LORD IMPERATOR
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- Aug 4, 2020
Looking over Lucas' plans for the Sequel Trilogy, there was one time, ONE TIME, when this new canon could have potentially outdone the old in post-ROTJ content. And that was the potential of using Darth Maul and Grand Admiral Thrawn together as part of a new villain faction. Instead of Snoke, Kylo Ren, and Palpatine all over again, having Thrawn be the military leader of a post-Endor Imperial faction while having Darth Maul be their Sith overlord would have worked wonders for a new post-Endor storyline set in the New Republic.
Thrawn DID survive Rebels, but unfortunately, Maul did not. Maul and Thrawn should have just cameo'd in Rebels. Sure, have Thrawn lose to them, have the Rebels sacrifice a lot to defeat Thrawn, which would force the Emperor to relocate Thrawn to the Unknown Regions as punishment for his failure, but Maul should have just shown up in that Temple episode and disappeared after losing the Darksaber. And he should have never deserted his own Mandalorian faction, just have most of them disappear with him after the Empire's rise.
Thrawn did a lot of damage in the old canon with just a half-insane Jedi helping him. Imagine if he had a full Sith Lord like Darth Maul helping him, training Sith warriors for Thrawn's operations in exchange for Thrawn's support for his operations in eradicating the Jedi. And imagine Maul's criminal empire and his Mandalorians funding this new Imperial regime, kidnapping genetically-fit candidates for Thrawn to clone for new Stormtroopers, while they also kidnap Force-sensitive children for Maul to turn into a new Sith Order.
They could potentially have the same kind of setup that KOTOR had: the last surviving apprentice of a previous dark lord fighting alongside a brilliant admiral whose strategies would be half the reason why this broken, shattered remnant of the Empire would pose a threat to a galactic power like the New Republic. Heck, they can even throw in the Star Forge and canonize the KOTOR media (Tales of the Jedi, the KOTOR games and comics, the SWTOR games and comics, and even the Darth Bane novel) so that it would explain how Thrawn rebuilds a navy so fast and why he's serving Darth Maul, when only a dark-sider of sufficient power can use the Forge to build ships, while Thrawn uses Kaminoan or Spaarti cloning tech to build a new clone army, which would explain where they get a large Imperial army from.
You can also have other problems for the Republic to deal with. You can have Maul's black-market operations siphoning money from the elites of the New Republic as they buy spice, slaves, and other forbidden items from Maul's black-market operations, creating a new galactic underworld that the New Republic characters have to investigate. You can have Thrawn slowly rebuilding the Empire from scratch as the New Republic stagnates and weakens due to Maul's criminal operations. You can have Maul's Mandalorians assassinating key Republic personnel while also butting heads with the pro-Republic Mandalorian government headed by Bo-Katan and Sabine Wren, ensuring that an invasion would be easier with key New Republic military personnel either killed or disabled.
And then, near the end of the first movie, you can have the Empire re-emerge as a valid threat that can easily send the Republic forces running for the hills, with advanced Star Destroyers hot off the new Star Forge's factories and clone stormtroopers trained by Maul's Mandalorians, backed up by Sith warriors and sorcerers trained by Darth Maul himself. Thrawn leads the fleet and outwits the New Republic forces repeatedly, annihilating their fleets in the Outer and Mid-Rim and making a push for the galactic core, while ruthless clones and Sith warriors raised by Maul and his henchmen pound the shit out of Republic ground forces. You can even have an aging General Maximilian Veers lead the Imperial ground forces from one victory to the next, and the triumvirate of Maul, Thrawn, and Veers would have the Republic by the balls.
But no, instead, we get uninspired villains fighting Mary Sues and comic relief characters. What a waste, especially since they had everything they needed to make a good sequel trilogy if they just altered a few things from the old canon.
I mean, shit, if I was writing a sequel to Jedi Academy, that's what I would have done. Make it so that the Thrawn who died in the novels was an impostor because the real Thrawn almost got knocked off by Kyle Katarn sometime during his campaign, and he spent all this time in stasis for healing, and he teams up with Darth Maul, who, after having escaped Sidious' imprisonment, disappeared with his criminal and Mandalorian contacts, only resurfacing after the Disciples of Ragnos were beaten. They go to Lehon and find the schematics for the Star Forge, and Maul resurrects Desann's Dark Jedi Shadow Trooper project while having his Mandalorians train Thrawn's clone Stormtroopers grown from Spaarti cloning cylinders, and they secure more funds by selling spice and other forbidden goods to the rich fops in New Republic space, siphoning capital from the New Republic.
Before you know it, the New Republic is under attack by a revived Empire under Darth Maul and Grand Admiral Thrawn, and both Jaden Korr and Kyle Katarn have to fight battles outside and inside the New Republic, as Maul's underworld contacts do whatever they can to cause trouble within the New Republic's borders, assassinating politicians while running illegal spice and slaving operations within Republic space, while the Imperial military has Mandalorian-trained clone stormtroopers and newly-made Star Destroyers being led by a new batch of Dark Jedi Shadow Troopers, causing all sorts of havoc outside New Republic borders as they penetrate the border and make a beeline for Coruscant. That would have been my ideal sequel to Jedi Academy. Heck, I'd even have it so that Dark Side players can start from the Dark Side ending of Jedi Academy and have Dark Side Jaden Korr start off as a part of Thrawn and Maul's revived Empire, and you can either fight alongside them and win, or you can overthrow them and lead their Empire yourself.
Even after losing control of Lucasfilm, Lucas' ideas continue to inspire.........
Thrawn DID survive Rebels, but unfortunately, Maul did not. Maul and Thrawn should have just cameo'd in Rebels. Sure, have Thrawn lose to them, have the Rebels sacrifice a lot to defeat Thrawn, which would force the Emperor to relocate Thrawn to the Unknown Regions as punishment for his failure, but Maul should have just shown up in that Temple episode and disappeared after losing the Darksaber. And he should have never deserted his own Mandalorian faction, just have most of them disappear with him after the Empire's rise.
Thrawn did a lot of damage in the old canon with just a half-insane Jedi helping him. Imagine if he had a full Sith Lord like Darth Maul helping him, training Sith warriors for Thrawn's operations in exchange for Thrawn's support for his operations in eradicating the Jedi. And imagine Maul's criminal empire and his Mandalorians funding this new Imperial regime, kidnapping genetically-fit candidates for Thrawn to clone for new Stormtroopers, while they also kidnap Force-sensitive children for Maul to turn into a new Sith Order.
They could potentially have the same kind of setup that KOTOR had: the last surviving apprentice of a previous dark lord fighting alongside a brilliant admiral whose strategies would be half the reason why this broken, shattered remnant of the Empire would pose a threat to a galactic power like the New Republic. Heck, they can even throw in the Star Forge and canonize the KOTOR media (Tales of the Jedi, the KOTOR games and comics, the SWTOR games and comics, and even the Darth Bane novel) so that it would explain how Thrawn rebuilds a navy so fast and why he's serving Darth Maul, when only a dark-sider of sufficient power can use the Forge to build ships, while Thrawn uses Kaminoan or Spaarti cloning tech to build a new clone army, which would explain where they get a large Imperial army from.
You can also have other problems for the Republic to deal with. You can have Maul's black-market operations siphoning money from the elites of the New Republic as they buy spice, slaves, and other forbidden items from Maul's black-market operations, creating a new galactic underworld that the New Republic characters have to investigate. You can have Thrawn slowly rebuilding the Empire from scratch as the New Republic stagnates and weakens due to Maul's criminal operations. You can have Maul's Mandalorians assassinating key Republic personnel while also butting heads with the pro-Republic Mandalorian government headed by Bo-Katan and Sabine Wren, ensuring that an invasion would be easier with key New Republic military personnel either killed or disabled.
And then, near the end of the first movie, you can have the Empire re-emerge as a valid threat that can easily send the Republic forces running for the hills, with advanced Star Destroyers hot off the new Star Forge's factories and clone stormtroopers trained by Maul's Mandalorians, backed up by Sith warriors and sorcerers trained by Darth Maul himself. Thrawn leads the fleet and outwits the New Republic forces repeatedly, annihilating their fleets in the Outer and Mid-Rim and making a push for the galactic core, while ruthless clones and Sith warriors raised by Maul and his henchmen pound the shit out of Republic ground forces. You can even have an aging General Maximilian Veers lead the Imperial ground forces from one victory to the next, and the triumvirate of Maul, Thrawn, and Veers would have the Republic by the balls.
But no, instead, we get uninspired villains fighting Mary Sues and comic relief characters. What a waste, especially since they had everything they needed to make a good sequel trilogy if they just altered a few things from the old canon.
I mean, shit, if I was writing a sequel to Jedi Academy, that's what I would have done. Make it so that the Thrawn who died in the novels was an impostor because the real Thrawn almost got knocked off by Kyle Katarn sometime during his campaign, and he spent all this time in stasis for healing, and he teams up with Darth Maul, who, after having escaped Sidious' imprisonment, disappeared with his criminal and Mandalorian contacts, only resurfacing after the Disciples of Ragnos were beaten. They go to Lehon and find the schematics for the Star Forge, and Maul resurrects Desann's Dark Jedi Shadow Trooper project while having his Mandalorians train Thrawn's clone Stormtroopers grown from Spaarti cloning cylinders, and they secure more funds by selling spice and other forbidden goods to the rich fops in New Republic space, siphoning capital from the New Republic.
Before you know it, the New Republic is under attack by a revived Empire under Darth Maul and Grand Admiral Thrawn, and both Jaden Korr and Kyle Katarn have to fight battles outside and inside the New Republic, as Maul's underworld contacts do whatever they can to cause trouble within the New Republic's borders, assassinating politicians while running illegal spice and slaving operations within Republic space, while the Imperial military has Mandalorian-trained clone stormtroopers and newly-made Star Destroyers being led by a new batch of Dark Jedi Shadow Troopers, causing all sorts of havoc outside New Republic borders as they penetrate the border and make a beeline for Coruscant. That would have been my ideal sequel to Jedi Academy. Heck, I'd even have it so that Dark Side players can start from the Dark Side ending of Jedi Academy and have Dark Side Jaden Korr start off as a part of Thrawn and Maul's revived Empire, and you can either fight alongside them and win, or you can overthrow them and lead their Empire yourself.
Even after losing control of Lucasfilm, Lucas' ideas continue to inspire.........
