Star Wars: Rebels

[NecronLord]

Honestly, yes. I think that quality worldbuilding is an important aspect of sci-fi and fantasy fiction in many cases. It's one of the reasons I enjoy Star Wars?

It's not a crippling weakness, but nor is it unreasonable to use that as an element of assessing the books. The Lensman books - inspirational to the genre and to Star Wars specifically - had the scale of a galactic Civilization at war down right.

It's one of the reasons I think that Revenge of the Sith is a better film than Force Awakens, for instance.

Escapist fiction is often about a world separate from our own; the more that world holds together under scrutiny, the better.

[RogueIce]

Even Zahn later wrote that Thrawn had another whole empire sitting there.

Imagine if Lucas later said that Yoda could have cast the Excellent Prismatic Spray (a massively lethal spell from the Jack Vance books) at any time and just didn't bother when fighting Palpatine. It'd make him a retroactive idiot.

The Empire of the Hand was just sitting there, waiting for orders from Thrawn throughout his campaigns. Thrawn could have called on them to send a force any time he pleased but never bothered. Two hundred fifty sectors standing idle.

Thrawn does not understand strategy. Thrawn's understanding of strategy is worse than Joffrey Lannister.

250 Sectors? Where did that come about? I recall back in the day that the Empire of the Hand (and even the Chiss proper) weren't that big.

In any event, this whole thing is just the problem with the haphazard way the old EU was thrown together. I mean, when Zahn presented the EotH he never specified their exact size - they had explored a bunch of territory in the Unknown Regions but their actual strength was pretty vague. And when they did show up, it was pretty clear they were doing their own thing and had their own battles to fight. Heck the short novella at the end of the HTTE 20th edition (or was it Choices of One?) that had Thrawn make the decision to go back to the Empire proper was in the midst of his personal forces still engaged in a campaign, though he'd taken out the main enemy guy by then.

So some later EU source decides to wank out the Empire of the Hand into some Major Regional Power in its own right? Well now Thrawn looks dumb for not using them. Also Dark Empire throws a bunch of vague shadows in background scenes and one wonders where all these ships larger than ISDs have been hiding all these years because basically nobody used much bigger than an ISD outside of the rare SSDs, with very little in between.

I mean, it's like the Boba Fett discussion from awhile ago: he was a competent enough individual that looked cool, but was wanked to all Hell in the EU by various authors, and one wonders why he went down like a chump to a blind smuggler. And Thrawn, who was certainly more than competent in his own right when introduced, but later work by other authors (ie: not Timothy Zahn) introduce elements that make him look incompetent despite those things not even existing back than. Because again, Zahn at least gives a reason for why his later introduced Empire of the Hand didn't show up in the original TTT, as well as leaving it generally vague about what kind of resources they have to begin with. Other authors...not so much.

[Elheru Aran]

I suppose it's simply that there was the *potential* to create a truly formidable Imperial Remnant... and then he dropped the ball by making Thrawn little better than a pirate by comparison, who can still cow an entire intergalactic Republic.

It simply doesn't compute easily.

[The Romulan Republic]

To be honest, I prefer the idea that the Empire collapsed quickly rather than having a powerful Imperial Remnant that waged decades of war against the New Republic. Its anti-climactic, contrary to RotJ's ending, and repetitive.

The former option also underlines the fragility of the Empire being based entirely on Palpatine's personal charisma and power, which appeals to me dramatically.

Of course, TTT is neither. Its the worst of both worlds in that respect, like much of the old EU- a weak Empire that still manages to fight on for decades.

[NecronLord]

250 Sectors? Where did that come about? I recall back in the day that the Empire of the Hand (and even the Chiss proper) weren't that big.

In any event, this whole thing is just the problem with the haphazard way the old EU was thrown together. I mean, when Zahn presented the EotH he never specified their exact size - they had explored a bunch of territory in the Unknown Regions but their actual strength was pretty vague.

For a long minute neither of them spoke. Luke gazed at the holo, listening to the distant hum of the spiral slideway, the terrible implications of those gently glowing lights tumbling over each other in his mind. There had to be the equivalent of two hundred fifty sectors there - nearly thirty times the Empire's current size.

Zahn himself. You've forgotten about this because the EU writers realized it was silly to make it this big and quietly stopped mentioning its sheer undiluted size.

On a Watsonian level, I suspect Zahn was pitching for the Empire of the Hand multispecies Empire to be the villains in the multimedia project that created the Yuzzhum Vong/NJO series.

And when they did show up, it was pretty clear they were doing their own thing and had their own battles to fight. Heck the short novella at the end of the HTTE 20th edition (or was it Choices of One?) that had Thrawn make the decision to go back to the Empire proper was in the midst of his personal forces still engaged in a campaign, though he'd taken out the main enemy guy by then.

So some later EU source decides to wank out the Empire of the Hand into some Major Regional Power in its own right? Well now Thrawn looks dumb for not using them. Also Dark Empire throws a bunch of vague shadows in background scenes and one wonders where all these ships larger than ISDs have been hiding all these years because basically nobody used much bigger than an ISD outside of the rare SSDs, with very little in between.

Vague shadows? Have you been looking at some 'ZOMG SAAXTON' rants? They're not all vague; in some cases we see a fair bit of number of ISD scale ships in foreground and ISDs are deliberately drawn in front of them to establish scale, while other times. Sometimes it's arguably wierd perspective things going on Like this but others it's very obvious they intended both hundreds/thousands of star destroyers, and they intended huge ones.

Some of their big ships are major plot points.

I mean, it's like the Boba Fett discussion from awhile ago: he was a competent enough individual that looked cool, but was wanked to all Hell in the EU by various authors, and one wonders why he went down like a chump to a blind smuggler. And Thrawn, who was certainly more than competent in his own right when introduced, but later work by other authors (ie: not Timothy Zahn) introduce elements that make him look incompetent despite those things not even existing back than. Because again, Zahn at least gives a reason for why his later introduced Empire of the Hand didn't show up in the original TTT, as well as leaving it generally vague about what kind of resources they have to begin with. Other authors...not so much.

My source is Zahn. Pure Zahn.

[Crazedwraith]

I've admittedly not read THoT Duology recently but you've quoted where the currently size of the Empire of the Hand is established.

1) Is that actually all the Empire of the Hand? Or was it the Hand + Chiss space. (The book implies the Hand is the specific castle not the whole space iirc)
2) That's the size of the space. Now. It's not necessarily the size then during TTT. What's Vos Parck being doing the last decade if not establishing the Hand as a fall back?
3)I don't remember the Chiss in THoT or NJO having more than a few squadrons of fighters. Not say fleets of capital ships.

[NecronLord]

Luke's mouth felt dry. "Are you saying that Thrawn and Palpatine had the whole thing planned out from the beginning?"

"Of course they did." Mara gestured at the holo. "Just look at all the territory he opened up. He couldn't possibly have done that by himself, with just a single Star Destroyer, Palpatine must have been feeding him men and ships all along the way."

"But that can't all be Imperial territory," Luke said. "I mean... it can't."

"Why not?" Mara countered. "Oh, I agree there probably aren't more than a few actual colonies out there. But you can bet there are Imperial garrisons scattered all over the place, plus intel centers and listening posts and probably a few full-blown shipyards. And if I know Thrawn, probably a whole network of alliances with the natives, too."

"But if that's Imperial territory, why hasn't the Empire made any use of it?" Luke argued. "I've seen the data, Mara?they're down to practically nothing over there."

"It's obvious, isn't it?" she said quietly. "They're not using it because they don't know it's there."

For a long minute neither of them spoke. Luke gazed at the holo, listening to the distant hum of the spiral slideway, the terrible implications of those gently glowing lights tumbling over each other in his mind. There had to be the equivalent of two hundred fifty sectors there?nearly thirty times the Empire's current size.

With thirty times the Empire's number of warships, garrisons, and shipyards?

Very possibly. If all those resources were suddenly put at Bastion's disposal...

"We need more information," he said, starting toward the console rings. "Let's see if there's a computer jack Artoo can plug into."

Actual population and mobilization of this is speculation - they never do get Artoo to steal that data as far as I can tell from skimming it now. But, the point is, he had something that's supposedly very-very-formidable in his back pocket the whole time, and he was stealing mining equipment and looking for hulks.

It's fairly obvious from a Doylian POV that Zahn wanted to do lots more with the Empire of the Hand but never got to - I'm told it was killed off in a byline in one of those swarm war book thingys.

[RogueIce]

I suppose it's simply that there was the *potential* to create a truly formidable Imperial Remnant... and then he dropped the ball by making Thrawn little better than a pirate by comparison, who can still cow an entire intergalactic Republic.

It simply doesn't compute easily.

Huh? He had roughly equivalent forces to the New Republic, this was mentioned repeatedly in Heir to the Empire. What Thrawn did, essentially, was take away the momentum from the New Republic and seize the initiative in his favor.

Not sure how this makes the Imperial Remnant - roughly on par with the NR at this point - less formidable, nor how Thrawn was "little better than a pirate" as the leader of these roughly comparable forces of a still extant galactic polity.

For a long minute neither of them spoke. Luke gazed at the holo, listening to the distant hum of the spiral slideway, the terrible implications of those gently glowing lights tumbling over each other in his mind. There had to be the equivalent of two hundred fifty sectors there - nearly thirty times the Empire's current size.

Zahn himself. You've forgotten about this because the EU writers realized it was silly to make it this big and quietly stopped mentioning its sheer undiluted size.

Point on the 250 sectors, but I was more or less aware of the large map. As noted, we don't know how built up any of it is. We also don't know what the state of it was ten years prior when it would have been relevant. And as I said, Zahn at least indicated, both in VotF (the "terrors you can't imagine" or whatever it was) and more specifically in Crisis of Faith that the EotH had their own battles to fight.

Vague shadows? Have you been looking at some 'ZOMG SAAXTON' rants? They're not all vague; in some cases we see a fair bit of number of ISD scale ships in foreground and ISDs are deliberately drawn in front of them to establish scale, while other times. Sometimes it's arguably wierd perspective things going on Like this but others it's very obvious they intended both hundreds/thousands of star destroyers, and they intended huge ones.

Some of their big ships are major plot points.

I never much cared for DE, so I only really remember bits of it - mostly the ones with the Byss establishing shots, that were kind of vague shadows. But conceded.

But, the point is, he had something that's supposedly very-very-formidable in his back pocket the whole time, and he was stealing mining equipment and looking for hulks.

The reason for those was the clones: he was in the position of having more troops, technicians and crewers than he had ships available for them to fight in, and could grow them faster than he could build ships.

Bringing in the presumably fully manned Chiss fleet, whatever its actual size may have been, would not have changed his need for, essentially, "ready to go" yet uncrewed warships.

And the way the campaign was going, he had the initiative for the vast majority of it, so why would he need to bring in his backup forces? Maybe, had he survived Bilbringi and depending on the actual outcome (Imperial losses vs. Republic losses) he might have brought them in - but we'll never know for sure. In the meantime, again, they had their own battles to fight and campaigns to conduct, and he was doing pretty damn well without them anyway.

[NecronLord]

The reason for those was the clones: he was in the position of having more troops, technicians and crewers than he had ships available for them to fight in, and could grow them faster than he could build ships.

Bringing in the presumably fully manned Chiss fleet, whatever its actual size may have been, would not have changed his need for, essentially, "ready to go" yet uncrewed warships.

And the way the campaign was going, he had the initiative for the vast majority of it, so why would he need to bring in his backup forces? Maybe, had he survived Bilbringi and depending on the actual outcome (Imperial losses vs. Republic losses) he might have brought them in - but we'll never know for sure. In the meantime, again, they had their own battles to fight and campaigns to conduct, and he was doing pretty damn well without them anyway.

Yes, he has his reasons and within the context of the Thrawn Trilogy books, that's fine. The wider EU firmly establishes that he is a strategic ignoramus though. That big ship in my post above from Dark Empire? That fucker would out-mass the entire Katana fleet and he doesn't ever inquire. The sad thing is, Dark Empire Wankatine is the guy in the Star Wars EU who really understands strategy and logistics- he's the one who actually retook Coruscant from the New Republic after all. His presence makes every Imperial remnant warlord, including Thrawn, both patsies, and militarily insignificant.

The Empire of the Hand, from Zahn himself, is a similar thing that was not thought about when writing the original books, and can only be explained as either a resource he neglected, though the scale of that and willingness to participate can be debated, or one he could not access for reasons not described in any published product (political unwillingness of his allies to support a xenophobe empire outright?).

They have a chance to reboot Thrawn and not make these mistakes, of course. This time.

But the presence of Starkiller base makes me think we'll have similar worldbuilding in the nu-canon.

[RogueIce]

Yes, he has his reasons and within the context of the Thrawn Trilogy books, that's fine. The wider EU firmly establishes that he is a strategic ignoramus though. That big ship in my post above from Dark Empire?

Did he have access to it? There is some evidence that he did not:

Through the Judicator's side viewport Captain Brandei watched in stunned disbelief as the Peremptory died its fiery death. No--it couldn't be. It simply couldn't. Not an Imperial Star Destroyer. Not the mightiest ship in the Empire's fleet.

Note that is from one of Thrawn's own Star Destroyer Captains, not Thrawn himself. Clearly, he didn't think they had access to anything bigger than an ISD, and as the Captain of a Star Destroyer in Thrawn's personal armada - which The Thrawn Trilogy Sourcebook indicates carries some distinction, as apparently Dorja was miffed at not being included [source] - he should have a pretty good idea.

There's also this bit, sourced from the Dark Empire Sourcebook: "Instead, he (Palpatine) let Thrawn make his bid to defeat the New Republic and, in secret, made every attempt to undermine that campaign." [source] It is entirely possible he simply never had access to the DE Megaships, thanks to Palpatine's machinations and/or the various Warlords not being willing to give him all their resources - I recall that Grand Moff Kaine was considering throwing in his lot with Thrawn after Bilbringi had he won, but thus far had not. Which means Thrawn had no command over the Pentastar Alignment's SSD.

Basically, it's a pretty harsh judgement to make, calling Thrawn out for not using ships there is no evidence he had any actual access or authority to command. And how do we know he didn't inquire after those ships? It's not like we ever got his POV on anything. Maybe he did, got rebuffed, and preferred to concentrate his energies on the New Republic than fight the other Warlords or whoever it was that controlled those ships prior to the Emperor making himself known.

Of course there's also the way DE and TTT came out, IIRC DE was supposed to take place before - which would have settled this because it would be easy to assume those ships had simply been lost in the interim - but Zahn didn't want to take DE into account, so it got set to immediately after (hence the Republic losing Coruscant off-screen, consistently referred to as the Rebel Alliance, etc.). So there's that.

Basically though I think it's fair to say that at the end of the day, this whole thing comes down to the haphazard way the EU was thrown together, correct? Obviously Thrawn was never meant to be inept at strategic resources and logistics, it's just that all these "extra resources" didn't really 'exist' at the time the TTT was written. Like I'm sure we could probably come up with a half dozen other examples from Legends of "why didn't X use Y?" thanks to Y being added after X had been established.

They have a chance to reboot Thrawn and not make these mistakes, of course. This time.

But the presence of Starkiller base makes me think we'll have similar worldbuilding in the nu-canon.

Yeah, my own personal opinion of the new EU is that it'll basically wind up much the same way a decade or so from now, but at least they should (hopefully) not be quite so bad at it for the next few years.

Maybe.

[FaxModem1]

All that aside, I'd at least like to see Thrawn win once on-screen. Sure, he is supposedly turning things around on Ryloth, but we're not seeing that, we're seeing the plucky Rebels blow up their base while Thrawn sits on his hands.

Compare this to Vader's two parter, in which he decimated the rebel fleet and set traps for them, while also killing off a recurring character who was defecting to the good guys.

Dramatically, I'm still waiting for Thrawn to accomplish something on-screen, even if off-screen, he's achieving great victories.

[Galvatron]

Of course there's also the way DE and TTT came out, IIRC DE was supposed to take place before - which would have settled this because it would be easy to assume those ships had simply been lost in the interim - but Zahn didn't want to take DE into account, so it got set to immediately after (hence the Republic losing Coruscant off-screen, consistently referred to as the Rebel Alliance, etc.). So there's that.

IMO, that fucked the old EU right out of the gate. What a fucking mess they made publishing TTT and DE at the same time.

[NecronLord]

There's also this bit, sourced from the Dark Empire Sourcebook: "Instead, he (Palpatine) let Thrawn make his bid to defeat the New Republic and, in secret, made every attempt to undermine that campaign." [source] It is entirely possible he simply never had access to the DE Megaships, thanks to Palpatine's machinations and/or the various Warlords not being willing to give him all their resources - I recall that Grand Moff Kaine was considering throwing in his lot with Thrawn after Bilbringi had he won, but thus far had not. Which means Thrawn had no command over the Pentastar Alignment's SSD.

Yes, his being completely unaware of where the heavy ships went was what I was driving at. If a US Navy admiral came back from the moon in the middle of a war and all he had was Destroyers, you bet he'd want to know what happened to the aircraft carriers. Doubly so once he found out they weren't sunk but had gone somewhere.

Basically, it's a pretty harsh judgement to make, calling Thrawn out for not using ships there is no evidence he had any actual access or authority to command. And how do we know he didn't inquire after those ships? It's not like we ever got his POV on anything. Maybe he did, got rebuffed, and preferred to concentrate his energies on the New Republic than fight the other Warlords or whoever it was that controlled those ships prior to the Emperor making himself known.

I can't prove a negative, but the balance of evidence shows that he's largely unaware of them.

Of course there's also the way DE and TTT came out, IIRC DE was supposed to take place before - which would have settled this because it would be easy to assume those ships had simply been lost in the interim - but Zahn didn't want to take DE into account, so it got set to immediately after (hence the Republic losing Coruscant off-screen, consistently referred to as the Rebel Alliance, etc.). So there's that.

Basically though I think it's fair to say that at the end of the day, this whole thing comes down to the haphazard way the EU was thrown together, correct? Obviously Thrawn was never meant to be inept at strategic resources and logistics, it's just that all these "extra resources" didn't really 'exist' at the time the TTT was written. Like I'm sure we could probably come up with a half dozen other examples from Legends of "why didn't X use Y?" thanks to Y being added after X had been established.

And nu-canon. Frankly, everyone but wankatine and Grievous fails at logistics as no one else bothered to try and make self-replicating armies. That's rarely the intent but it's the fact, in the legends continuity.

A good bug-fix would be to say that the World Devastators were used on inert worlds in the Deep Core to build the fleet for operation Shadow Hand, and that the Emperor's clone masters provided the crews; perhaps even using Thrawn's Yasilmiri technique. Sadly the EU has it that Palpatine had those ships at Byss from shortly after Endor and was sitting on them the whole while.

Yeah, my own personal opinion of the new EU is that it'll basically wind up much the same way a decade or so from now, but at least they should (hopefully) not be quite so bad at it for the next few years.

Maybe.

It already has this exact problem, in that the New Republic doesn't give a shit about the star destroyers disappearing into the black and writes the First Order off as not a threat even though the Imperial Navy is missing.

[NecronLord]

All that aside, I'd at least like to see Thrawn win once on-screen. Sure, he is supposedly turning things around on Ryloth, but we're not seeing that, we're seeing the plucky Rebels blow up their base while Thrawn sits on his hands.

Compare this to Vader's two parter, in which he decimated the rebel fleet and set traps for them, while also killing off a recurring character who was defecting to the good guys.

Dramatically, I'm still waiting for Thrawn to accomplish something on-screen, even if off-screen, he's achieving great victories.

I'm pretty sure they're building up to a big Imperial victory.

[eMeM]

So Catalyst has a guy who lost an eye and got a working (in the visible and infrared frequencies) implant. He paid for it with money he got for a single weapon smuggling run.

I think Commander Sato doesn't like Kanan

[Adam Reynolds]

Apart from a moderately interesting space battle or two, Iron Squadron was somewhat meh. I liked that how the tactic that destroyed a freighter did nothing to a cruiser, as well as the kids assuming that every ship they ran into was a Star Destroyer. It was also nice seeing Sato's ship actually engage in combat for once.

Thrawn certainly seems to be playing a long game, as evidenced yet again in this episode, but it still feels somewhat problematic that he is once again mostly just showing up to let the Rebels escape each episode.

[Adam Reynolds]

It already has this exact problem, in that the New Republic doesn't give a shit about the star destroyers disappearing into the black and writes the First Order off as not a threat even though the Imperial Navy is missing.

From what I read about that era in the novel Lost Stars, it wasn't very many of them. Only a tiny fraction of the Imperial fleet survived to create the backbone of the First Order. Certainly nothing on the same scale as the Imperial fleet at Byss. A character was boasting about a mere ten star destroyers as if it were a major fleet.

Though this leads to the serious case of minimalism in the new continuity, in which there is virtually no evidence for the truly massive fleets that should be the case in Star Wars. Especially when one accounts for the speed of hyperspace travel, which would make it even easier to mass fleets. Lost Stars actually seems to believe that Endor was a truly massive Imperial naval loss in which the backbone of the fleet was destroyed. While it was obviously the most important battle of the war for political reasons, it cannot have caused the loss of much of the Imperial Navy's total fleet strength.

[hunter5]

Apart from a moderately interesting space battle or two, Iron Squadron was somewhat meh. I liked that how the tactic that destroyed a freighter did nothing to a cruiser, as well as the kids assuming that every ship they ran into was a Star Destroyer. It was also nice seeing Sato's ship actually engage in combat for once.

Thrawn certainly seems to be playing a long game, as evidenced yet again in this episode, but it still feels somewhat problematic that he is once again mostly just showing up to let the Rebels escape each episode.

It seems to me he is both testing the Rebels and the Imperial officers under his command.

[Zixinus]

I wonder why Thrawn didn't try to lay a more elaborate trap. I wish we had more hints that he is laying a big trap.

[FaxModem1]

Like I said, unless Thrawn is all hype, the only thing that makes sense is that Thrawn is working his own agenda separate from the Empire, or is a rebel sympathizer. Otherwise, he's a moron who just sits on his hands each and every time he has a chance to hurt the Rebellion.

[Galvatron]

It's altogether possible that Palpatine wants the rebellion to survive at this point. Maybe Thrawn is only there to ensure that they don't do any real damage to the Empire.

[Lord Revan]

It's altogether possible that Palpatine wants the rebellion to survive at this point. Maybe Thrawn is only there to ensure that they don't do any real damage to the Empire.

Good point, indeed maybe Thrawn is loyal to the empire (or more precisely to the emperor) just not in a way he think he should be. Palpatine is known to be manipulator the idea he'd stop doing that once he got the "throne" doesn't seem logical.

[Reyvan]

I think Thrawn is just trying to draw the Rebels into an encounter where he can destroy them all at once. He's letting them get a bunch of small victories so that eventually Phoenix Squadron will commit their whole fleet to some mission, and then he can kill them all at once. If he just takes out a ship or two every once in a while all he'll have done is drive them back to ground and he'll lose the chance to destroy the cell.

Besides the Rebels aren't exactly getting too much done on his watch. They've stolen a few bombers, gotten a few pilots to defect, and evacuated some rebels from a planet. These aren't exactly massive victories the Rebels are winning here, Thrawn can afford these small losses because they don't exactly mean all that much.

[FaxModem1]

I think Thrawn is just trying to draw the Rebels into an encounter where he can destroy them all at once. He's letting them get a bunch of small victories so that eventually Phoenix Squadron will commit their whole fleet to some mission, and then he can kill them all at once. If he just takes out a ship or two every once in a while all he'll have done is drive them back to ground and he'll lose the chance to destroy the cell.

Besides the Rebels aren't exactly getting too much done on his watch. They've stolen a few bombers, gotten a few pilots to defect, and evacuated some rebels from a planet. These aren't exactly massive victories the Rebels are winning here, Thrawn can afford these small losses because they don't exactly mean all that much.

Did you miss their blowing up of the Imperial base on Ryloth, while under Thrawn's watch?

[Reyvan]

I think Thrawn is just trying to draw the Rebels into an encounter where he can destroy them all at once. He's letting them get a bunch of small victories so that eventually Phoenix Squadron will commit their whole fleet to some mission, and then he can kill them all at once. If he just takes out a ship or two every once in a while all he'll have done is drive them back to ground and he'll lose the chance to destroy the cell.

Besides the Rebels aren't exactly getting too much done on his watch. They've stolen a few bombers, gotten a few pilots to defect, and evacuated some rebels from a planet. These aren't exactly massive victories the Rebels are winning here, Thrawn can afford these small losses because they don't exactly mean all that much.

Did you miss their blowing up of the Imperial base on Ryloth, while under Thrawn's watch?

I will admit I completely forgot about that. Still, its not like they liberated the planet by doing that. We know from Lords of the Sith that the Empire has a large base in the capital of Ryloth. The Syndulla manor was just the place Slabin moved into when he captured that region of Ryloth.

I think Ryloth was also a surprise for Thrawn. He wasn't expecting to run into Hera and the Ghost there, he was just doing some background research on Hera while also giving some advice to Slabin, enabling the conquest of that Manor and region based on what Cham said. So yeah, Rebel victory under his watch, but still hardly a major one. And as for him refusing to fire on the Ghost as they escaped Ryloth, there's not much that he'd have been able to do there. He had one light cruiser with him, and based on what we saw in Iron Squadron where the Ghost was a sitting duck for a cruiser for several seconds, there is no way Thrawn's cruiser could have brought down the Ghost if he had decided to fire.