Into the Unknown
An analysis
of the various factors, both natural
and political, that may have contributed to the slow expansion of the Old Republic throughout
the Star Wars Galaxy, specifically as
regards the area of space called the Unknown Regions. |
By
Matthew
Trias
I. The Halo
Hypothesis
For at least fifteen years,
Expanded Universe authors have
titillated us with mentions of a region of space in the Galaxy Far, Far
Away
that is shrouded in Impenetrable veils of mystery. This place has
alternately
been presented to us as a source of great danger and a place in which
deliverance may be found. This region of space is simply called the
Unknown
Regions. The first significant mention of the Unknown Regions was in Heir
to
the Empire (7; ch.1) by Timothy Zahn. In this novel, the
Unknown
Regions was a large swathe of space that the Imperial Grand Admiral
Thrawn was
exiled to after apparently taking the wrong side in Imperial
Court politics. It was presented as an as
yet
unexplored expanse of space, a virginal territory that had never been
touched
by the far-reaching authority of the Old
Republic. The Unknown
Regions had
even escaped the iron grip of the Empire during its twenty-four year
existence.
As punishment for backing the wrong side, Thrawn had ostensibly been
sent on a
mapping expedition of the Unknown Regions, a less than prestigious
assignment
for one of his skills. It is later revealed that the real purpose
behind his
stint in the Unknown Regions was to extend the jurisdiction of the
Empire to
that far flung territory (“Vision of the Future” 415).
This unfortunately, is the sum
of all that we know about the
Unknown Regions. Later sources added a few additional morsels of
information
but nothing significant. A few races native to the territory were
mentioned and
it was implied that a few of them were powerful enough to threaten the
entire
civilized galaxy. Nothing else was revealed. We were told nothing about
the
politics of the Unknown Regions, such as the formational histories of
the
various governments and their relationships with one another. We are
also not
told how the Unknown Regions avoided contact with the Galactic
Republic for twenty-five
thousand
years and later the Galactic Empire. It is the last question that this
essay
will attempt to find an adequate answer to. Just how did the Unknown
Regions
remain unexplored by the Galactic
Republic
for twenty-five thousand years? Before we can even attempt an answer,
we must
first examine the very facts that force us to ask the question. We must
first examine
the means by which denizens of the Galaxy Far, Far Away travel vast
interstellar distances: hyperspace.
Let us consider
what
the six movies of the Star Wars epic have taught us about hyperspace
travel. In the Star Wars movie A
New Hope,
ships are depicted traveling from Yavin, an Outer Rim world on the
fringe of
the galactic disk, to Alderaan, a Core World near the galactic bulge,
in less
than a day. In The Phantom Menace, Darth Maul appears to travel
to
Tatooine from Coruscant, the central world of the Republic deep in the
Core, in
what appears to be at the most, a day.
Let us consider the facts in order to demonstrate how incredibly
fast
this is method of travel is. The Star Wars Galaxy is one hundred
thousand light
years in diameter according to the Essential Guide to Planets and
Moons.
This means that the Galaxy is roughly 600,000,000,000,000,000 miles in
diameter. Traveling at the speed of light (about 186,322 m/s), it would
take a
ship a little less than 100,000 years to travel this distance, yet from
the
evidence we see in the films, the Millennium Falcon should be
able to do
it in a few days.
Let us place Tatooine and Yavin
fifty thousand light years
away from the bulge of the galaxy and Coruscant, approximately
300,000,000,000,000,000 miles (a reasonable presumption considering the
placement of Tatooine and Yavin in illustrations depicting the relative
positions of planets within the Galaxy Far, Far Away such as the one
which was
included with bagged editions of Star Wars Gamer #5). This puts the two
planets
in the Outer Rim of the Galaxy with Coruscant somewhere in the middle.
This is
not necessarily accurate but we shall use this model for the sake of
simplicity. If the Falcon traveled this distance in one day,
that means
its speed would be around 3,472, 222,222,222m/s, well over the speed of
light.
In two days it could cross the entire diameter of the Galaxy.
Of course 50,000 light years
may be too generous for the Falcon.
Perhaps she crossed less than fifty thousand light years in a day.
Perhaps it
was twenty- five thousand light years, around 150,000,000,000,000,000
miles.
This would mean that the Falcon traveled approximately
1,736,111,111,111
m/s, still well over the speed of light. In four days it could have
crossed the
entire diameter of the Galaxy. Darth Maul's Sith infiltrator would have
traveled similar speeds in order to reach Tatooine as quickly as it did.
The amazing thing is that those
speeds may yet be too slow.
In A New Hope, Darth Vader says, "This will be a day long
remembered.
It has seen the end of Kenobi; it will soon see the end of the
Rebellion."
This implies that his killing of Obi-Wan Kenobi and the attack on Yavin
Four
all occurred within the same day. The very same day that the Falcon
escaped the Death Star in the Alderaan system which was in the core of
the
Galaxy, and went to Yavin Four in the Outer Rim. To
put it succinctly, The Falcon possibly
traveled from the Alderaan system in the Core near the bulge of the
galaxy, to Yavin
Four, a moon in the Yavin system in the Outer Rim of the Galaxy, in
less than a
day. Not only did the Falcon travel there in less than a day,
but the
Death Star did as well.
Finally, the Revenge of the
Sith novelization appears
to indicate that it takes a day or less to get to the Outer Rim planet
of
Mustafar from the Core World planet of Coruscant; as it depicts Padme'
Amidala
arriving on the planet mere hours after Anakin murders the members of the Confederacy Leadership Council (Stover
354, 387). Despite the fact that she
departed Coruscant at least half a day after him, Anakin had only
barely
reported to his Sith Master Darth Sidious and had not yet left the
planet when
she arrived.
With the facts presented as they are above, it becomes
increasingly clear why the idea of a significant portion of the Galaxy
remaining unexplored and “unknown” can seem to most to be almost
untenable.
Yet, the Unknown Regions definitely exist as the numerous references
throughout
the Expanded Universe can attest to. Because the idea of the Unknown
Regions
seemingly contradicts what has been observed of hyperspace in the
movies, fans
of the Star Wars saga have created explanations in an attempt to
reconcile the
facts. One of the most popular explanations is that the halo of the
Galaxy Far,
Far Away constitutes the entirety of the Unknown Regions. According to
cosmologists, the halo belonging to our own Milky Way Galaxy consists
of
globular clusters containing ancient low mass, metal poor1 and thus
resource poor, stars. (Comins and
Kaufmann 316, 382) In this region,
younger, high mass stars had long ago fused their supply of helium into
heavier
elements such as carbon and iron. Depending on the mass of the star, it
would
either shed its outer layers and create what is known as a planetary
nebula, a
region of gas and dust propelled by radiation pressure from the burnt
out core
of the star, or if it was large enough, its iron core would collapse
and upon
reaching nuclear density would rebound into the collapsing outer
regions of the
star, creating a tremendous explosion known as a supernova. Both
planetary
nebulae and supernova are responsible for the spread of the material
that went
into making the multitude of stars in the galactic disk, the region of
the
Milky Way Galaxy where most stars, especially young stars, are located
today,
including the star our planet orbits. In the halo, only ancient
low-mass stars
remain, still fusing their hydrogen and helium. Not only could this
region of
the galaxy be described as resource poor because of its lack of heavy
elements,
but it also has a low density; meaning its star population is quite
small even
though it covers a volume and diameter greater than that of the
galactic disk.
Proponents of the idea that the galactic halo is the entirety of the
Unknown
Regions (henceforth known as the Halo Hypothesis for ease of
identification)
will point out that if the Galaxy Far, Far, Away is anything like our
Milky Way
Galaxy, then its halo ought to also have a low population of stars and
be
resource poor. Thus, the conclusion of the Halo Hypothesis is that the
Unknown
Regions remained unexplored because, to put it simply, they were
worthless.
There was no reason for governments or corporations to expand
civilization into
such barren and worthless space.
It must first be asked of
any hypothesis, if there is
evidence enough to even warrant its existence.
There are a few references in Star Wars canon that are probably
responsible for spawning the Halo Hypothesis. First and foremost is the
speed
of hyperspace travel, which necessitated an explanation that made
logical
sense. Another bit of evidence that supporters of the Halo Hypothesis
use is
the line uttered by Jedi Master Jocasta Nu, head Jedi Library Keeper in
Attack
of the Clones. According to Jocasta Nu, the archives are so
thorough, if
something is not documented in them, it “doesn’t exist.” A cursory
analysis of
that line would suggest that everything in the Galaxy Far, Far
Way is documented and so nothing remains
“unknown,” including the Unknown Regions. Using this as support for the
Halo
Hypothesis is suspect, however. First, according to the Essential
Guide to
Planets and Moons, roughly 20 billion planets in the Galaxy Far,
Far Away
have native life of some sort. The idea that everything has been
documented
stretches the limits of credulity. Does that mean that even the rarest
bacterial life form existing in a volcanic habitat deep underground on
some
obscure planet has been documented? It is possible, but still that
would be
quite an incredible feat even for a society that has access to
technology that
the societies in Star Wars do.
Another fact that is overlooked
when performing an analysis
of Madame Nu’s line, is that Obi-Wan, when discussing the lost planet
of Kamino
with her, specified a quadrant of known and explored space,
specifically
a point just “south of the Rishi maze.” How do we know this? Because Attack
of the Clones and novels such as Labyrinth of Evil (Luceno
62, 136)
have told us that Kamino did indeed have an entry within the Jedi
archives
until the Count Dooku of Serenno deleted it. Had it not been deleted,
however,
Madame Nu no doubt would have recognized the quadrant Obi-Wan was
pointing to
as being a part of space explored long ago and thus a part of the known
galaxy.
When taken in context of that knowledge, then her line can justifiably
be
translated to mean, “If it’s not documented as being a part of the
known
galaxy, then it doesn’t exist there.” There would be nothing she could
do for
Obi-Wan. She couldn’t very well go to some advanced telescope, pick out
any
solar system in the Unknown Regions, and dub that one as being Kamino.
That
would hardly help poor Obi-Wan.
The aforementioned interpretation is further supported
by the Jedi Temple Analysis Room cutscene included on the Attack of
the
Clones DVD. In the cutscene, Obi-Wan is told by a Temple analysis
droid
(which presumably had access to the entirety of the Jedi archives) that
the
Kaminoan sabre dart existed in no known culture, and was
probably self
made by a warrior not associated with any known society. The
droid makes
sure to specify that he is only ruling out an origin amongst known
cultures and
societies rather than saying that no society in the Galaxy could have
created
it. This implies that not everything in the Galaxy is documented in the
archives
of the Jedi Temple, only
everything in the known galaxy. The
novelization of Attack of the Clones provides further
information on the
subject. The Jedi Temple analysis
droid tells Obi-Wan that the records
available to the Analysis center cover “eighty percent of the
galaxy”(Salvatore
130). These records presumably include even those accessible only by
Jedi
Masters in order to avoid having to send investigating Knights to the
Jedi
Masters in order to get a complete and thorough analysis; if the answer
is in
restricted archives, the droid would merely instruct an investigating
Knight to
get clearance for the information. The thoroughness of the analysis
room
records when it comes to the documentation of explored space is
attested to by
the fact that the droid tells Obi Wan,
“If I can’t tell you where it came from, nobody can.” That puts to rest any idea that the archives
contain information on everything in the galaxy, though to be fair,
perhaps the
twenty percent of the galaxy that is not documented in the archives is
in the
halo. That thought brings us to the third critique of using Madame Nu’s
line as
support for the Halo Hypothesis.
When discussing the Halo Hypothesis, it is
important to keep in mind that its supporters do not accept the idea
that there
is no Unknown Regions, rather they prefer to place the Unknown Regions
in the
sparse galactic halo. There are Unknown Regions, they are just
in
worthless space, which is why they have remained unexplored for so
long—going
against the traditional opinion that the Unknown Regions are in the
highly
populated galactic disk. It is then perplexing when a few of the Halo
Hypothesis’ advocates point to Madame Nu’s dialogue as support for
their
hypothesis. After all, Madame Nu did not specifically state that, “If
an item
does not appear in our records on the galactic disk, it does
not exist.”
Instead she said, “ If an item does not appear in our records, it does
not
exist,” which, if interpreted narrowly and out of context (see my
commentary
above), would mean that there are no Unknown Regions period, since even
the
galactic halo is considered a part of the Galaxy, and Nu’s words would
indicate
that the entire Galaxy is explored and thus “known.” Their
interpretation of
Madame Nu’s words would not be support for the Halo Hypothesis, but
rather it
would be support for the idea that there are no Unknown Regions at all.
Since
the Unknown Regions are unlikely to disappear from the Expanded
Universe
anytime soon, as evidenced by Timothy Zahn’s recent book Outbound
Flight
which depicts a Jedi-led expedition into the Unknown Regions, this is
an
unacceptable conclusion.
The second bit of information that is usually
utilized to support the Halo Hypothesis is contained in this passage
from the
novel Force Heretic II: Refugee: “Hundreds of thousands of
stars. It
was easy to say the words, but much more difficult to comprehend what
they
actually meant. On a map, the Unknown Regions comprised only fifteen
percent of
the total volume of the galaxy, but when that fifteen percent became
the search
for something so small as a planet—which on a cosmic scale, was much,
much
smaller than a needle in a haystack—the true immensity of the task
became all
too apparent”(Dix and Williams 246). In particular, the line “hundreds
of
thousands of stars” is used to support the idea that the Unknown
Regions are
the halo. If they were in the disk for instance, the Unknown Regions
would have
many, many more stars than hundreds of thousands. They would have
millions of
stars. According to supporters of the Halo Hypothesis, the fact that
the
Unknown Regions have only hundreds of thousands of stars proves that
they are
in the sparsely populated galactic halo.
There is little about this line of reasoning
that can be criticized, but a certain presumption that is being made in
order
to reach that desired conclusion must be pointed out, namely that we
are
relying on the astronomical knowledge of an in-universe character who
may or
may not be proficient in the field of galactic topography. Considering
the
background of the character, it is probably safe to say that he would
be
reasonably well versed in galactic topography, however that does not
preclude
the human tendency to occasionally under exaggerate something so that
it is
more palatable to the human mind. After all, hundreds of thousands can
eventually become millions, but hundreds of thousands certainly sounds
easier
to manage than millions. Even so, it must be stated that there is
absolutely no
proof that the character tried in any way to make his task of looking
for a
planet in the Unknown Regions easier by saying hundreds of thousands
rather
than millions.
So far supporters of the Halo Hypothesis have
one poor argument and one good argument in support of their idea, based
on
information pulled from two separate sources. However, if one peruses
the
majority of the material on the Unknown Regions, one would detect a
very strong
implication that the Unknown Regions lie not in the sparse halo, but
are
instead in the dense galactic disk.
The first bit of evidence for this conclusion
comes from the novels Heir to the Empire and Vision of the
Future.
In Heir to the Empire, the first of in the three book series
the Thrawn
Trilogy, the last genuine Imperial Grand Admiral, Thrawn,
returns from a
mapping mission in the Unknown Regions (7; Ch.1). Later, in Vision
of the
Future, it is revealed that the mapping mission was a farce, a lie
used to
cover up his true reason for being in the Unknown Regions: expanding
the
borders of the Empire by conquering and subjugating the territories in
the
Unknown Regions (415). This is fairly incredible, considering that
Thrawn, who
was one of the few non-pure-Humans to have the rank Grand Admiral
conferred
upon him by the Emperor Palpatine in a xenophobic, human-centric
Empire, was arguably
one of the best, if not the best, Naval commander in the Imperial Armed
Forces.
Though ostensibly exiled into the Unknown Regions after a political
fallout
with the Emperor’s servant Grand Admiral Tigellinus, Thrawn was
secretly
promoted to the rank of Grand Admiral by Emperor Palpatine sometime
afterwards
but before the Battle of Derra IV (Wallace 186), a fact known only by
those
that served under Thrawn’s command in the Unknown Regions.2 Thrawn, was
apparently highly thought of, and highly sought
after by top officials of the Empire. The Inquisitor Jerec used Thrawn
to plan
military operations, and the Emperor trusted Thrawn enough to keep an
eye on
the ambitious Force user (Wallace 186). Ten months after the Battle of
Yavin,
Captain Thrawn was officially promoted to Vice Admiral (186), bypassing
the
rank of line captain (Gordon 103) and commodore. Some believe this was
when he
was unofficially promoted to the rank of Grand Admiral, making Thrawn
Palpatine’s unofficial thirteenth Grand Admiral (Wallace 186). Soon
afterwards,
the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, used Thrawn to take out the
heavily
defended Black Sun Vigo Zekka Thyne and also used Thrawn to plan an
attack on a
Rebel convoy passing through the Derra system near the planet of Derra
IV (186).
The infamous battle, which became known as the Battle of Derra IV,
severely
crippled the Rebel Alliance. Soon after the Battle of Hoth, “Vice
Admiral”
Thrawn was forced to leave his duties in the Unknown Regions in order
to deal
with the defector Admiral Harkov, and the traitor Grand Admiral Zaarin.
Thrawn
was specifically tasked with the elimination of Zaarin who threatened
to
splinter the Empire and plunge it into a disastrous civil war (186).
During
this campaign, Thrawn officially climbed the rungs of power very
quickly,
rapidly receiving his official promotions to Admiral and finally Grand
Admiral,
officially replacing Grand Admiral Zaarin in Palpatine’s circle of
twelve Grand
Admirals (186).
Thrawn was undoubtedly an
exceptional Naval commander. He
was responsible for delivering a near mortal blow to the Rebellion (as
the New Republic)
and delivering the death
strokes to Grand Admiral Zaarin’s insurrection. One would have to
wonder why
the Emperor Palpatine would decide to have one of his most gifted Naval
commanders squander his time and talents on a mission to conquer the
Unknown
Regions if the Regions are indeed a resource barren, strategically
worthless,
piece of territory as the Halo Hypothesis assumes. Not only would
Thrawn have
wasted his gifts, but he would of done so for the majority of the
Galactic
Civil War, coming out only twice from the Unknown Regions to provide
any type
of valuable service to his Emperor.
Could the Emperor have
feared Thrawn? Highly unlikely. Grand
Admiral Thrawn, as exceptional a Naval commander as he was, did not
have the
political clout to threaten the Emperor’s rule. Thrawn did not have the
support
to attempt the type of coup d'état that Grand Admiral Zaarin attempted.
Thrawn
was an obvious non-pure-Human in a pure-Human only world. He was also
an
outsider, the former citizen of a government not under the heel of the
Empire.
He could not hope to muster the support needed to challenge the
Emperor. Also
as mentioned before, Palpatine trusted Thrawn enough to watch Jerec and
not
worry that he would attempt to join Jerec and overthrow him.
Could Thrawn really have been sent away from the
Empire because of a bad political decision that necessitated his exile
in order
to please Grand Admiral Tigellinus? Unlikely. Perhaps at first, but
Palpatine
made the exile pointless when he officially promoted Thrawn to Grand
Admiral
and basically made him savior of the Empire, something that probably
did not
escape the attention of Tigellinus for very long. Obviously at that
time, Palpatine
no longer cared what Tigellinus and his allies thought. Yet, after it
was all
said and done, Palpatine had Thrawn return to the Unknown Regions (186).3
Obviously, there is something
of value within the Unknown
Regions. Something that required one of Palpatine’s best Naval
commanders to
give his full attention to rather than participate in a war much closer
to
home. One could almost conclude that whatever was in the Unknown
Regions was
more important to the Emperor than a homegrown rebellion. Though we
cannot be
sure what was in the Unknown Regions that required the presence of
Thrawn, the
ideas presented in The Hand of Thrawn duology are a start.
Perhaps, just
perhaps, the Unknown Regions are in the galactic disk and just perhaps
Thrawn
was sent there to conquer vast new territories, expanding the Empire
and giving
it a multitude of new resources. It is even possible that the Empire
would gain
new technologies such as the Ssi-Ruuvi soul entechment technology. The
Hand
of Thrawn duology also suggests that Thrawn was conquering hostile
civilizations or at least pacifying them. Thrawn would not be able to
convince
the Emperor of the urgency of this, unless the Unknown Regions really
were vast
and were capable of supporting civilizations that could threaten the
Empire.
This would certainly not be true if they were only just in the galactic
halo.
Another bit of evidence for the
Unknown Regions being in the
galactic disk, rather than in the galactic halo, comes solely from The
Hand
of Thrawn duology. In the second
book of the duology, Vision of the Future, Luke Skywalker and
Mara Jade
are concerned that Thrawn may have colonized a possible two hundred
fifty
sectors within the Unknown Regions (“Vision of the Future” 416) for the
Empire
since the resources these sectors contain could serve the Empire and
cause them
to renew hostilities with the New Republic.
It has become increasingly clear that Thrawn did not conquer
that much
territory, but the fact that the mere possibility that he had
frightened Jade
and Skywalker is very telling in and of itself. It has been suggested
that
Skywalker and Jade panicked and were not thinking. It has also been
suggested
that they both lack sufficient knowledge of the Unknown Regions. Both
ideas are
at best unsatisfactory explanations. Mara and Luke have both occupied
jobs that
depended on maintaining a level head amidst stressful circumstances.
The idea
that years of training and experience suddenly evaporated at the moment
they
looked at the map of the Unknown Regions is somewhat hard to swallow.
The idea
that they had insufficient knowledge of the Unknown Regions is
problematic for
similar reasons. First, Mara Jade appears to be an intelligent woman
and has at
least a Star Wars equivalent of a high school diploma. Surely, through
her
multitude of experiences, she must have some familiarity with the
topography of
the Unknown Regions. As Emperor’s Hand, she appeared very knowledgeable
about
Grand Admiral Thrawn’s career, and it is unlikely she knew nothing
about the
Unknown Regions to which Thrawn was sent. Even if she did not, it is
even more
unlikely that her companion, former General, Luke Skywalker knew
nothing of the
Unknown Regions. Skywalker had been participating in military campaigns
since
he was nineteen. His successes in those campaigns were the reason the New
Republic promoted him to
General (
“The New Essential Chronology” 136). He even served a brief stint as
Supreme
Commander of the entire Imperial Armed Forces (Veitch 50). It is
unlikely that
in all his time in these positions, Skywalker never learned anything
about the
Unknown Regions. Part of being a successful military commander and
orchestrating successful military campaigns is knowing the topography
of the
environment in which you fight. Though not expected to have in-depth
knowledge
of the Unknown Regions, one would expect General Skywalker to have some
knowledge of it, and one would expect his knowledge to tell him whether
or not
the Unknown Regions are in the galactic disk or the galactic halo. One
would at
least expect him to brief himself on the Unknown Regions before
going
into them to get to the planet Niraruan. A more likely explanation is
that both
of them knew that the Unknown Regions cover fifteen percent of the
galactic
disk, and both knew that fifteen percent of the disk can contain much
in the
way of resources.
There is one more piece of
information that Halo Hypothesis
supportes use as evidence to support their ideas. The map from Star
Wars:
The Magic of Myth informational CD apparently shows the
Unknown
Regions as being above the galactic disk. However, most maps and
resources as
we have seen imply that the Unknown Regions are in the galactic disk.
This is
further evidenced by the comments Star Wars author Daniel Wallace made
to me in
a conversation I had with him: it was his writings that were consulted
when
making the map used so often in the New Jedi Order series of books.
According
to Wallace:
[T]he ‘galactic
halo’ argument always surprises me with its tenacity. But no, the
Unknown Regions are not the
galactic halo. The Unknown Regions are
within the disc itself, as outlined on the map, and the map was not
drawn so
that an "Unknown Regions Halo" is actually up on a 3D axis and is
obscuring a portion of the "real" disc. I should know.
Knowing this, we
must contend with the fact that the map contained within the Magic
of Myth CD
is an oddity and an erroneous one at that. As we have seen, most
maps and
resources imply, or flat out state that the Unknown Regions are in the
galactic
disk. The
question then becomes, “How do we reconcile this fact with the fact of
hyperspace, which is that you can cross galactic distances within days
if not
hours?” The beginning of the answer to that question lies in the very
definition of hyperspace itself.
Bibliography
Comins, Neil F. and Kaufmann William J. Discovering
the
Universe, 6th Edition. New York:
W.H. Freeman and Company, 2003.
Dix, Shane and Williams, Sean. Star Wars: New
Jedi Order:
Force Heretic II: Refugee. New York:
Ballantine, 2003.
Luceno, James. Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil,
1st
Edition. New York:
The Random House Publishing Group, 2005.
Salvatore, RA. Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
(Paperback Edition). New York:
The Ballantine Publishing Group, 2003.
Stover, Matthew. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.
New York: The Random
House Publishing Group, 2005.
Wallace, Daniel. Star Wars: The New Essential
Guide to
Characters. New York:
The
Ballantine Publishing Group, 2002.
Wallace,
Daniel and Kevin Anderson. Star Wars: The New Essential Chronology.
New York: Del Rey Books,
2005.
Zahn,
Timothy. Heir to the Empire (Paperback Edition). New
York: Bantam Books, 1992.
Zahn,
Timothy. Star Wars:Vision of the Future
(Softcover Edition). New York: Bantam
Books, 1999.
1 Metal
poor is a term that indicates a star is
not rich in heavy elements. It has nothing to do with the amount of
metals in a
star.
2 This
was the in the short story “Side Trip” parts
I, II, III, and IV, by Michael A. Stackpole and Timothy Zahn. The story
was
originally published in the old Star Wars Adventure Journal series
published by
West End Games and was reprinted by Bantam Spectra publishing in an
anthology
of short stories called Tales of the Empire. In it, Thrawn is
called
Grand Admiral by his crew and wears the Grand Admiral uniform. This
story
however, takes place before his official promotion to Grand Admiral as
seen in
the computer game TIE Fighter. This necessitated the
suggestion that he
was unofficially given the rank years before. This fix was presented in
the New
Essential Guide to Characters. It appears this was the only way
the author
of that guide could make sense of the discrepancy. Tales of the
Empire is
not listed in the bibliography because this author did not immediately
have its
publishing information close at hand.
3 It is
worth noting that another person who is
aware that Thrawn still had favor with the Emperor despite his apparent
political fallout, was Admiral Krennel, self proclaimed warlord of the
Ciutric
Hegemony in Isard’s Revenge. If a lowly Admiral like Krennel
knew, there
is no doubt that Tigellinus would eventually get wind of it. Just
further proof
that Palpatine really did not give a damn what the Imperial Court
thought.
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