Star Wars: Politician Jon Ossoff’s Sequel Trilogy Prediction Resurfaces During Georgia’s Senate Race

On Tuesday, Georgia held its runoff election to see who would represent that state in the Senate. As of Wednesday morning, Jon Osoff appears to have achieved a close victory, which — along with Raphael Warnock’s apparent success in the state — will give the Democrats control of the Senate after Vice President-elect Kamala Harris take her oath. But something from Osoff’s past resurfaced on Twitter while he was in last night’s spotlight. In November 2012, not long after Disney acquired Lucasfilm, Osoff tweeted, “Will it be the Thrawn Trilogy? #starwars #episode7″ This was Osoff wondering aloud about what form Disney’s future Star Wars movies might take.

The tweet suggests that Osoff is a deep enough Star Wars fan to have known who Grand Admiral Thrawn was before he was even Star Wars canon. The Thrawn trilogy Osoff refers to is the three-novel story written by Timothy Zahn and released in the early 1990s that first continued to the Star Wars saga past the events of Return of the Jedi, introducing Thrawn as the new villain. He wasn’t the only Star Wars fan to wonder if Disney would use the trilogy as a blueprint for future films. The studio didn’t go that route. However, the First Order’s role in the post-Return of the Jedi continuity of the Star Wars universe is similar to that of Thrawn’s Seventh Fleet, and The Mandalorian‘s Ahsoka Tano episode suggests Thrawn is in a similar position to where he was in those novels as well.

In the old Star Wars Legends continuity, Thrawn’s fleet spent the Galactic Civil War in the Unknown Regions, building up a defense against possible threats from outside of the galaxy and only returned after the Empire’s fall to battle the Rebel Alliance’s New Republic. The Seventh Fleet may be serving a similar role as a force of opposition to the New Republic in the new post-Return of the Jedi continuity.

In the new Star Wars canon, the Seventh Fleet blockaded Lothal in Star Wars Rebels, leading to a conflict with the Phoenix Cell of the Rebellion. During the Liberation of Lothal, the Jedi Ezra Bridger called on the purrgil — spacefaring, whalelike creatures who traveled through hyperspace — to drag Thrawn’s flagship, Chimaera, into hyperspace. Where they ended up was still a mystery at the end of the Galactic Civil War, which is why Ahsoka and the Mandalorian Rebel Sabine Wren set off to search for Ezra Bridger together.