Grand Admiral Thrawn’s return at the climax of Ahsoka heralds the beginning of a Star Wars story long in the making—whatever Dave Filoni has planned in adapting one of the most famous stories in the old Expanded Universe, Heir to the Empire, across TV shows and even a movie. But another element from that saga could answer a very important question: doesn’t a Grand Admiral need a few starships?
From what little we already know about the Imperial Remnant’s plans to rally around Thrawn’s return, there’s few indications just what kind of fleet he will command beyond his flagship, the Star Destroyer Chimera, that accompanied him, Ezra, and a whole bunch of space whales to Peridea and a whole other galaxy at the end of Star Wars Rebels. But Heir to the Empire and its sequels, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command, offered him a mystery weapon that stretched across generations of Star Wars even before we really knew those generations: the Katana Fleet. And maybe it could again, depending on just how much Filoni and his team take from Timothy Zahn’s legendary novels.
