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systemic-dreams · 5 years

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So I finally read Thrawn: Alliances...

and I didn’t like it :/

I’ve been avoiding this novel since it came out cos i wrote a clone wars fanfic with thrawn and anakin in it and I didn’t want the daydream to end, which, once I read Alliances, I knew it would.

The Good Bits

The naval battles were great. SPLENDID. GOOD STUFF.

TIE Defenders. NyoooOOooom.

Vader in the TIE Defender ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

My girl, Karyn Faro. My little ray of sunshine on a dark dreary day. I love you. Don’t ever change. *makes flower crown for this perfect little angel* *blows a kiss out into space*

Commander Kimmund, was surprising fun. I enjoyed the stormtrooper sequences. They were intense and exciting and felt like they mattered and had actual stakes. Rukh was great. Tephan was bae. Just, really good to see that they’re people under those uniforms.

Thrawn’s sarcasm. Literally every opportunity to jab at Anakin’s bullshit plans. Also, made me miss Ahsoka. I think they could have been good friends and an awesome duo or trio on the battlefield. Come to think of it, Thrawn and Obi-wan might get along surprisingly well.

R2-D2. You’re doing great, sweetie. I love you. Don’t ever change.

Lol, Dooku’s brother is a pompous asshole and I love the image of him bumbling around in a noble cloak while everyone else is wearing armour or scifi stuff.

Captain Skerris. RIP.

I guess it’s nice to confirm that Chiss can be force sensitive, even if it is in such a stupid way. I, myself, assumed my navigator OC Fuoror was a little force sensitive in the same way but he was an adult and part of the military so...

The bad

The novel was long and I felt like it wasn’t heavily edited. Maybe like a second draft. There was a lot of exposition and thinking about thinking about stuff. And it wasn’t even Thrawn doing that. Like it was literally every other character in the story. And the exposition heavy locals on Mokivj were a little too much. Are they hicks or techs? Are they cleaners or actual engineers? That wasn’t really clear to me.

Zahn’s descriptions of locations wasn’t that great either, or at least, I was confused as to the geography. The whole Batuu segment felt like Thrawn and Anakin were flying around a Denny’s parking lot looking for a free spot. And then they were fighting in the Denny’s parking lot and then they went into the Denny’s to have a drink and start a barfight. Then they came back 20 years later to fight in the same Denny’s parking lot.

Also, the amount of times Thrawn got shot in the past was a bit silly. Even if those wounds were only surface burns. Anakin explicitly said, Clone Troopers go down after taking like two. And Thrawn took five? And then a full on blaster wound from the droid on the thieves’ ship? And walked it off. And kept kicking butt. OK, Mr Zahn. Sure. Blue All Might, it is.

But why would a Master Tactician leapfrog over a Jedi to stand on the bar to avoid some gas? It’s airborne. You’re gonna breathe it in anyway. You might as well roll over the bar to gain cover from the source and hide your face in your clothes or find a rag to breathe into. There was alcohol back there. Make a Molotov cocktail. If you stand on top of the bar, you’re just giving the enemy a target. Plus, he disoriented Anakin, who was his only ally at the time.

So that was a Dick Move. But also a stupid move.

And The Force didn’t warn Anakin about the attack despite the entire novel talking about how he was Double Vision? Which, by the way, was handled like a low-level Pokemon battle in writing.

A wild Darshi appeared.

Wild Darshi used Gas Attack.

Anakin was confused.

Anakin used Double Vision.

But it hurt itself in its confusion.

Anakin fainted.

>.>

Seriously?

And then Anakin couldn’t get the dowel pins out of his cage when they were trapped on Mokivj because he had no visual? What the actual fuck, ladies and gentlefolk? You can literally navigate through space without so much as looking out the fucking window but Thrawn had to take off his shirt to make you a fucking rope cos you couldn’t escape your cage?

There’s a literal episode in the Clone Wars where Dooku closes his eyes, concentrates and unlocks the door to his cage with a floating set of keys while Anakin and Obi-wan are negging him in the background. It’s not hard, Mr Chosen One.

And the stone bugs?

One Force Blast from Darth Vader and those things would be up against the walls of this Chilli’s tonight, along with all the Darshi and Thrawn and everything else. And Thrawn didn’t think of maybe taking cover or using some of the furniture as a shield? >.>

Anyway, the fighting is probably the least problematic thing since we all knew how it was going to pan out. I think that’s another reason why I avoided this novel. Because it had to finish before Season 4 of Rebels started and there’s not a lot you can do to the characters in that time. Although, considering the final battle over Lothal, one could argue that Thrawn received brain damage and just stood by while a bunch of Purggil decimated his fleet?

Whatever.

The driving Force behind the narrative was Chiss Force users.

Specifically little tiny girl Chiss (which was unexplained and just plain sexist) that lose their powers as they get older, so they become indentured servants to Chiss starships as wayfarers (a metaphor for women’s fertility? sounds shady af imho). Their powers are exclusively about precognition and allow them to map safe routes through space faster?

I also didn’t understand the bullshit about point-to-point travel being faster or more efficient. Like, you have these routes. How is relying on children to safely guide you through a fucking asteroid minefield better than precalculated paths you can safely take every time. It doesn’t matter how fast you map the Unknown Regions if you can’t reliably return to those points. Also, the development of hyperdrives is reliant on having safe coordinates to input, which can’t be comprehended or worded by a child with magic powers beyond pointing in the general direction. So the origin of this system makes no sense.

How the fuck did they even figure out it was possible? Was there just a little girl on board a spaceship (without a navicomputer) and she’s like ‘Aw yeah, asteroid over there, watch out guys’? Like, I can understand that being the case ONCE, in a life-threatening situation when your nav systems are down but on a regular basis?

Thrawn was even surprised that Republic ships have a record of where they’ve been because navigation is handled by a computer. Which is obviously not the case when a little girl just told you how to get from point A to point B. Again, without knowing where she’s going or a visual (looking at you Anakin >.>)

Regardless of the fact that this kind of power rivals Palpatine’s and would take years of strict training for someone like a Jedi to develop (who adopted and trained all species pretty much the same so why is it different for the Chiss? anyway), Thrawn said that Force sensitive Chiss are super rare, exceedingly rare. So it’s very much doubtful that they could afford to have a little girl on every Chiss vessel. Unless their fleets travel in clusters with one little girl guiding them, the amount of Chiss starships any further than the Unknown Regions would be exceedingly few. And certainly not enough for a flunky like Thrawn to merit at the time of Batuu.

I say flunky because Thrawn went down to Batuu, alone, as an expendable unit. If he died, the Chiss lost nothing. But if he succeeded, as anyone who’s spent any time around Thrawn will know, is pretty likely, they’d get themselves a nice little energy field generator.

Why he went down to Batuu with Vader without backup honestly doesn’t make sense. Vader is a force to be reckoned with but Thrawn is still vulnerable and Batuu could have changed over time. There was no reason to put himself directly at risk of death when he’s the Admiral of the seventh fleet and as he claims, so important to the Chiss Ascendancy’s fight against the Grysk. That whole scene was written to satisfy the neckbeards who picked up this novel just to see Vader and Thrawn fight but instead they bicker like an old married couple.

This feels very out of character for Vader, who as demonstrated by multiple sources in canon, murders anyone who even dares to mention the name Anakin Skywalker around him, both in the EU and canon. Especially in the comics. Darth Vader brooks no slight, and isn’t even that loyal to the Emperor. He tries to kill Palpatine multiple times and Palps just shrugs it off like ‘ah, kids these days’ cos that’s how treacherous and nasty the Sith are meant to be.

But this entire novel is just Thrawn saying ‘Trust me, Anakin, I mean Vader. Sorry, not sorry. I know what I’m doing.’ and Vader swallows it. Why?

One could argue this shows the magnitude of his respect for him or for the smut writers, his raging boner (of which only ash remains). But honestly, it just makes Vader seem out of character. Even his breathing isn’t once described in the book, which is usually the first thing a star wars novel will point out. How scary and intimidating his presence is. But Zahn’s descriptions of his characters leave much to be desired.

I heard Anakin’s voice whenever I read Vader. And Anakin himself sounded a bit like Thrawn on several occasions, overthinking, and generally thinking instead of doing whatever the Force told him to.

Padme in this novel is just an SIS Agent with an undercurrent of Thrawn as well. Why did she send here handmaiden out into the boonies? Is the Naboo Diplomatic Corps literally just a cover for training super spies? Because it seems like it. Padme Amidala is just another child soldier that plays politics as a cover and is actually a Republic saboteur.

Wherever she goes, promising the good will of the Republic, the war follows and decimates everything she touches. Usually by Anakin’s hand. Their relationship borders on toxic. Especially when Anakin blew up the mine, despite Thrawn AND Padme saying its a bad idea. And when half the planet gets covered in lava cos he’s an idiot and detonated explosives in a cortosis mine, HE DIDN’T EVEN APOLOGISE.

I think that was the most Vader moment from the whole book. The rest of it was just Anakin in the suit which also contradicts the canon that no one could pull him back from the dark side except Luke Skywalker, his son. Even Ahsoka, his once padawan and close friend couldn’t do that. But Thrawn is like ‘hey, do this thing for me, even though it’s basically treason, kthnxbai’. And he does it. WHYYY?

I would have honestly murdered Thrawn sixteen times by the end.

Also, since when is Thrawn the Emperor’s cuck? Grand Admiral Thrawn, who rose to such power in the Ascendancy, the Ruling Families exiled him to an uninhabited world? Grand Admiral Thrawn, who came back to the Ascendancy ten years later with his own navy and said, ‘fuck you, I’m making my own family, full of awesome warriors that will protect the Ascendancy whether you like it or not’? Grand Admiral Thrawn, who after hearing that the Emperor was dead, returned from the Unknown Regions and fucking DECIMATED the New Republic with a handful of ships, a cranky old wizard and half a dozen lizards?

Why the fuck is Thrawn pleading and begging and nervous? And if the Chiss Ascendancy used little girls as wayfarers, then it would be considered standard practice and nothing to get all touchy feely and ashamed about, especially in the Empire where they literally have slaves. The only problem with the girls would be sending Vader after them. Because he murders everyone with Force powers, jedi or no. A one man genocide machine. Like, the Jedi Purge? That was all Vader.

The book very explicitly states that Vader spares the children because Thrawn asked him to. Even though, he’s spent years killing Force sensitives. Even though he marched into the Jedi Temple under the direct order of Palpatine to murder younglings. Why did he stay his hand in this instance.

I’ll tell you why, cos he’s seen Thrawn with his shirt off. That’s literally the only reason I can think of why any of this would happen. Darth Vader has a raging hard on for Thrawn and there’s nothing he can do about it. And Thrawn, keeps promising he’ll put out, as long as Vader does what he says.

I don’t like it, either, but there it is.

Other things I didn’t like:

The Grysk infiltrating the Chiss and causing civil war as was suggested by Thrawn? >.>

The Grysk aren’t described as humanoid, merely sentient. But they can hold rifles? And they pull their teeth out and implant weapons in their mouths?

I’m pretty sure the Chiss would not tolerate them, even at the border, being the snobby isolationist species they are. Which, apparently, is also not true? Because the Aristocra wanted the scouting parties to go as far as possible and spy on the Clone Wars? As opposed to the old Chiss Ascendancy, who were like, we’ll set up these picket forces just in case something comes along so we can send it the fuck back. No one had ever been to Csilla. Not even the Emperor.

Thrawn protected the Ascendancy by keeping its location a closely guarded secret and swatting away threats under the guise Imperial involvement. Kind of like he was doing in Alliances. Except, at the very end, he put a great big bullseye on his own people so the Grysk would target the Chiss.

wtf?

Also, I didn’t like how the Emperor and Vader kept referring to the Grand Admiral’s failure over Atollon. Failure? BITCH WHERE?

He lured an entire Massassi rebel group into the system and fucking annihilated it and the Phoenix group, despite having traitors in his midst. He basically killed a god on the ground and the death troopers backed up his story. And only a few ships escaped with the help of clan Wren.

I’m sorry. I seem to remember Vader coming to Lothal at the end of like season 1 of rebels only to let Ezra and Kanan escape. And I also remember a certain caped gentleman at the end of season 2, riding in on his fucking TIE Interceptor controlled by the Force (yeah i cant get these dowel pins out) and he let Kanan, Ezra and Ahsoka get away.

And the book literally says: “Of course, he wasn’t sensing Jarrus. That particular disturbance had long since been noted, codified, and dismissed, a fact Vader knew only too well.”

So this hypocrite, is like “Jarrus, who?” and then proceeds to jab at Thrawn for having let him escape despite also letting him escape. Fuck off.

Nit-picking

“I agree,” Thrawn agreed. <--- riveting stuff folks

Anakin growled x 100000000000000 (even at padme)

“Ah,” Padme said x 10000000000000000

Ozyly-esehembo - sounds a lot like Sy Bisti tbh. i dunno if that was intentional but I reckon the Chiss would still speak Cheunh?

Future Predictions

Admiral Ar’Alani was one of the little chiss girls that navigated ships with her force powers and then joined the navy once she was old enough cos that’s the only life she’s ever known. Calling it now.

The whole Force sensitive Chiss business and wayfaring bullshit is just to establish that Thrawn does know what the force is and can offer Ezra Bridger some form of guidance. The Rebels series sort of established him as being clueless about the Force, even calling it Jedi devilry but Zahn mentioned that he wants to write what happens after rebels so Thrawn is now Obi-wan I guess?

“Of course,” Thrawn said, his tone the kind Obi-wan used when he thought Anakin wasn’t catching on fast enough. “They’re soldiers.”

I’m calling that he and Ahsoka are gonna meet up too. That whole marg sabl thing was just too on the nose for me.

Ezra is gonna geek out about Anakin Skywalker when he finds out he and Thrawn were buddies. Thrawn is gonna be like, he died... and not tell them about Vader but then he’ll look at a Ahsoka and they’ll have that sad moment together.

Eli Vanto is going to be a massive advocate against using little girls for wayfaring and bring navicomputers to the Ascendancy cos he’s a good boy and I love him dearly.

The Grysks are the Yuuzhan Vong OR... hehehe. They are one of the species the Yuuzhan Vong tolerate to do their bidding. But then again, the Vong hate tech and we’ve seen the Grysks use tech extensively. I dunno. They didn’t seem to pose much of a threat to Thrawn and Vader. Like it never felt out of control but I’m sure that will change.

TIE Defenders get stolen from Lothal and become part of the rebel fleet.

that’s all for now.

/rant

#thrawn #alliances #darth vader #me ranting

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