It's time for Star Wars to finally reveal the truth about the Chiss. In 1991, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy essentially launched the Expanded Universe. Zahn introduced readers to the post-Return of the Jedi galaxy, and introduced a dangerous new enemy for the New Republic to fight. Grand Admiral Thrawn was the one alien to rise through the ranks of the Empire, a ruthless strategist loosely based on Sherlock Holmes, who delighted in out-thinking his opponents.
Grand Admiral Thrawn was a member of an alien race known as the Chiss, whose empire can be found in the Unknown Regions. This vast, unexplored area of galactic space is cut off by a labyrinth of solar storms, rogue magnetospheres, black holes, gravity wells, and things far stranger. Over the years, Zahn returned to Star Wars time and again to flesh out the alien race, but he never really got a solid chance to explore them. When the old Expanded Universe was declared non-canon after Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, most fans assumed the Chiss would be forgotten. Thankfully, they were wrong; Lucasfilm considered Grand Admiral Thrawn one of the best parts of the EU, and they wasted no time in bringing him back into canon. Zahn is soon to launch a new trilogy, Thrawn: Ascendancy, which will be set entirely in the Unknown Regions.
The timing couldn't be better. The Star Wars franchise is in a difficult position right now, with the future of the movies uncertain. The anthology films were wound down after the box office failure of Solo: A Star Wars Story, the sequel trilogy came to a divisive conclusion, and future movies have been delayed by the coronavirus pandemic. It falls to Lucasfilm Publishing to blaze a trail for the franchise, just as it did in 1991, when the Thrawn Trilogy essentially breathed new life into a franchise considered dead and gone. The Chiss are perfectly suited to this time, an aspect of Star Wars that was never really explored before, either in the EU or in the Disney era.
Timothy Zahn is a Hugo Award-winning author, and he is a tremendously effective world-builder. It's long been clear he has a cohesive vision for the Chiss society, one he's alluded to in the Expanded Universe but never before been given the opportunity to unveil. Although Thrawn's story has changed in the Disney era, all evidence suggests the Chiss themselves have not; he's even introduced secondary Chiss characters previously seen in the non-canon book Outbound Flight. By allowing Zahn the freedom to write this trilogy himself, Lucasfilm Publishing is giving him the opportunity to finally reveal his creations to the world, with only minimal editorial interference.
The best thing is, because the Chiss are an alien society relatively unconnected to galactic events, Zahn's upcoming Thrawn: Ascendancy trilogy won't necessarily be tied to the new canon at all. If written skillfully - and that can be taken as read - it should work just as well for the Expanded Universe as for the Disney era. Thus all those fans of the Expanded Universe, who mourn the loss of the stories they grew up with, can enjoy it just as much as those who have embraced the new canon. This really is one of the most exciting Star Wars projects in the works right now.
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