Grand Admiral Thrawn’s Star Wars History Before the Empire Explained

Grand Admiral Thrawn is a great villain in both Star Wars franchise continuities and although he is best known for his leadership within the Galactic Empire, he also has a fascinating history that precedes his Imperial service. Thrawn debuted in the original Star Wars Continuity of the legends, serving as one of the main antagonists of Timothy Zahn’s story played trilogy of novels. Thrawn quickly established himself as a favorite villain among Star Wars readers, then he would, unsurprisingly, play major roles in other Legends-era properties, such as Timothy Zahn’s 2006 novel, Outbound flight.

After soft reset of Star Wars franchise in April 2014, Grand Admiral Thrawn was exclusive to the Legends continuity for a time, until Star Wars Rebels introduced a new iteration of the iconic villain to oppose the fledgling Rebel Alliance. While the new version of Thrawn retained many of the original iteration’s key characteristics, his Imperial-era history differed significantly from his original incarnation, with Thrawn being marooned on an extragalactic world during the period of the original trilogy. Thrawn’s new backstory, while largely covered by Timothy Zahn, would also be slightly different from Legends continuity.

Thrawn was part of the Chiss ancestry

Thrawn, known by his Chiss name of Mitth’raw’nuruodo, was a commoner from the Unknown Regions world of Csilla who joined the Chiss Expansion Fleeta part of the Chiss Ascendancy’s defensive fleet. Thrawn’s servitude made him an adopted member of the Chiss Eighth Ruling Family, and he quickly demonstrated profound excellence in military leadership, becoming the youngest Chiss to hold the rank of Force Commander. In addition to learning the Galactic Basic Standard from A human smuggler, Thrawn has also been involved in controversial preemptive attacks on the Vagaari, with Chiss culture believing that military action should be exclusively defensive.

There are notable differences between the two iterations of Thrawn, including their respective relationships with Mitth’ras’safis – also known as Thrass. Originally, Thrass was Thrawn’s brother, and although Thrawn would become a notable military leader in the Chiss Ascendancy, Thrass would choose the path of a politician. In the continuity of the Legends, Thrass would criticize his brother’s taboo practice of preemptive strikes, even though the enemy in question, the Vagaari, were pirates and slavers.. In modern canon, Thrass is not literally related to Thrawn, but the two became as close as brothers during their service in the Chiss Ascendancy.

Thrawn’s career in the Chiss Ascendancy is explored in much greater detail in the modern canon than in the Legends continuity, with Timothy Zahn being the author of six Thrawn-centered novels, including the Thrawn Ancestry trilogy. Fascinatingly, modern canon has Thrawn interact with Anakin Skywalker during his time as a Jedi, something Thrawn’s original incarnation never did. During the Clone Wars, Thrawn, a senior Ascendancy captain at the time, briefly allied himself with Skywalker and the Galactic Republic.preventing the Separatists from producing Cortosis-coated B2 Super Battle Droids and acquiring deflector shield technology for the Ascendancy.

Thrawn’s work for the Chiss caught the attention of the Empire

Thrawn inadvertently interfered with one of Palpatine’s schemes in the years before the separatist crisis in the continuity of the legends. Despite being significantly outnumbered and outmatched, Thrawn defeated a task force of Trade Federation ships, led by Kinman Doriana, who was a close associate of Palpatine. Doriana brought Thrawn and Palpatine to each other’s attention, and the two became brief allies, with their shared understanding of the threat from the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong leading Thrawn to command a combined force of Chiss Ascendancy and Trade Federation ships to destroy the Departure Flight, preventing the Vong from being taken back to the Republic.

Thrawn’s actions against the Vagaari and Outbound Flight proved too aggressive for the rest of the Chiss Ascendancy, however, and after more preemptive military actions, Thrawn was exiled. These actions were deliberate, with Thrawn desiring to join Palpatine, who in turn saw Thrawn as an invaluable asset to his criticized Empire. Shortly after Palpatine’s authoritarian coup, Imperial forces would find Thrawn on the world of the Unknown Regions to which he had been exiled. After a brief conflict with the Imperials, Thrawn surrendered and offered his strategic expertise to the Empire. With the approval of Emperor Palpatine himself, Thrawn joined the Imperial Navy.

Modern canon tells a similar story of how Thrawn joined the Empire, only there is one key difference: Thrawn’s Exile Was Fabricatedwith Thrawn and the Chiss Ascendancy using this as a ploy to get the Imperial Military to accept Thrawn into their ranks. The plot was intended to make the Galactic Empire a key ally of the Chiss Ascendancy in their conflicts with the Grysk Hegemony or allow Thrawn to sabotage them from within, lessening their threat to the Ascendancy. Emperor Palpatine, upon learning of Thrawn’s true goals, sought to absorb the Ascendancy into the Empire, however.

Thrawn’s experience made him the only high-ranking non-human Imperial

The Galactic Empire iteration of the Legends continuity was notably prejudiced against non-humans, with the “High Human Culture” proving to be one of the biggest obstacles to Thrawn’s career. Despite that, Thrawn’s strategic genius allowed him to quickly rise through the rankseventually becoming one of the renowned Grand Admirals of the Imperial Navy. Thrawn’s promotion had few witnesses and his position was kept secret, as Emperor Palpatine publicly only allowed there to be twelve Grand Admirals – with all positions filled prior to Thrawn’s promotion. However, Grand Admiral Thrawn did not participate in the Battle of Endor.

High human culture remains in the modern Star Wars canon, and like his original incarnation, the current iteration of Thrawn has also risen through the ranks of the Imperial Navy, thanks to his brilliance and despite the Empire’s speciesism. Thrawn’s leadership during the Batonn sector insurgency led Emperor Palpatine to promote Thrawn to Grand Admiralalthough his promotion was not secret. In the modern Star Wars canon, there were only twelve Grand Admirals in the Empire, and Thrawn was among them, rather than being the unofficial thirteenth holder of the rank.