Ok, lets see now. A more in depth analysis of the book. This is a complete rundown so if you don't want to know, stop reading.
I have to say my earlier thoughts about this book have been tempered by re-reading 'Survivors Quest'. Frankly I think Outbound Flight works much better if you consider it the first half to that book. One half taking place in the Prequel era, one in the EU era just before the NJO era. In that context the book works well and you can see how hard Zhan has tried to keep the two books connected.
That said, the Thrawn wanking still grates
The first part of Outbound Flight deals with Car'das and a smuggling group who are trying to dodge a rival Hutt gang. Attempting a long hyperspace jump, they arrive on the edge of the Unknown regions, the Hutt follows them and both blunder into a CEDF patrol led by one Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo...
Back in the republic (this is set a little before AOTC BTW) C'baoth and his Padawan Lorana make a horse trade with Palpitine. He will push Outbound Flight funding (for the tens of thousands of civilians needed for any possible colony building) through the senate committees if C'baoth will solve some dispute between a regional government and the Corporate Alliance (which is actually a big enough dispute to require Palpitine to send someone. We also start to see the start of C'baoth's view of the universe here. Even just in his body language, he has a clear feeling of superiority to non-jedi. He believes it is the jedi that hold the republic together, not the senate, not Palpitine, he wants respect or fear from all.
Kinman Doriana is an aid to Palpitine who is secretly working for Darth Sidious, but does NOT know they are one in the same. He is the one who publicly suggests to Palpitine and C'baoth that C'baoth will be sent to resolve this dispute in exchange for Outbound Flight getting off the ground, on the instructions of Sidious. Quite funny actually.
Windu sends Obi-Wan and Skywalker to quietly (but not secretly) tail them and just make sure they don't do anything explosive. They all get together in the middle of a situation that is wrapped in local politics and the dispute, but is actually engineered by Doriana on the orders of Sidious to make sure C'baoth gets so much publicity and PR that the senate and Jedi Council will green light the mission. Again through this we see a reflection of the Thrawn Saga C'Baoth and his ideas about 'justice' and how a Jedi rates to 'normals'.
We find out at this point that Doriana knows all about Darth Tyranus as well.
Obi-wan is sufficiently worried about C'baoth that he gets permission to accompany outbound flight to the edge of the unknown regions (part of the reason it is going through said regions is also another attempt to find out what happened to Vegree) with Anikin, who of course gets on quite well with C'Baoth, having a good deal of respect for him. In the wake of the PR stunt C'baoth pulled, the council has no choice but to assign 6 Jedi Masters and 11 knights, far more then they wanted.
Windu and Yoda, thinking the whole thing stinks assign Obi-Wan and Anakin to the project, though they'll get off at the edge of the unknown regions, simply to keep an eye on everything on board for the first few weeks as they slowly hop across the Galaxy and make sure everything is all functioning.
Meanwhile Thrawn all this time has been keeping Car'dis and his friends as half prisoners half guests, on the promise of far more loot down the line as compensation to their employers for the late delivery. At this point, introduced the Vagaari. A nomadic race of aliens who live in the border zone between wild space and the unknown regions. Thrawn forces a pretext to let him engage in battle (remember the 'they must fire first' ROE of the CEDF) and steels a gravity well projector from them. This of course sends up a storm of argument in the Chiss higher up's about if Thrawn exceed his authority, but they let it stand for now....
Just in time for him to stumble upon Doriana and his buddies from the Trade Federation that had been sent to ambush outbound flight and completely destroy it. The main attack force was to be the 3000 droid fighters, armed with lasers and energy torpedoes, simply to swamp the dreadnaughts when they came out of hyperspace and crush them with overwhelming numbers. It also comments a single TFB with limited fighters can’t possibly hope to face the six Dreadnaughts of outbound flight.
Thrawn as you know is able to win the engagement almost exclusively by out 'EW-ing' the Trade Federation ships droids, destroying one TFB and it's fighters as well as all the lesser picket ships. Then he simply parks his cruiser in front of the TFB bridge with its missile racks pointing in, apparently shields don't exist anymore in the SW universe, let alone the absurdly powerful ones on the dounuts. He prevented the battle group from fleeing by using the gravity well projector he captured from the Vagarri. So he captures this TFB and liberates much of their droid technology, which is something that doesn't exist in the unknown regions apparently.
Doriana introduces Thrawn to Sidious, he is very impressed by this young commander (BTW Thrawn is the youngest Chiss to hold the rank he holds). Doriana paints a picture of the Jedi as arrogant control freaks who lord over normal people without a care in the world, despite their claims that they are supposed to serve and assist, not rule. The Sith he says are in a power struggle with them...but that it's for the good of the Galaxy.
This description of course proves rather apt when he and C’Baoth meet later.
THIS PART is where the book took a ninety degree right turn for me. I'm sure people here won't like it....but....
Doriana tells Thrawn that the reason for all of this is because Sidious who stands in opposition to the Jedi, has information they do not, information critical to the survival of the Galaxy.
That is, the coming of the Yuzzahan Vong.
I'll quote word for word this, just so we are all clear.
"A Sith Lord is ... ?"
"A being who stands against the Jedi and their control over the Republic," Doriana explained.
"Ah," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, a faint smile touching the corners of his mouth. "A power struggle."
"In a way," Doriana conceded. "But on a plane far different from the one where beings like you and I exist. What's important right now is that Lord Sidious has access to information sources that the Jedi don't have."
"And what do these sources tell him?"
Doriana braced himself. "There's an invasion coming," he said. "A massive assault force of dark ships, shadowy figures, and weapons of great power, based on organic technology of a sort we've never seen before. We believe these Far Outsiders, as we call them, already have a foothold at the far edge of the galaxy, and even now have scouting parties seeking information on worlds and peoples to conquer."
"Stories of mysterious invaders are both convenient and difficult to disprove," Mitth'raw'nuruodo pointed out. "Why do you only now tell me this?"
Doriana nodded toward the door. "Because Vicelord Kav and his associates don't know," he said. "Neither docs anyone else in the Republic. Not yet."
"When will Darth Sidious tell them?"
"When he's turned the Republic's chaos into order," Doriana said. "When we've built an army and a fleet capable of dealing with the threat. To announce it before then would do nothing but create panic and leave us open to disaster."
"How does Outbound Flight fit into all this?"
"As I said, we believe the Far Outsiders are currently still gathering information," Doriana said. "So far, there's no indication that they even know about the Republic." He felt his throat tighten. "Actually, that's not entirely true," he corrected himself reluctantly. "One of the Jedi, a being named Vergere, disappeared in that region some time ago. That's one of Outbound Flight's private agendas, in fact: to try to learn what happened to her."
"I see," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, nodding slowly. "And while a single prisoner can give only hints of his or her origin, an entire shipful of them can provide all that would be needed for a successful invasion."
"Exactly," Doriana said. "Not to mention all the data files I and technology they would be able to examine. If Outbound Flight blunders into their bridgehead, we could find ourselves facing an attack long before we're ready."
"And the Jedi do not understand this?"
"The Jedi think of themselves as the masters of the galaxy," Doriana said bitterly. "Especially the chief jedi Master aboard Outbound Flight, Jorus C'baoth. Even if he knew about the Far Outsiders, I doubt it would make any difference to him."
So there you have it. Bear in mind this guy was apparently quite a minion of Sidious if he was trusted with the knowledge of his existence, of Doku before he publicly went rogue and a mission of this importance. But at the same time he didn't know Palpitine and Sidious were one in the same.
Take this as you will.
Sidious who found out that Anikin is on board the Outbound Flight with Obi-Wan is understandably pissed and makes a trip as Palpitine to one of the last stop off points for the project, gets them both off under the pretext of them being needed for emergency negotiations and preserves the Chosen One. Obi-Wan had been about to ask Yoda for permission to stay on for the 10 year trip because he thought C'Baoth was getting out of hand and didn’t want him returing with a large number of fallen Jedi because his teaching methods suck, but it is not to be.
With them out of the way, C'Boath starts working on his own New Jedi Order. A lot of the families on the ship have force sensitive children (they were screened and assigned as such to the project) and C'Baoth starts his own Jedi school, forcibly taking those children whose parents don't actually want them to go. Discontent builds slowly as more and more C'Baoth starts to elevate the Jedi as a new order of people. Technically there is a military officer in command of the ship, but C'Baoth keeps edging in more and more. Even taking children in the middle of the frigen night from their parents!
Obi-Wan had disputed all this saying that the code explicitly forbids Jedi from ruling over anyone, C'Baoth simply declares he will ignore rules he thinks is erroneous. After all people in touch with the force are by definition much closer in touch with the universe itself and by definition knows what’s best, QED.
Especially him of course.
When the rules for outbound flight disagree with him, he just rewrites them, declaring himself the final legal authority (which is completely false, the Captain *was* explicitly the final legal authority) because this is a Jedi project. Discontent through some of the crew as C'Baoth pushes them aside for Jedi to take their places and learn how to do just about every damn job on the ship.
At this point, Thrawn starts one of his amazingly intricate overwhelming plans that brings the Outbound Flight and Vagaari together at the same point manipulating the Vagaari, Car'dis, C'Baoth and just about everyone else as part of his plan.
C'Baoth's super Jedi meld reaches out and starts frying the brains of the Vagaari (because their ships are covered with domes filled with hostages, so a direct assault at long range isn't possible) until they reach a range at which the Jedi gunners on the Dreadnaughts Turbolasers can disable the enemy ships. When Thrawn see's this happening (complete loss of co-ordination and control and so on) based on advice he had received from Sidious, he sends in the captured droid fighters to start attacking the Vagaari warfleet while activating some Battle Droids and Droid’dikas he had aranged the Vagaari to recover. The droids cut down the war leaders of course and leave the fleet leadeless at that point, while C’Baoth and his people keep mindfucking the rest of the Vaagri.
The deaths of the Vaagri leaders thanks to the droids backfires into the meld and shatters them. The Jedi of course were all at the weapons stations because they can do everything so much better and thus outbound flight is completely undefended. Thrawn then takes his ships while the droids keep ripping the Vaagri ships up (but leave the hostages alive thanks to droid precision), passes his ships through the Dreadnaughts shields with a slight bump (you heard me) then his ships at point blank range vaporizes the weapons blisters and shield generators...where of course all the Jedi are.
C'Baoth at this point falls to the dark side in rage and starts force choking Thrawn slowly to death. Doriana at his side without any other options presses the big red button Thrawn had put onto his command board as an emergency contingency.
The Vulture droids then break off their attacks and swarm at the dreadnaughts. Waves of them fire all their weapons then crash into the dreadnaught opening up huge breaches which radiation bomb carrying droids crash into, killing all but about fifty or so people on board out of the fifty thousand. Including C'baoth (who had finally had the rest of the Jedi on board standing upto him and about to call a judgment circle on him before the battle).
However because of this, a significant portion of the Vaagri fleet escapes the gravity field generator and gets to hyperspace.
The chiss are pissed beyond belief at this point at Thrawn and are about to exile him on the spot. However several factors contribute to him being spared.
* Outbound flight gets away thanks to Jedi Loorna, Thrawns brother and some survivors who would form the colony later and crash into the location we would later find it in. Meaning the advanced military technology on the ships is now beyond the Chiss, many factions of which wanted it badly.
* Blackmail over the fact that if Thrawn is forced to step down, the whole incident will have very high ranking people being dragged down along with him.
* Blackmail over who gets the gravity well projector.
And the possibility of fighting a two front war....
"You and your Master, Darth Sidious, told me of a people you call the Far Outsiders gathering at the edge of the galaxy," he said, turning the weapon over in his hands. "Have you ever actually seen these beings?"
"As far as I know, we haven't," Doriana admitted.
"I thought not," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, suddenly intense. "But we have."
A cold chill ran up Doriana's back. "Where?"
"At the far edge of the Chiss Ascendancy," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, his voice dark and grim. "It was a small reconnaissance force, but it fought with a savage ferocity before it was finally repulsed."
"How many ships were there?" Doriana asked, his mind kicking into high speed. Darth Sidious coveted information of this sort. Enough of it might even persuade him to forgive Doriana the loss of his Trade Federation task force. "What sort of weaponry did they have? Do you have any combat data?"
"I have some," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. "Admiral Ar'alani was in command of the force that ultimately drove them away. That's why she came personally to investigate Car'das and his companions. We wondered if the Republic they spoke of might be allied with the invaders."
"And that's also why she was willing to look the other way while you dealt with the Vagaari," Doriana said as a final nagging piece of the puzzle finally fell into place. "A two-front war would be exceptionally nasty."
And there you have it.
Sounds a wee bit convenient to me 
(funny, I'd have thought the fear of failing Darth Sidious would have been a bigger factor....)
). Still, it's odd that Palpatine never used the threat of an extragalactic invasion to consolidate his power. Maybe he thought it was too shadowy and after a decade or so decided that the Vong probably weren't coming after all.
