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When Thrawn returned to the galaxy proper, was he in command of the entire Empire or just a part of it? If most of the surviving Empire was under control of warlords it would explain why he wanted ships so badly, and why his fleet seemed to be so small.

Then again, there has been a while since I read the Thrawn Trilogy so I could easily be in the wrong.

I'm under the impression that he runs the "Coalition of Moffs" that have the best claim to the Empire.

It's worth noting that in Heir to the Empire Han says "This is the same kind of rearguard action we've seen the Empire use for the last year and a half...", which would jive with the New Republic being too busy fighting warlords than the Empire proper.

The books say that the Empire is 1/4 its original size. I have no explanation for the fact that his fleet was so small except that Zahn miniturizes every thing.

Indeed, the Empire at 1/100th of its OT size should still be able to pull 200 fucking dreadnaughts out of its ass.

Crazy Ivan wrote:When Thrawn returned to the galaxy proper, was he in command of the entire Empire or just a part of it?

Semantics. He probably considered the territory under his command to be the legitimate Empire, just like all the other self-proclaimed warlords apparently considered theirs to be. Perhaps that's why his Empire was located in the backwater of the Outer Rim while the post-Dark Empire warlords were situated in the Deep Core. IOW, two (or more) territories claiming to be the true remnant of the Galactic Empire.

Crazy Ivan wrote:If most of the surviving Empire was under control of warlords it would explain why he wanted ships so badly, and why his fleet seemed to be so small.

"His brilliant successes had won him the title of Warlord and the right to wear the white uniform of Grand Admiral--the only nonhuman ever granted that honor by the Emperor."
-HTTE

Thrawn was a warlord. The way I see it, the only difference between himself and the others is that his military rank was legitimately higher than theirs.

In the Last Command, you see upwards of about 20 capital ships in an engagement on one of the fronts fighting Bel Iblis without the presence of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Also, remember.. most of the ships are kept keeping systems pacified. And personally imo, it's more enjoyable to see a Star Destroyer being able to wreak havoc rather than being pounded on by a bunch of X-wings. I mean, at the Empire's height, how many ships were in a task force?

Galvatron wrote:
Thrawn was a warlord. The way I see it, the only difference between himself and the others is that his military rank was legitimately higher than theirs.

Yeah, they seemed to use the word warlord for those grubbing leftover moffs and such.. in Thrawn's case, warlord was a legitimate title.

Thrawn ran the what the New Republic recognized as the Empire proper, he wasn't a tinpot dictator.

Thrawn took command of the remaining Empire and most of the Warlords gave to his cause (as per Kennel's thoughts in Isard's Revenge). We largely saw only his core fleet as oppossed to the whole thing because Zahn was mimicing the original trilogy, where we only saw Death Squadron and the Executor (It's one of many things he does, note that all the books start off in space just like the movies do). The explanation as for how 200 Dreadnaughts can make a difference is basically that, due to all the fighting, both sides really only had enough to cover all their territory from attacks, the ships they needed for an offensive were either in repair drydock, or did not exist. Thrawn essentially got a "ready to use" fleet for free, hence the Katana fleets importance.

Besides, Dreadnaughts are no small factor. While slow and with realitively weak shields, Dreadnaughts still had one hell of a punch, one equal in raw firepower to what a VSD 2 packed.

Galvatron wrote:

Crazy Ivan wrote:When Thrawn returned to the galaxy proper, was he in command of the entire Empire or just a part of it?

Semantics. He probably considered the territory under his command to be the legitimate Empire, just like all the other self-proclaimed warlords apparently considered theirs to be. Perhaps that's why his Empire was located in the backwater of the Outer Rim while the post-Dark Empire warlords were situated in the Deep Core. IOW, two (or more) territories claiming to be the true remnant of the Galactic Empire.

Incorrect. The Warlords made no pretense to being the Empire. Many of them, such as former Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, even rechristened their fiefdoms--he renamed the Oversector Outer he controlled as the "Pentastar Alignment." Former Fleet Admiral Krennel declared himself "Prince-Admiral Krennel of the Cuitric Hegemony." Former fleet admirals Taradoc and Harsk also carved up personal empires as "High Admiral" and "Supreme Warlord" respectively.

Emperor's Grand Admiral, Warlord of the Empire, and Chiss Household Sydnic Mitth'raw'noroudo, also known as Thrawn, took control of the Galactic Empire.

By this time the Galactic Empire itself had become reserved to less than 25% of the galactic disk. It was run by a coalition government between the Mofference and the surviving members of the Emperor's Ruling Circle.

Thrawn took control of the Galactic Empire as Supreme Commander and virtual Dictator of the surviving territories. The Essential Chronology says he "marginalized" the Warlords (the first of his major mistakes).

The Galactic Empire and the Warlord kingdoms are not the same. Most of the Warlords did not help or offer assistance to Thrawn. The Cuitric Hegemony offered merely financial assistance.

Galvatron wrote:

Crazy Ivan wrote:If most of the surviving Empire was under control of warlords it would explain why he wanted ships so badly, and why his fleet seemed to be so small.

"His brilliant successes had won him the title of Warlord and the right to wear the white uniform of Grand Admiral--the only nonhuman ever granted that honor by the Emperor."
-HTTE

Thrawn was a warlord. The way I see it, the only difference between himself and the others is that his military rank was legitimately higher than theirs.

The honorific Warlord of the Empire and the "warlords" are not one and the same.

Warlord of the Empire was an honorific title given to certain Imperials, just as General Soontir Fel was given the title of Baron.

The "warlords" were former military officers, governors, and politicans who became local military strongmen carving out sections of the Empire to rule themselves. Some of them assumed the title of Warlord of the Empire as posturing or a bastardization thereof (such as former Fleet Admiral Harsk's creative title of "Supreme Warlord"), nevertheless, the "warlords" are not the same as the Warlords of the Empire christened by Palpatine as honorifics before the fall at Endor.

Also, Dreadnaughts would've freed up other ships from System defense duty.

Trytostaydead wrote:In the Last Command, you see upwards of about 20 capital ships in an engagement on one of the fronts fighting Bel Iblis without the presence of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Also, remember.. most of the ships are kept keeping systems pacified. And personally imo, it's more enjoyable to see a Star Destroyer being able to wreak havoc rather than being pounded on by a bunch of X-wings. I mean, at the Empire's height, how many ships were in a task force?

No excuse.

Thrawn never consults the other fleet commanders, governors, or his government.

That's simply poor statemanship and poor execution of his duties as supreme commander.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

Galvatron wrote:

Crazy Ivan wrote:When Thrawn returned to the galaxy proper, was he in command of the entire Empire or just a part of it?

Semantics. He probably considered the territory under his command to be the legitimate Empire, just like all the other self-proclaimed warlords apparently considered theirs to be. Perhaps that's why his Empire was located in the backwater of the Outer Rim while the post-Dark Empire warlords were situated in the Deep Core. IOW, two (or more) territories claiming to be the true remnant of the Galactic Empire.

Incorrect. The Warlords made no pretense to being the Empire. Many of them, such as former Grand Moff Ardus Kaine, even rechristened their fiefdoms--he renamed the Oversector Outer he controlled as the "Pentastar Alignment." Former Fleet Admiral Krennel declared himself "Prince-Admiral Krennel of the Cuitric Hegemony." Former fleet admirals Taradoc and Harsk also carved up personal empires as "High Admiral" and "Supreme Warlord" respectively.

Emperor's Grand Admiral, Warlord of the Empire, and Chiss Household Sydnic Mitth'raw'noroudo, also known as Thrawn, took control of the Galactic Empire.

By this time the Galactic Empire itself had become reserved to less than 25% of the galactic disk. It was run by a coalition government between the Mofference and the surviving members of the Emperor's Ruling Circle.

Thrawn took control of the Galactic Empire as Supreme Commander and virtual Dictator of the surviving territories. The Essential Chronology says he "marginalized" the Warlords (the first of his major mistakes).

The Galactic Empire and the Warlord kingdoms are not the same. Most of the Warlords did not help or offer assistance to Thrawn. The Cuitric Hegemony offered merely financial assistance.

.

What gives?We know that Thrawn did manage to reunite some of the warlords,and more importantly,the Galactic Empire behind him.He made a stragetic decision to concentrate the Empire efforts on destablising and destroying the New Republic,instead of wasting Imperial forces on pacifying warlords.

A good analogy will be Sun Yat Sen Northern Expeditions.Sun Yat Sen was able to rally Republican forces under his command,as well as some of the outlying warlords and concentrated on moving northward to Beijing,instead of wasting efforts forcing the local warlords to come under his rule.The failure of the expedition lay in the fact that Sun Yat Sen military capabilities weren't sufficient to take out Yuan Shi Kai successor forces.

Chang Kai Shek later success in pacifying China was because he was able to control the Central Plains by capturing Beijing.From that nexus point,he could later devote forces to taking out any warlord who haven't gone over to him when his Northern Expedition succeeded.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

Trytostaydead wrote:In the Last Command, you see upwards of about 20 capital ships in an engagement on one of the fronts fighting Bel Iblis without the presence of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Also, remember.. most of the ships are kept keeping systems pacified. And personally imo, it's more enjoyable to see a Star Destroyer being able to wreak havoc rather than being pounded on by a bunch of X-wings. I mean, at the Empire's height, how many ships were in a task force?

No excuse.

Thrawn never consults the other fleet commanders, governors, or his government.

That's simply poor statemanship and poor execution of his duties as supreme commander.

That's assuming that what the EU didn't show is not present in the universe.

PainRack wrote:That's assuming that what the EU didn't show is not present in the universe.

Argument from Ignorance.

"It might be there even if not shown" is not proper logic.

It isn't shown. Period.

We certainly don't hand Star Trek the benefit of a doubt like that. We should not commit the same sins as Trekkie fanboys.

Yet,we know that Thrawn was in communication with his subordinate commanders through the Cloning programme.Furthermore,Paelleon and the Intelligence community was aware of Thrawn spy source in the Imperial Palace,thus,indicating that the sharing of infomation between these three partners obviously exist.

What's lacking is the proof of communication with the homefront.In the military arena at least,we see that consultation in a minor form at least exists.

I thought the NR had control of most of the HoloNet sattelites, so that Thrawn couldn't communicate as easily.

A large part of the Empire, along with many if not all of its remaining heavy capital units where under the control of the clone Emperor at the time. He might have had a big chunk, but not all of it.

Sea Skimmer wrote:A large part of the Empire, along with many if not all of its remaining heavy capital units where under the control of the clone Emperor at the time. He might have had a big chunk, but not all of it.

I thought the Clone Emperor didn't make his bid until after the Thrawn Crisis....

Lonestar wrote:I thought the Clone Emperor didn't make his bid until after the Thrawn Crisis....

Yes, but before he made his move he contacted a significant number of Imperial Warlords and demanded their allegiance to the Empire. After that, they went to the Emperor's new capital Byss in the Deep Core. That happened sometime during Thrawn's campaign.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

PainRack wrote:That's assuming that what the EU didn't show is not present in the universe.

Argument from Ignorance.

"It might be there even if not shown" is not proper logic.

It isn't shown. Period.

We certainly don't hand Star Trek the benefit of a doubt like that. We should not commit the same sins as Trekkie fanboys.

We know there was some sort of contact, as Kennel and others were supporting him in his bid to retake the galaxy. How regular and how strong it was, we have no idea.

PainRack wrote:*snip*

Does he consult his other Admirals on their offensives?

What about his government?

Ender wrote:*snip*

Krennel giving money to Thrawn != him bothering to collaborate across the front with other fleet commanders or his government.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

PainRack wrote:*snip*

Does he consult his other Admirals on their offensives?

We see him give orders to other seperate tasks forces several times, remember? He was conducting simultaneous strikes with groups of 2 or 3 SDs, but IIRC the old EGC said his personal task force was only 5 ISDs strong, plus support ships.

What about his government?

He obviously had contact with the Intellegence community, and he had some kind of contact with the others to get them to give him, and keep giving him supplies.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:Krennel giving money to Thrawn != him bothering to collaborate across the front with other fleet commanders or his government.

Fleet commanders was seen in the novels. And you only demanded proof that he had contact with civillian officials.

Ender wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

PainRack wrote:*snip*

Does he consult his other Admirals on their offensives?

We see him give orders to other seperate tasks forces several times, remember? He was conducting simultaneous strikes with groups of 2 or 3 SDs, but IIRC the old EGC said his personal task force was only 5 ISDs strong, plus support ships.

Does he confer in strategic planning with other Admirals? No he does not. The front had to have multiple Admirals in campiagns equal at least to Thrawn's--yet we don't see them.

Ender wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:What about his government?

He obviously had contact with the Intellegence community, and he had some kind of contact with the others to get them to give him, and keep giving him supplies.

In other words, no.

So he contacted a former subordinate of his and got money. So his intelligence agents reported to him. Did he bring his government with him or consult them? No.