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Assume that Thrawn realises somewhat before the Thrawn trilogy that the Empire is certain to collapse without the Emperor, and that his best bet is to defect to the New Republic.

Assuming he convinces them to take him on, perhaps initially as the head of a strike force attacking some warlord or other, how might things play out from there?

Thrawn dies horrible for treason when the resurrected Emperor gets his hands on him within the next 2 years

Being thoroughly familiar with their artforms, Thrawn will have no problem devising anti-Imperial strategy.

He's assassinated in fairly short order.

Has Thrawn ever commited any war crimes, though?

Well, apart from that one little genocide on a species he couldn't understand...

000 wrote:He's assassinated in fairly short order.

There were many Imperial soldiers and officers who integrated into the NR without being assassinated, despite the strong bias against those even with spotless records and defamation of figures like Leia Organa Solo. Though Thrawn would have been by far the highest-ranked figure to join up, he would have the advantages of being both completely unknown, and an alien, facts that might throw some potential threats off his tail. Certainly, I doubt he could ever rise that far, or accrue much influence in the NR government, but I do see him surviving at least up until the Emperor's resurrection (although I expect he might align himself with the Remnant after it stabilized years later, assuming it ever did without his and Pellaeon's presence).

Given that Grand Admiral Grant was allowed to retire peacefully to civillian life under the NR, I have no reason to believe Thrawn would be accorded any less favor.

I think he'd do well and the NR would enjoy some victories thanks to him.
However the NR still gets flattened come the Vong invasion because their leaders are still worthless shmucks.

I meant by Palpatine, not members of the NR. Sheesh.

000 wrote:I meant by Palpatine, not members of the NR. Sheesh.

Wankatine's too much of a megalomaniac loon building his Eclipses and his space guns and his omgwtfmegafleets-that-i'll-park-around-one-world-year-that's-clever to go around assassinating every Imperial that joins the NR. That'd be admitting he cares.

Thrawn wasn't just any Imperial; he was a Grand Admiral-- the highest possible military rank-- with access to a tremendous amount of Imperial state secrets, resources, and so forth. He would be a obvious target.

Regardless of his mental state, Palpatine after Endor kept close tabs on the outside Galaxy. It's been heavily implied, for example, that he was behind the assassination of an Imperial Admiral who made peace overtures to the New Republic involving his grand-niece.

Then why didn't Palpatine go and bump off Grant?

Grant was around enough so that Alpha Blue and Jan Ors had to keep tabs on him after the DE business.

Thrawn knows Palpitine probably better then anyone by the time of HTTE and frankly I expect he would catch on far quicker then most people that he is in fact back.

Part of hte reason the New Republic got crashed by the Dark Empire Imperial forces was that they had taken quite a body blow from Thrawns campaigns, combined with key industrial damage and the loss of key planets to the Empire.

Without those losses and WITH Thrawn working for the New Republic there is actually a decent chance of the New Republic fleets meeting Palpitines forces and stopping them far sooner then the Republic managed to.

Thrawn is after all *VERY* familiar with the tactics, capabilities and personalities of the Imperials he will be fighting against. With that knowledge in his hand and probably after proving himself, my guess is that he'll be promoted to a strategic command position in the NRDF, working with tactical commanders like Wedge, Ackabar, Bel Iblis and so on.

I completly fail to see Palpitine getting a free 'assassinate Thrawn' pass given how he has failed to hit the major NR people like Leia, Luke, Han, Ackbar, Wedge, Mon Mothma with any success at all. Its not an impossible move, but its hardly something I'd consider to be a forgone conclusion. Especialy with Thrawns knowledge of Imperial Intelligence.

Nitpick: Ackbar, if anything, is a strategic commander who likes to fight in the field.