Great points and ideas!
Apologies, but the Thrawn-nod being one of the nine pirate lords rather than the lone one is a great idea. Behaviour-wise, being a tip-of-the-hat character to what would come, the Thrawn expy is everything he isn't... brash, impulsive, capricious but having just enough of that clinical foresight that we know our Chiss-admiral having.
I figure nine different pirate lords and ladies, with one eventually being proclaimed King as the threads resolve makes the best combination of creating several potential major characters, campaigns, and establishes the seeds of resentment from those in the Core. Also any Chiss privateer being the leader would've been too samey, which is too big of an issue.
Also I'll be honest I thought seven was too samey, since a lot of anime abuses seven bad asses as their standard.
Also that's spot on for how the Thrawn expy should be, since the idea is you can see why he'd succeed, but you then boggle at how different the two are on things and how they think.
About the Corporations rising, it may be too soon during this timeframe. What comes after this pirate lord, lawless epoch would be a good time for the Corps to find their foothold, leading up to Episode I. Hell, show a young Velorum progenitor as a kid during this time, before the family rose to power and politics.
Oh that's perfectly fair. I still do like the concept of a flare up of bounty hunting as a profession. It'd also allow you to play with whatever mix of westerns or samurai style films you wish. Honestly I'd have included more of them as characters than Jedi, since every bounty hunter has a story. Honestly the protagonist for that half would likely be a young fuck up who went into bounty hunting to rebuild an identity and try to find redemption/security in life.
Though the Jedi characters, besides the poor bastards in the cult, would likely be lower on the totem pole due to being out in the sticks.
Maybe one was under a Master who brought some cloud on themself and taints their reputation by proxy. A bit of pottery in shine and all that. Another one is just some poor dumb Padawan whose life falls apart during one of their first mission.
Look at us. A bunch of people shitposting and having a decent discussion over a multi-billion dollar juggernaut and they make garbage like Tam Pozla and trite High Republic stuff.
It is a testament to how hard you have to try to suck that bad that it's trivial to out do their own product.
that sounds like a fun & interesting setting - so Disney won't be doing that.
Maybe have something go wrong in Hyperspace that restrict's the republics ability to respond.
You could even enhance the setting by framing it as "Of course the republic talks about a thousand years of peace of and prosperity - for the Core Worlds, it was" and drive home just how much of a backwater planets like Tattoonie are - there's this entire series of campaigns, this protracted war, that doesn't even rate as important enough for Coruscant history books.
I think the right way to so the Sith things is you have increasing evidence there are sith on the prowl. Make it look like the Pirate King (or his advisor) is Sith - important battles turn to the pirates on events that could only be the work of the force. Then during the big show down with the Jedi, he doesn't use any force abilities just low-cunning.
The Sith Lord was a minor character, using their powers to sow disorder and making the Pirate King look like the Sith to distract the Jedi while his real plan was being put into place.
This is about where I'd go for Sith. At best you only ever deal with their apprentice, and the master at best in small snippets as the hidden dread. At worst, it's just plain paranoia that makes you think they're actually there, but honestly aren't.
Also a sect of Dark Jedi who essentially become inhuman and emotionless monsters would be a more interesting twist. No sith lightning BS, none of that in the open. Just their techniques used for ill.
Like a Dark Jedi with actual fucking Dim Mak style death touch kung fu.
