawn fires on the ship, but Doriana launches an assault that kills every Jedi and sends the
Outbound Flight careening to its destruction on a nearby planet. Thrawn's brother Thrass and Lorana, the sole surviving Jedi, sacrifice their lives to save what survivors they can. Thrawn is reprimanded by his Chiss superiors for his hostile behavior, and summoned back to his home planet
Csilla. Zahn said of writing the novel, "as always, it was immensely fun to play tactics with Thrawn".
Short stories Thrawn, exiled by the Chiss to an inhospitable planet, is found by the Imperial Captain Voss Parck in "Mist Encounter" a short story by Zahn that was originally published in
Star Wars Adventure Journal #7 (August 1995). Parck realizes Thrawn's value as a strategist and decides to bring him to the Emperor. An edited version of the story was published in the paperback edition of
Outbound Flight. Thrawn orchestrates a plan to locate a Rebel base in "Side Trip" by Zahn and
Michael A. Stackpole, published in
Star Wars Adventure Journal #12 (February 1997) and #13 (May 1997), and reprinted in the November 1997 anthology
Tales from the Empire. The success of this mission earns him the command of Darth Vader's Noghri commandos.
Video games In the "Tour of Duty III" segment of the 1994
space flight simulator/combat computer game
Star Wars: TIE Fighter, then-Vice Admiral Thrawn establishes order in a "wild" system at the frontiers of the Empire. The game expansion packs
Defender of the Empire and
Enemies of the Empire follow the story of how Thrawn thwarts the efforts of the traitorous
Grand Admiral Zaarin to depose the Emperor, and Thrawn is promoted to Grand Admiral in his place. Thrawn is also a recruitable character for The Empire in the 1998
strategy computer game
Star Wars: Rebellion, and later appears in
Forces of Corruption expansion pack for the 2006
real-time strategy game
Star Wars: Empire at War. Thrawn cameos in
Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron as a "Leader" character for the Galactic Empire in Galactic Conquest, earned by conquering all planets in the Northern Quadrant of the map and allows an army to move twice in one turn if the first move is begun within said quadrant. This power is shared with Admiral Ackbar for the Rebel Alliance. He is also a collectible character in the 2015
mobile collectible Role-playing video game,
Galaxy of Heroes, and a DLC character in
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga.
Canon works Star Wars Rebels (2016–2018) In April 2014, with the sequel film
Star Wars: The Force Awakens in production, most of the licensed
Star Wars novels and comics produced since the 1977 film
Star Wars were declared non-canon to the franchise. The character debuted in the season 3 premiere, "
Steps Into Shadow", which aired on September 24, 2016. Though in
Legends works Thrawn was mostly used in post-
Return of the Jedi storylines,
Rebels takes place within the five years before the events of the original 1977 film. Acknowledging that Thrawn had long been considered by Lucasfilm when developing projects, Filoni said that in particular, the character had been on his list of potential villains when developing
Rebels. He reappears in "
Iron Squadron", where he orders the incompetent Admiral Konstantine to deal with rebels and rebel sympathizers in the Mykapo system; after Konstantine's ship is disabled, Thrawn arrives in his personal Star Destroyer, the
Chimaera, and is revealed to have previously encountered rebel Commander Jun Sato. "
An Inside Man" reveals Thrawn now in charge of the Imperial occupation of the planet
Lothal, overseeing the factory where the new TIE Defender and various other pieces of equipment are manufactured. He puts an end to rebel acts of sabotage by enforcing a policy of the workers testing their creations and is also shown to be studying pieces of artwork that grant insight into each member of the
Ghost crew. He also determines that there is a rebel spy within the Imperial ranks, but intends to use this to his advantage. In "
Warhead", Thrawn uses probe droids to determine that Sato's hidden rebel base is located on one of less than a hundred planets. Thrawn is shown to be skilled in hand-to-hand combat in "
Through Imperial Eyes", and learns that
Agent Kallus is the rebel spy. In "
Secret Cargo", Thrawn and Pryce pursue Senator
Mon Mothma, who is being transported to safety by the rebels after speaking out publicly against Palpatine. In "
Zero Hour", Thrawn confronts Kallus about being Fulcrum, and executes his carefully planned attack on the rebel base on
Atollon. He is thwarted by the ingenuity of the rebels and the assistance of
Bendu, who cryptically warns Thrawn of his impending defeat, "like many arms surrounding you in a cold embrace". In the series finale "
Family Reunion – and Farewell", Thrawn's Star Destroyer is attacked by
purrgil while hovering over Lothal. Ensnared in the creatures' tentacles while simultaneously being confronted by the Force-wielding
Ezra Bridger, who brought the purrgil to defend Lothal, the Star Destroyer is dragged by them into
hyperspace, leaving both Thrawn's and Bridger's fates unknown.
Thrawn trilogy (2017–2019) In a prerecorded video also presented at the July 2016 London
Star Wars Celebration, Zahn announced that he was writing a new novel titled
Star Wars: Thrawn, which was released by
Del Rey Books in April 2017. A six issue comic book miniseries adaptation of the first novel by
Marvel Comics began in early 2018, and ended in June of that year. A sequel to the novel, titled
Thrawn: Alliances, was released on July 24, 2018. This novel is set during the reign of the Empire. The main story line follows Grand Admiral Thrawn a "brilliant strategist" and the "ruthless enforcer"
Darth Vader on a mission to investigate a threat to the Empire on a planet called Batuu, which resides at the edges of the Unknown Regions. This is the same planet that many years previously Thrawn, then an officer of the Chiss Ascendancy, crossed paths with General
Anakin Skywalker, flashbacks to this encounter tells of their "uneasy alliance" while facing several dangers. A third novel,
Thrawn: Treason, was released on July 23, 2019. Set before the finale of
Rebels,
Thrawn: Treason features Grand Admiral Thrawn crossing paths with
Director Krennic as well as the return of Eli Vanto. Chronologically,
Thrawn: Treason is set between the
Rebels episodes "Rebel Assault" and "Family Reunion – and Farewell."
Thrawn: Ascendancy trilogy (2020–2021) At the 2019 New York Comic Con, a new trilogy from Timothy Zahn was announced, to be entitled
Thrawn: The Ascendency Trilogy, or simply the
Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy, to launch with
Book I: Chaos Rising in May 2020. After being delayed twice, the first novel was ultimately released on September 1, 2020. In the novel, it was revealed that Thrawn was born as '''Kivu'raw'nuru
(core name Vurawn
) before being adopted by the Mitth family, changing his name to Mitth'raw'nuru''' (core name Thrawn). The novel also covered more of Thrawn's backstory alongside other Chiss characters, such as Ar'alani, that also appeared in
Thrawn: Treason, the previous novel by publication order. A sequel to
Chaos Rising, titled
Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good, was released on April 27, 2021. The third book of the trilogy called
Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil, was released on November 16, 2021.
Ahsoka (2023) as Grand Admiral Thrawn in
Ahsoka, the character's first live-action appearance Grand Admiral Thrawn is mentioned by
Ahsoka Tano in the
Disney+ series
The Mandalorian in "
Chapter 13: The Jedi" (2020) as the master to
Morgan Elsbeth, the Magistrate of Corvus. He is mentioned again in "
Chapter 23: The Spies" (2023) during a meeting between
Moff Gideon and the Shadow Council, a group of remnant Imperial warlords, who debate his rumored return and the delivery of Project Necromancer. Thrawn made his live-action debut in the 2023 Disney+ series
Ahsoka in "
Part Six: Far, Far Away".
Tales of the Empire (2024) Thrawn appears in the second season of
Star Wars: Tales, titled
Tales of the Empire, with Lars Mikkelsen returning to voice the character. The series focuses on the start of his partnership with
Morgan Elsbeth, when Thrawn was an Admiral in the Empire.
Other works Thrawn is mentioned in the 2017
Chuck Wendig novel ''
Star Wars: Aftermath: Empire's End'' as the source of the information about the Unknown Regions which Palpatine uses in his Contingency plan. This plan results in the creation of the
First Order.
Video games Thrawn appears as a playable character in the 2017
real-time strategy mobile game Star Wars: Force Arena, and was later introduced to
Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, a
turn-based role-playing game, that summer, as both a special event
boss and playable character. He is a bonus playable character in
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, available in the
Star Wars Rebels character pack sold as
downloadable content. ==Reception==