Ahsoka: Is Star Wars Adapting the Thrawn Trilogy Books?

Star Wars: Ahsoka is now streaming on Disney+, and the first two episodes of the show make it very clear that this latest Star Wars live-action Disney+ series is a direct sequel to the Star Wars Rebels animated series of the 2010s. However, even though it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, it’s highly suspected that Ahsoka is also the first big step forward toward Rebels and Ahsoka co-creator Dave Filoni’s upcoming Star Wars event film set in the New Republic Era, which will presumably bring together all the major TV characters active at the time (The Mandorians Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze, Ahsoka Tano and Phoenix Crew, Boba Fett’s syndicate, etc.) to face a major threat in the form of Grand Admiral Thrawn. 

However, now that we’re actually seeing Ahsoka it seems as though there could be another major piece of Star Wars lore that’s mixed into its DNA: The original Thrawn Trilogy books. 

What is Star Wars’ Thrawn Trilogy? Explained

The original Star Wars Expanded Universe (now known as the “Star Wars Legends” Universe) had its biggest hit in the 1990s with author Timothy Zahn’s “Thrawn Trilogy” of novels, Heir to the Empire (1991), Dark Force Rising (1992), and The Last Command (1993). The trilogy and its titular villain were both so popular with fans, for so long, that Disney and Lucasfilm decided to make the character official canon, by introducing him into the Star Wars Rebels animated series, as well as having Zahn write a new trilogy of books about the Imperial mastermind, Thrawn (2017), Thrawn: Alliances (2018), and Thrawn: Treason (2019); they were followed by a prequel novel trilogy by Zahn, the “Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy.”

It seems that Dave Filoni and Star Wars: Ahsoka are interested in honoring Timothy Zahn’s original Thrawn Trilogy, as the plot, timeline, and character arcs (with some substitutions) are all pretty in tune with the first book, Heir to the Empire. In that novel, five years after the Battle of Endor (in Return of the Jedi), Thrawn returns from a distant outpost and begins a plot to organize Imperial remnants and weaponry into a  game-changing strike against the New Republic. At the same time, Thrawn allies himself with a powerful Dark Jedi, who attempts to turn Luke and Leia to the dark side. The trilogy saw the New Republic nearly toppled by Thrawn until the Star Wars heroes mustered their forces and fought back. 

Ahsoka seems to be serving as a prelude to the same basic framework of events from the Thrawn book trilogy – with some obvious tweaks. Instead of the Original Trilogy heroes (Luke Leia Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando) showing up to battle Thrawn like in the books, it will be the heroes of Rebels and The Mandalorian – while The Book of Boba Fett corner could presumably fill the Smugglers’ Alliance’s pivotal role in the story. Similarly, it looks like the story of Dark Jedi Joruus C’baoth will be refitted into whatever dark side faction is being represented by Baylan Skoll and his cohorts. 

The new Star Wars Universe ‘paying homage’ (read: free borrowing) from the old Star Wars EU isn’t new: many elements of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy carried shades of famous EU storylines. Thrawn has always been the biggest success story of the EU’s imaginative visions of Star Wars getting canonized – so why not his most famous story, as well? 

Star Wars: Ahsoka is streaming on Disney+.