Reading Heir to the Empire

[Manga Shoggoth]

X Wings with hyperdrives make for uncomfortable long haul trips. Excellent point, actually.

In the original trilogy, novelisations and other bits, an X-Wing is limited to how many jumps it can make (one jump, if I recall correctly).

Katana fleet? Is that a reference to something?

It could be a fleeting reference...

[pendell]

Katana fleet? Is that a reference to something?

Spoiler

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I don't suppose it's a spoiler to tell you this: The Katana fleet is a bit of Zahn backstory that he's making his first reference to here. Back in the day, the Republic Navy built a fleet of dreadnaughts slave-controlled from a single central control unit stored on the flagship. The flagship crew went insane due to a disease, however, and the entire fleet jumped into hyperspace, never to be seen again.

Since then, automation on starships has been accomplished with independent droids, rather than hiveminds, to prevent a recurrence of just this disaster.

Bear in mind this was written before the Prequels: Zahn assumed that the Republic maintained a sizeable fleet in the thousand year epoch before it became the Empire; Lucas hadn't yet clued anyone in that the Republic had minimal military until it was created for the Clone Wars.

At any rate, Zahn didn't mess up; if you keep reading he'll eventually spell this bit of lore out in greater detail; I'm just getting you up to speed a little early.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[hamishspence]

In the original trilogy, novelisations and other bits, an X-Wing is limited to how many jumps it can make (one jump, if I recall correctly).

10 jumps (all info stored in the astromech's memory) is the standard.

[Douglas]

I don't suppose it's a spoiler to tell you this:

It's borderline, and I'd prefer to err on the side of caution.

Sapphire Guard: pendell's post, which I added a spoiler block to, lays out some background information on the Katana fleet. Strictly speaking, it's all historical information about events that happened long before the Thrawn trilogy and aren't in-setting obscure, but Heir to the Empire is the first time it's revealed to any readers. I'll leave it to you to judge whether that qualifies as a spoiler or not.

[Manga Shoggoth]

10 jumps (all info stored in the astromech's memory) is the standard.

Much obliged.

[Peelee]

Inform the republic? Not that that will do much, but it will at least let them know that those miner things are important enough to waste an SD on?

On the one hand, that's an excellent point. On the other, Leia and Han privy to this knowledge as well.

[russdm]

On the one hand, that's an excellent point. On the other, Leia and Han privy to this knowledge as well.

If they say anything about the mole miners, the most likely response will be "The Empire needs some more mining equipment, it seems". I didn't get the impression in the chapters previous to this one that the Rebellion has a particularly good intelligence gathering service, with it based around stuff collected from computers/devices/listening in/sympathizers, but nothing really beyond that. Remember, the Rebels are good guys, so I think it means their primary means of getting information is talking people into helping them out. Or cracking whatever informational devices that are held. Along with any sympathizers. Beyond that, I don't see at this point with the New Republic controlling Coruscant/Imperial City, that they are getting many sympathizers still in Imperial service to feed them information.

In a great many stories, the good guys seem to have magic giving them the info, since you don't see them doing anything really. They can't use any interrogation methods, because good guys, and with people that aren't that willing to switch sides, hard to get anything.

Maybe, that's why I figure the New Republic lacks the ability to really function as a government. Intelligence gathering is key, along with being able to have that be accurate information. The Rebels in Star Wars do suffer from "The Revolution will be villifed". Weirdly, with Saw from Rogue One, I can see him using harder measures to get valuable information for the Rebellion. Which might result in some changes.

[Hunter Noventa]

10 jumps (all info stored in the astromech's memory) is the standard.

That's how many can be stored, not a limitation on how much you can jump, which is governed of course, by distance and fuel, which never really comes up, except in a handful of EU books.

[pendell]

It's borderline, and I'd prefer to err on the side of caution.

Sapphire Guard: pendell's post, which I added a spoiler block to, lays out some background information on the Katana fleet. Strictly speaking, it's all historical information about events that happened long before the Thrawn trilogy and aren't in-setting obscure, but Heir to the Empire is the first time it's revealed to any readers. I'll leave it to you to judge whether that qualifies as a spoiler or not.

Fair enough; the info's there if Sapphire wants it. It doesn't talk about any current plot points but is historical background which will be revealed over the course of the trilogy.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Blackhawk748]

If they say anything about the mole miners, the most likely response will be "The Empire needs some more mining equipment, it seems". I didn't get the impression in the chapters previous to this one that the Rebellion has a particularly good intelligence gathering service, with it based around stuff collected from computers/devices/listening in/sympathizers, but nothing really beyond that. Remember, the Rebels are good guys, so I think it means their primary means of getting information is talking people into helping them out. Or cracking whatever informational devices that are held. Along with any sympathizers. Beyond that, I don't see at this point with the New Republic controlling Coruscant/Imperial City, that they are getting many sympathizers still in Imperial service to feed them information.

In a great many stories, the good guys seem to have magic giving them the info, since you don't see them doing anything really. They can't use any interrogation methods, because good guys, and with people that aren't that willing to switch sides, hard to get anything.

Maybe, that's why I figure the New Republic lacks the ability to really function as a government. Intelligence gathering is key, along with being able to have that be accurate information. The Rebels in Star Wars do suffer from "The Revolution will be villifed". Weirdly, with Saw from Rogue One, I can see him using harder measures to get valuable information for the Rebellion. Which might result in some changes.

I know that the Black fleet crisis series is one of the earliest books to mention the Republics not CIA. It seems like they use a lot of deep space probes and long range recon ships to spy

[hamishspence]

I know that the Black fleet crisis series is one of the earliest books to mention the Republics not CIA. It seems like they use a lot of deep space probes and long range recon ships to spy

Yup - and it uses one of Zahn's characters in the process. Admiral Drayson, who appears in the Thrawn Trilogy, is head of the "New Republic CIA-equivalent".

[Cikomyr]

Yup - and it uses one of Zahn's characters in the process. Admiral Drayson, who appears in the Thrawn Trilogy, is head of the "New Republic CIA-equivalent".

Which was a very, very clever turnaround on what was basically a stooge character meant to showcase how out of his depth some people were against Thrawn.

I liked redeeming character.

As opposed to Kevin J. Anderson who just [spoiler spoiler spoiler] General [spoiler] and then just [spoiler spoiler spoiler] the character of [spoiler spoiler] sideways.

[hamishspence]

Which was a very, very clever turnaround on what was basically a stooge character meant to showcase how out of his depth some people were against Thrawn.

I liked redeeming character.

BFC expands on a few characters. Lobot, and even Chewie's family from the notorious Holiday Special, are made more interesting and given some time in the spotlight.

[Tyndmyr]

Spoiler

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Likewise when Luke and Mara Jade are freeing Karrde in Dark Force Rising, Thrawn contemplates how they would escape and immediately deduces they will steal the Millenium Falcon. But it's not clear why he's so certain of that. After all, the only reason our heroes DO try to steal the Falcon is that they wander across it through sheer dumb luck; they had no idea it was on board the Chimaera. Now sure, it's possible Mara could have uncovered that fact when hacking the computer system, but Thrawn had no actual evidence of that. For that matter, he doesn't have proof she even had computer access. But because that's what will happen, Thrawn's WAG are correct.

-H

Spoiler

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Rather than that being un-discoverable information, I suspect that literally anyone with information about the events of movies 4-6 could deduce that Luke is likely to escape a scenario on board the Millenium Falcon. Sort of a pattern, there.

[Blackhawk748]

BFC expands on a few characters. Lobot, and even Chewie's family from the notorious Holiday Special, are made more interesting and given some time in the spotlight.

Agreed. I mean, the series has it's issues but character development isn't one of them

[Sapphire Guard]

It's borderline, and I'd prefer to err on the side of caution.

Sapphire Guard: pendell's post, which I added a spoiler block to, lays out some background information on the Katana fleet. Strictly speaking, it's all historical information about events that happened long before the Thrawn trilogy and aren't in-setting obscure, but Heir to the Empire is the first time it's revealed to any readers. I'll leave it to you to judge whether that qualifies as a spoiler or not.

While that specific quote wasn't much of a spoiler, in general I'd say to folks to be careful about confirming or denying my idle speculations, I was more thinking 'should I know what that is' rather than asking for an answer. In any case, it wouldn't be Zahn messing up even if that was just a throwaway line, broken references are one of the best aspects of Star Wars, they make it really feel like a breathing world.

On the one hand, that's an excellent point. On the other, Leia and Han privy to this knowledge as well.

Sure, but the Empire couldn't have known they'd be there. Whereas Lando runs the complex. My impression of the Imperials is that they don't have many SDs to spare, so a raid involving accepting heavy damage to one for the sake of mining equipment should raise some red flags, even if it doesn't immediately indicate 'Oh, they're raiding the shipyards'.

The rebels do seem to have an effective enough network, 'many Bothans died to get us this information' and all that. They're just not the focus of many stories.

Not knowing about Starkiller base is their biggest failure in newcanon, don't know enough about Legends to say what it is in the old verse.

CH15: They head out for the old mining complex, send Leia and Chewbacca off in the Lady Luck(another great ship name btw), then Luke heads off and the Han and Lando on the Falcon. The relationship of these two is quite nice actually. Lando suggests the make contact with this Talon Karrde guy. Han doesn't need a slicer anymore, but Karrde might have information on 'this mysterious Imperial Commander whose been running you in circles lately.'

That's an interesting observation, because while we know how dangerous Thrawn is, from the Republic perspective he hasn't pulled any major coups yet. That will probably change after the shipyard raid he's planning, but as is, all he's done is take on one task force and a some lightly damaging raids, and maybe failed kidnap attempts, because they're still think the Noghri might be some unknown alien representatives
.
We move back to Thrawn's art room/command centre, where Pellaeon reports that the gang has left the mining complex. Thrawn nails their strategy instantly, continuing to interrupt or dismiss most of Pellaeon's contributions. The conversation shifts to Luke and plays out similarly. The plan is to have an Interdictor cruiser and a freighter so that they have plausible deniability if Skywalker escapes. I'm not sure how expendable Interdictors are, so I don't know if that's proportionate or not for one fighter, albeit Jedi piloted. A cruiser is normally a pretty substantial ship, from what I understand.

Pellaeon attempts to leave and notices at least one real sculpture among the holograms. Only one real one, it seems. It's a relic of Thrawn's sole failure as an art critic. He destroyed their world. Hopefully it wasn't just because he didn't like the artstyle.

Poor Kashyyyk, seems like one of the unluckiest planets in either canon. Hopefully Thrawn's actions are more on the 'kidnap attempt' scale than the 'world destroying' end. We shall see.

[Friv]

If they say anything about the mole miners, the most likely response will be "The Empire needs some more mining equipment, it seems". I didn't get the impression in the chapters previous to this one that the Rebellion has a particularly good intelligence gathering service, with it based around stuff collected from computers/devices/listening in/sympathizers, but nothing really beyond that. Remember, the Rebels are good guys, so I think it means their primary means of getting information is talking people into helping them out. Or cracking whatever informational devices that are held. Along with any sympathizers. Beyond that, I don't see at this point with the New Republic controlling Coruscant/Imperial City, that they are getting many sympathizers still in Imperial service to feed them information.

There are basically three effective ways to gather intelligence:

*) Win sympathizers to your side
*) Insert sympathizers into your opponent's side
*) Use scouting and sneaking to gather information

The Rebellion uses all three of these extensively, and there's no evidence that they stopped when they became the Republic, so I don't see why you think they don't have good information networks.

[Peelee]

Sure, but the Empire couldn't have known they'd be there. Whereas Lando runs the complex.

And? Thrawn let Lando live, and Lando has Han and Leia as friends (or, at the very least, acquaintances). They're high-ranking people in the New Republic, a legendary General and a legendary former Senator and Princess to a destroyed world. It's as much as a foregone conclusion that the New Republic is gonna know about the mole minors. Leia and Han being there just cuts out the middle man, which in this case is a pretty small step to begin with. I think we're supposed to assume at this point in the story that Thrawn doesn't care about the New Republic knowing about his actions. In fact,

Spoiler: A very tiny and vague spoiler, but a spoiler nonetheless.

Show

in the next book he uses the New Republic's knowledge of what he is doing as a weapon against themselves.

ETA: Interdictor cruisers are kind of overkill for one ship, unless it's a really important ship. They're a bit bigger than the blockade runner the first movie opens up with, IIRC (Rebels, the TV show, can be used to get a size comparison, but I can't remember it well). Old EU had them as pure support, and needed to have battleship escorts like Star Destroyers because the gravity well projectors take a lot of energy, and they have issues with supplying power to both the generators and the shields if the shields start getting hit. For getting a high-value target like Skywalker, throwing an Interdictor at him is arguably worth it.

[russdm]

There are basically three effective ways to gather intelligence:

*) Win sympathizers to your side
*) Insert sympathizers into your opponent's side
*) Use scouting and sneaking to gather information

The Rebellion uses all three of these extensively, and there's no evidence that they stopped when they became the Republic, so I don't see why you think they don't have good information networks.

I just think that most or all of the sympathizers would have left to join the New Republic, leaving few or none in the Empire. Given how much the Empire is usually portrayed as being Nazis by another name, and all of the atrocities they do, I would frankly find it extremely surprising they could find someone willing to remain or sneak into the Empire's service.

Very few later EU novels paint the Empire as something to want to be a part of, unless you count what Zahn has written.

How exactly would the New Republic get Sympathizers in? They would have to be Human, and more than willing to carry out war crimes. I don't see the New Republic all that willing to recruit those kind of people, and not willing to allow its soldiers to engage in that sort of activity.

[Hunter Noventa]

I just think that most or all of the sympathizers would have left to join the New Republic, leaving few or none in the Empire. Given how much the Empire is usually portrayed as being Nazis by another name, and all of the atrocities they do, I would frankly find it extremely surprising they could find someone willing to remain or sneak into the Empire's service.

Very few later EU novels paint the Empire as something to want to be a part of, unless you count what Zahn has written.

How exactly would the New Republic get Sympathizers in? They would have to be Human, and more than willing to carry out war crimes. I don't see the New Republic all that willing to recruit those kind of people, and not willing to allow its soldiers to engage in that sort of activity.

There are more than enough paper-pushers, or well, datacard-pushers in the empire that you could be a sympathizer there and not arouse suspicion or deal in war crimes. But you are right that beyond that, there isn't much leeway, and presumably lot of their information comes from more subversive attempts like slicing into computer systems.

[pendell]

I just think that most or all of the sympathizers would have left to join the New Republic, leaving few or none in the Empire.

How would they do that? Just walk down to the local starport and hop the nearest freighter to Republic space? Maybe put in for a ticket from a travel agent or from the SW equivalent of Travelocity?

I don't think it works that way. Anyone in the Empire who betrays even the slightest desire to live somewhere else is probably going to find a new home in Kessel, possibly after a full frontal lobotomy to make sure they remain compliant.

No, people dissatisfied with the Empire don't leave it. The reasonable way to do this would be to join the Imperial forces, get assigned to the outer rim, then desert when no one is looking. That's risky and it's pretty much impossible if you also have a family you care about that would be left behind, so the only option left is to suck it up.

That also points to the issue of troops in the Imperial Navy -- in the Zahn version, anyway, most of the troops are conscripts. They're not there because they want to be. They're there because the alternatives are worse.

And those people especially are optimal targets for recruitment.

Given how much the Empire is usually portrayed as being Nazis by another name, and all of the atrocities they do, I would frankly find it extremely surprising they could find someone willing to remain or sneak into the Empire's service.

I don't know what your experience of military service is, but IIRC the relationship of tail to tooth is on the order of 20:1. That is, for every one person who's carrying a rifle you've got 20 file clerks, cooks, medical orderlies, quartermasters, truck drivers, legal officers, diversity officers, and other people to support that one person carrying a rifle.

It is quite possible to go through an entire tour of real-world military service and never fire a gun outside of mandatory firearms training. Why should the Imperial military be any different?

A Rebel spy assigned to be, say, a file clerk or a slicer would never be asked to commit a war crime. But they'd be in a simply marvelous position to collect information about war crimes, which would be of use after the war. To say nothing of more current military information.

Also, I must push back on the idea of recruiting or inserting "sympathizers". That -- HUMINT -- is but one branch of intelligence collection . Surveillance with drones, intercepted enemy signals (both decoding them and traffic analysis), ELINT signals (the particular signals given off by particular enemy equipment -- which tell you, for example, that the radar painting you is a fire control radar for a particular system), all play a part. HUMINT is a very small portion of the intelligence picture and it is not the most reliable, given the propensity of humans to lie and misinform.

But when recruiting human assets, the acronym is MICE -- Money, Ideology, Conscience, Ego. There are many, many reasons why a poorly paid person in government service can be induced to part with secrets beyond being sympathetic to your aims. Ideologically convinced operatives who remain in place and committed are extremely rare -- most of the people who are in it, are in it for the thrills, or for the money. Money is a much more reliable motivator than conscience or ideology. A person can experience an ideological conversion, and a person who defects for conscience may find it pricking them about committing treason, but human greed is an unalterable and fixed motivation which , when tapped, keeps on giving and giving.

So a New Republic intelligence officer will have plenty of avenues of sympathetic Imperials conscripted into the service susceptible to recruit, and an even larger number of venal Moffs (is there any other kind?) and bureaucrats willing to betray their trust simply for money. The officer probably won't like many of the people they have to recruit and cultivate. But it's a necessary job to win the war.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

How would they do that? Just walk down to the local starport and hop the nearest freighter to Republic space? Maybe put in for a ticket from a travel agent or from the SW equivalent of Travelocity?

...yes? Going to a New Republic world isn't the hard part (well, depending on one's financial situation or planetary culture). Getting a new life in a new place is the hard part. If planet Peelee is in Imperial space, and planet Pendell is in NR space, I can probably find a way to get to planet Pendell. I'd also have to find new housing, find new work, all the logistics of moving in real life, complete with the not-uncommon possibility that I like it on planet Peelee, dammit, I just don't like Imperial rule. Getting the whole planet to throw the Imperials out is the trick.

[pendell]

...yes? Going to a New Republic world isn't the hard part (well, depending on one's financial situation or planetary culture).

I'm going to disagree. I think the Empire is a bit like the Soviet Union was back in the days when the Berlin Wall was a thing -- leaving means being shot on sight. It's a dictatorship. Try leaving North Korea or Iran for the US and see how far you get. It's likely you and your entire family will disappear into a prison camp.

Han Solo could do it -- because Han is a professional smuggler. Most people aren't familiar with the underworld to even know who to go to who's not an Imperial security agent, and smugglers aren't cheap. Remember that the amount Han charged Luke and Obi-wan was almost enough to buy a ship.

ETA: And even if the Empire is less restrictive, there's still a war on. Very few countries will let enemy nationals immigrate during a war, and still fewer will let you leave for an enemy nation during the war. That's as ludicrous as trying to emigrate from Germany to the UK through normal channels during the war. The UK would be just as likely to turn you away as a potential spy as the Germans would be to prevent you leaving in the first place -- ironically, for the same reason.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Tyndmyr]

I don't know what your experience of military service is, but IIRC the relationship of tail to tooth is on the order of 20:1. That is, for every one person who's carrying a rifle you've got 20 file clerks, cooks, medical orderlies, quartermasters, truck drivers, legal officers, diversity officers, and other people to support that one person carrying a rifle.

It is quite possible to go through an entire tour of real-world military service and never fire a gun outside of mandatory firearms training. Why should the Imperial military be any different?

*shrug* It might be reasonable enough as assumptions go, but I don't know of any actual canon ratio, and it might well diverge significantly from real world for a number of factors. Of course, the biggest factor here is that the books tend to follow traditional, action-oriented protagonists, and very little attention is given to support roles in comparison. Were there contractors on the death star? *shrug* It's not really important to the narrative, so it's kind of glossed over.

I could see, in full on empire days, Vader sniffing out spies and traitors, though. This probably ended poorly for them. It's consistent with his portrayal, even if he usually isn't portrayed as hunting down mere file clerks. Post Emperor/Vader, I would imagine that the disarray would make it somewhat easier for unusual events to occur. People would be more likely to jump ship, or otherwise take risks once they are aware they are more likely to get away with it. An empire ruled by fear works only to a point. If the leader stumbles, and there's no heir apparent, there's usually not much loyalty to go around.

Narratively, we can't very well have extremely efficient Rebel intelligence agents, as otherwise threats would be stopped before they were epic, movie/book worthy challenges. This is definitely most glaring with the New Order/Starkiller Base, which apparently nobody of important noticed or cared about. Old EU, it's a little less blatant, but there's still no shortage of superweapons or secret imperial bases being found by evil sorts before the Rebels. Just sort of the nature of it.

[Peelee]

I'm going to disagree. I think the Empire is a bit like the Soviet Union was back in the days when the Berlin Wall was a thing -- leaving means being shot on sight. It's a dictatorship. Try leaving North Korea or Iran for the US and see how far you get. It's likely you and your entire family will disappear into a prison camp.

Han Solo could do it -- because Han is a professional smuggler. Most people aren't familiar with the underworld to even know who to go to who's not an Imperial security agent, and smugglers aren't cheap. Remember that the amount Han charged Luke and Obi-wan was almost enough to buy a ship.

ETA: And even if the Empire is less restrictive, there's still a war on. Very few countries will let enemy nationals immigrate during a war, and still fewer will let you leave for an enemy nation during the war. That's as ludicrous as trying to emigrate from Germany to the UK through normal channels during the war. The UK would be just as likely to turn you away as a potential spy as the Germans would be to prevent you leaving in the first place -- ironically, for the same reason.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

As refutation, I offer literally any of the tons of people in the old EU and new canon who went off and joined the rebellion without being professional smugglers. Han Solo charged a ridiculous price because his passengers seemed a bit insistent on avoiding even being boarded by an Imperial ship, at a time of greatly increased Imperial presence on a planet, and Luke still thought it was highway robbery. Hell, the only reason they even agreed to it was because they were holding droids that were the lynchpin to the Rebellion's future, not to mention being a Jedi Knight. And even then, Solo is surprised at how desperate his passengers are. We're never given any indication of severely restricted travel in the Empire, aside from when worlds are fully blockaded and all ships are subject to search. Intergalactic travel is massive, and when restrictions are placed, such as scans or boardings of every incoming or outgoing ship, it gets severely backed up. The people are upset, the planet is upset, and even the Empire can't keep it up indefinitely.

You flat-out can't compare the Star Wars galaxy to our Earth. The scale is mind-bogglingly larger, the logistics are different because of it.

[Sapphire Guard]

I don't think we really know enough to speculate about travel restrictions and spies, etc. Most likely it varies world to world, security and access could be tighter or looser depending on where you are, who you know, etc, etc. Presumably the critically important bases have tighter security or are known by fewer people, and it would be difficult to get close to major projects when the person running them can read your emotions.

We do have efficient rebel agents, they're just not the focus of the stories. The information used by the protags has to come from somewhere. I would not be surprised to discover that there's someone at a desk in the new Republic going 'hmm...Okay, there are reports that the Imperials wasted a SD on a raid for a few mole miners, I need to get my people thinking about what they might use them for, have we anywhere near Imperial space vulnerable to them?'

CH16:Luke comes out of Jedi hibernation trance in the middle of an apparent space battle between a light freighter, an Interdictor... and an Imperial Star Destroyer? What? Wasn't the whole point of this to stage it as an unfortunate accident? An ISD is a capital ship, what the hell is it chasing one light freighter for? You don't use an aircraft carrier for a traffic stop.

This... doesn't seem very convincing to me. Luke probably won't spare it much thought in battle, but when he slows down to think, I'm wondering if he'll be convinced.

The ISD hails him...using its real name, the Chimaera. Bad idea. Karrde was able to identify the officers from the ship name, and while he's probably an unusually well connected person, that means the name is known, and could be used to identify itself as the flagship of the Imperial fleet. Which punches a hole in the idea that this is a random coincidence, or else something crazily valuable was on that freighter. Also, if Luke escapes and happens to mention that name to Joruus, well, there goes your 'happy accident' cover story.

Anyway, Luke attempts to escape before he can be tractored, by torpedoing the freighter to use it as cover, needing to fire blind so it can't be jammed. The freighter is destroyed, but the Interdictor moves to cover him. The SD is moving too, but it's obviously not quite as nimble, and he's very nearly set to escape when the tractor beam catches up. He's caught, and on his way to the hangar before pulling a tricky maneuver of suddenly changing direction while firing torpedos for the tractors to latch onto instead. This works long enough for him to get clear of the gravity well and make for lightspeed, with the Destroyer opening up its battery behind him.

On the bridge, Pellaeon is a bit uncomfortable. They lost one tractor projector to the torpedo (not two?) and Thrawn elects to go to its control panel, which is apparently crewed by one recruit.

Under interrogation, the recruit blames poor training, and Thrawn asks who trained him. On discovering this, he asks about the training package. The instructor can't quite remember, but the standard package includes training for this kind of thing.

"Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake, Ensign?"

The entire bridge had gone deathly still. Colclazure swallowed again, his face starting to grow pale. "No,sir."

"Anyone can make an error, Ensign. But that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it."

Thrawn considers it for a moment, then has Rukh kill the tractor beam operator.

I suppose I could call this a shot at the OT, but I think this one is earned.

Thrawn asks for a tactical readout on the last engagement, and fortunately, knows that Luke badly damaged his hyperdrive with that trick and can't escape very far. Funny how he just happened to know about that, huh? And that no one else did.

He decides to subcontract out this to the local bounty hunters, which is another strange decision. You already brought an ISD to a traffic stop, what's a delay to find your crippled adversary, when you've already brought your flagship specifically to stop him. If the rest of the fleet is so badly needed, why bring the Chimaera in person in the first place?

Good chapter overall, but the 'happy accident' cover story seems pretty flimsy with an ISD already in play.

[pendell]

Note from wookiepedia (not quoting full to avoid spoilers) :

Pieterson appeared in the book as the result of a fan winning a charity auction; the other winner, who inspired Colclazure, then got to choose if the character lived or died

2 An interview with Timothy Zahn (sadly, no longer linked)

an apparent space battle between a light freighter, an Interdictor... and an Imperial Star Destroyer? What? Wasn't the whole point of this to stage it as an unfortunate accident? An ISD is a capital ship, what the hell is it chasing one light freighter for? You don't use an aircraft carrier for a traffic stop.

Considering how critical Interdictors are to the war effort, how stretched Imperial shipyards are at this point of the war, and how relatively vulnerable they are , I can't imagine a situation where an Interdictor would be deployed un-escorted. If I were an Imperial Admiral and had to choose, I would sacrifice an ISD, maybe two, if it meant saving an Interdictor.

The old TIE Fighter computer game had a number of missions demonstrating their critical value to operations (Paging Aotrs_Commander!)

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Peelee]

He decides to subcontract out this to the local bounty hunters, which is another strange decision. You already brought an ISD to a traffic stop, what's a delay to find your crippled adversary, when you've already brought your flagship specifically to stop him. If the rest of the fleet is so badly needed, why bring the Chimaera in person in the first place?

To be fair here, did you ever see Castaway? With the scene where Tom Hanks tries to figure out how off-course his plane was, does some math, and figures out the search area is half the size of Texas?

Space is big.

wookiepedia

Wookieepedia. 2 Es. I bet things like this are why the droids attacked them.

[Cikomyr]

Wookieepedia. 2 Es. I bet things like this are why the droids attacked them.

I swear to god, is this a meme?!

[Blackhawk748]

I swear to god, is this a meme?!

No, but it's rapidly becoming one.