Fanfic / Star Wars: Ascendancy

Star Wars: Ascendancy is a post-Star Wars Rebels fanfic by MrPyroCrab. It takes place immediately after Ezra and Thrawn disappeared into hyperspace during the Battle of Lothal. It can also be found here on Archive of Our Own.

Stranded in the Unknown Regions without enough fuel to return to Imperial Space, Grand Admiral Thrawn is left with one option for survival: to return to his home, the Chiss Ascendancy. In order to navigate the Unknown Region, he makes an unholy alliance with the Rebel Jedi Ezra Bridger, and promises him information on a threat to the entire galaxy which he could have never possibly imagined.

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This fanfic contains examples of:

• Adaptation Name Change: In Survivor's Quest, the Vagaari's government is revealed to be called the Vagaari Empire. Here, they are instead referred to as the Vagaari Miskarate.
• Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: Like most species in the Unknown Regions, despite having the industrial capability and technical know-how to construct spaceships, the Narivan never invented droids (a technology that the humans of the galaxy have had for thousands of years).
• Big Bad: The Voidlord, a Yuuzhan Vong warlord who nearly defeated the Chiss Ascendancy in the past. He's the biggest threat that the crew of the Chimaera face in the Unknown Regions and his hunt for the Seventh Fleet as they try to make their way to Chiss Space drives the fic's main conflict forward.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Miskara Pesh of the Vagaari Miskarate presents himself as a wealthy Galactic Conqueror; dressing in elaborate silk robes, surrounding himself with slaves taken from alien races he's subjugated, and boasting of his people's legacy as conquerors and warriors. In reality, he's what the Vagaari have always accused the Ebruchi of being: a pirate with delusions of grandeur who bullies primitives too technologically backwards to fight back. Even Pesh's own second-in-command views him as a Fat Idiot whose disastrous leadership has turned the Vagaari into galactic laughingstocks. It's clear from the very beginning that Thrawn could easily destroy Pesh's fleet if he wanted to, and the only reason he doesn't is because he considers it a waste of time. When the Voidlord decides to enlist the Vagaari as part of his hunt for the Chimaera, he easily cows Pesh into submission by seizing his treasure ships and threatening to kill all his slaves.
• Big "NO!":
  • Ezra delivers one in Chapter 8 in response to the Mnggal-Mnggal's "The Reason You Suck" Speech where it accuses him of being a murderer.
  • Ezra in Chapter 10 after the Mnggal-Mnggal taunts him by speculating about the ways that the Ghost's crew would be horrifically killed once the rest of the Yuuzhan Vong's fleets reach the galaxy.
• Bird People: The Narivans are a race of feathered avians who reside on the world of Neriva in the Unknown Regions. Thrawn and Ezra make first contact with them during the Chimaera's journey to the Chiss Ascendancy.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The Narivan are divided on whether to help the Imperials when the Chimaera jumps into their star system asking for permission to use their orbital shipyards to repair their fleet. Admiral Carala is of the opinion that the Imperials are nothing but trouble since they came in a heavily-armed warship, utilized Gunboat Diplomacy, and are obviously not being entirely truthful about themselves. However, those in favor of helping the Imperials like President Reelak point out that the Imperials are offering to trade their advanced technology, star maps, and information on neighboring alien governments; all of which the Narivan desperately need if they have any hope of surviving against aggressive alien races like the Vagaari. The Narivans favoring cooperation also point out that they are in no position to make demands since Thrawn threatened to turn his Star Destroyer's guns on them if they refused, although Carala counters that this means the Imperials could just as easily renege on any deals they make.
• Call a Human a "Meatbag": Being Bird People, the Narivan give the humans from the Chimaera the nickname "No-feathers".
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Before the purrgil dragged the Chimaera into hyperspace, the last order the Royal Guard trio received from Palpatine was to "bring [Ezra's] corpse back to Coruscant". However, they agree to hold off on killing Ezra until they reach the Chiss Ascendancy since his Force-sensitivity is the only thing allowing the Seventh Fleet to safely navigate the Unknown Regions.
• Continuity Nod: When Thrawn asks Ezra if he ever wondered what species he even was, Ezra sarcastically retorts that he assumed Thrawn was a Pantoran with an eye condition. This is a nod to the Thrawn novel where Pryce's friend Driller MarDapp said the exact same thing when he first saw Thrawn at a ballroom party.
• Cultural Rebel: Amongst the Yuuzhan Vong, the Voidlord is viewed as a cultural outlier. Whereas most Vong are Scary Dogmatic Aliens concerned with conquering and terraforming worlds, the Voidlord instead embraces the life of a Space Pirate who pillages worlds for their wealth and then destroys whatever's left via Orbital Bombardment for shits and giggles. He doesn't show any hatred towards aliens that use machines either—to the point where he adopts a Faux Affably Evil demeanor while communicating with the Vagaari—and even takes a personal curiosity towards the Star Destroyers in Thrawn's fleet.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The end of Chapter 3 has the Vagaari Mothership going up against the Voidlord's personal flagship. The Vagaari are barely able to fire off a shot before the Voidlord activates his bio-ship's dovin basals and uses their control over gravity to tear off all of the mothership's Deflector Shields and weapon emplacements from their hull. With the mothership now weaponless and defenseless, the Voidlord proceeds to fire on the Vagaari's slave bubbles with his bio-ship's plasma cannons until the Miskara gives in to his demands.
• The Dreaded: The Voidlord is widely feared throughout the Unknown Regions due to his hobby of plundering and razing entire planets for sport. Just about every major faction within the Unknown Regions has had at least one of their worlds attacked by the Voidlord's armada. It says something when Grand Admiral Thrawn himself is so scared of this guy that he is unwilling to risk a battle even with a fleet of Imperial Star Destroyers at his back. Just before being incinerated by Flametroopers, the Mnggal-Mnggal claims that knowing he's being hunted by the Voidlord has made Thrawn more terrified than at any other point in his life and he is trying to hide this behind a stoic face.
• Eviler than Thou: The Voidlord establishes himself as a much greater threat than the Vagaari when his ships easily dominate the Prime Vagaari Fleet. The Vagaari's typical tactics of using their slaves as Human Shields proves completely ineffective against him as he couldn't care less about innocent lives and even makes a point by deliberately shooting all of the Vagaari Mothership's slave bubbles. The threat of having all their slaves killed is actually one of the reasons that the Vagaari capitulate to his demands. To further "motivate" them, the Voidlord then robs the Vagaari of nearly all their wealth while they can only helplessly watch.
• First Contact: The crew of the Chimaera makes first contact between the Galactic Empire and the Narivans, a race of avian aliens who just recently developed spaceflight technology. Thrawn is able to decipher the Narivan language by having his translator droids analyze recordings of their speech and compare it with the languages of other known avian species.
• Ghost Ship: In chapter 5, the Chimaera comes across a seemingly abandoned starship the size of a Star Destroyer floating within an asteroid field. Thrawn recognizes the ship as belonging to the Celaphid Syndicates, the Unknown Regions' equivalent of the Hutts, and guesses from the markings of Vagaari weaponry on the hull that the ship was attacked by Vagaari raiders and made a Blind Jump into an asteroid field to escape where the crew perished after their escape pods crashed into the surrounding asteroids. Detecting that the ship has a much-needed supply of coolant, Thrawn sends Ezra and several squads of Stormtroopers to salvage what they can from the vessel. When the search teams arrive, they find the ship's interior coated with an unidentified grey sludge that they assume is Alien Blood. It's actually the Mnggal-Mnggal, who was responsible for killing the previous crew and begins gradually picking off the Stormtroopers one by one until only Ezra, Ayer, and a single squad remain.
• Gunboat Diplomacy: Thrawn employs this method during the Chimaera's First Contact with the Narivan Global Federation after realizing that Narivan fleet is bluffing when they nonverbally threaten to destroy the Chimaera with a warning shot from one of their cruisers. Thrawn meets their bluff with a show of force and has his Star Destroyer unload its full broadside of turbolaser batteries into a nearby asteroid field, decimating it completely. Ezra is none too pleased with this, though Thrawn responds that all he did was showcase his Star Destroyer's strength and it is up to the Narivan whether they want to interpret the action as a threat.
  Thrawn: We have met [the Narivans'] bluff with a showcase of strength.
  Ezra: More like a threat...
  Thrawn: No, I'm simply meeting their posturing with a display of our strength. The implication of such an act is entirely their own invention.
  Ezra: How can you be so sure they're going to back down?
  Thrawn: Why wouldn't they? What are they going to do? Attack us? Drive us out of their system? They don't have the capability to do so.
• Inevitable Mutual Betrayal: After the Narivan start working together with the Imperials to repair the Seventh Fleet, it's made clear that both sides are prepared to eventually betray each other. Although Thrawn did honor his deal to give the Narivan samples of Imperial technology, he's secretly given the rest of the Seventh Fleet orders to seize the Narivan shipyards by force should he signal them and is implied to have plans to annex the Narivan Global Federation into his Empire of the Hand. At the same time, President Reelak and Professor Kreel believe they can outsmart Thrawn and intend to exploit the Imperials for all their advanced technology.
• It Gets Easier: When Ezra asks Ayer how he can go on despite knowing he's killed so many, the Stormtrooper explains how he's learned not to think about it and that the Empire slowly desensitized him to death with each person he killed.
  Ayer: At first it was honestly pretty boring: patrols, garrison duty, occasionally breaking up a minor insurgency somewhere. All that stuff you and your Rebels hate? They introduce that slowly, get you used to it, desensitize you to it, by the time you really get into the more questionable stuff you just kind learn to stop asking questions...
  Ezra: You learn to not think about it.
  Ayer: I never went out of my way to kill anyone, you know. It just sort of "happened". The objective was always "get the cargo" or "take out this installation" and the dying was just... a side effect.
• Kill It with Fire: When Ezra seemingly escapes the Mnggal-Mnggal and flies his shuttle back to Thrawn's ship, he unknowingly brings along a piece of the Mnggal-Mnggal with him. Due to his previous experience, Thrawn is prepared for this and has the shuttle scorched by flametroopers who successfully eradicate the creature before it can cause any mayhem.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: The Mnggal-Mnggal does this in Chapter 10 after Ezra and Ayer narrowly escape its clutches. Up until then, the main advantage the Mnggal-Mnggal had was that Thrawn wasn't aware of its presence aboard the Ghost Ship and had sent Ezra as part of the search team. When the Mnggal-Mnggal initially tries ramming Celaphid ship into the Chimaera after its existence is discovered, Thrawn is unable to fire on the ship due to Ezra still being aboard. Once the Mnggal-Mnggal loses the element of surprise and no longer has Ezra to act as a Human Shield, it makes the decision to immediately flee into hyperspace as soon as Ezra's shuttle has left the hanger bay since there was nothing left to keep Thrawn from ordering his Star Destroyer to open fire on its ship.
• Mercy Killing: When Ezra protests Thrawn's order for his TIE Defenders to destroy the Vagaari's interdictor ship even after discovering that the Vagaari ship was using slaves as living shields, Thrawn's response is to claim that killing the Vagaari's slaves is a form of mercy since he considers enslavement by the Vagaari to be a Fate Worse than Death.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: At the start of chapter 11, Ezra is abruptly awoken from his sleep after sensing the destruction of Alderaan through the Force.
• Mythology Gag
  • While explaining to Commodore Faro about some of the threats lurking in the Unknown Regions, Thrawn mentions the Ssi-ruuk and the Kiliks, two alien species from the Legends continuity.
  • In chapter 15, Veltosh refers to the Miskara's search for the Imperials as a "wild Ebruchi chase". In Legends, the Ebruchi were a race of nomadic aliens who turned to piracy after the Vagaari conquered and destroyed their homeworld.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The Narvian species as a whole had one decades prior to the main story. Similar to how the Rebels liberated Lothal from the Galactic Empire, the Narivan staged a successful rebellion against their Vagaari slavers and drove them off their homeworld despite being a pre-spaceflight civilization going up against an interstellar empire. The fact that the Vagaari have never returned for a rematch implies that the Narivan people handed the Vagaari Miskarate such a devastating defeat that the Vagaari decided it was better to leave them alone.
• Oh, Crap!: Ezra's reaction upon being told by Thrawn that the purrgil have stranded them in the Unknown Regions.
• Patchwork Fic: Although taking place in the Canon EU, the fic incorporates elements of Legends like the Vagaari, the Yuuzhan Vong, and the Mnggal-Mnggal alongside characters exclusive to the Disney canon like Ezra Bridger and Commodore Faro.
• Pet the Dog: Shockingly, the Mnggal-Mnggal has one at the end of Chapter 8 after Ezra enters a Heroic BSoD from its Breaking Speech. Just as he loses the will to continue fighting, Ezra asks for the Mnggal-Mnggal to spare the life of Ayer in exchange for his own. Even though its a cruel Eldritch Abomination who takes a perverse pleasure in mentally breaking Jedi, the Mnggal-Mnggal fully honors its agreement with Ezra and allows Ayer to return to his shuttle unharmed. It's implied that this was because the Mnggal-Mnggal was in a good mood due to now having a Jedi it could torture for all eternity.
• Properly Paranoid: Due to their past enslavement by the Vagaari, the Narivan have developed a xenophobia towards all aliens. In the case of the Imperials, however, their distrust is completely merited. Admiral Carala in particular believes that the Imperials are more trouble than they're worth and wants them to leave Neriva immediately. Considering that both the Vagaari and Yuuzhan Vong are currently hunting the Seventh Fleet, it's not a bad idea to want them gone as soon as possible.
• Punch-Clock Villain: After saving Ezra from the Mnggal-Mnggal in chapter 9, Captain Ayer tells Ezra why he joined the Empire and helps him realize that most Stormtroopers are normal people who are just trying to make a living and are indifferent to the Empire's conflict with the Rebel Alliance.
  Ayer: Look, I never really "hated" the Rebels beyond losing a few good men to them. I never felt any particular love or patriotism for the Empire. Stormtrooper corps was a job. I needed the money, and I wanted out of the Coruscant slums, so I just signed up when I was old enough, got my armour and fell into line.
  [...]
  Ezra: And most Stormtroopers aren't exactly out for blood. For most of them the Empire just pays their salary, puts a blaster in their hands and tells them where to shoot.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ezra is on the receiving end of scathing one in chapter 8, courtesy of the Mnggal-Mnggal who uses a dead Stormtrooper as an example of the numerous deaths Ezra is responsible for.
  Mnggal-Mnggal: I see their memories [...] [D]o you know what I see? I see him at the heart of the Galaxy... the planet you call "Coruscant". I see him joining the ship you call the Chimaera as it departs for Lothal. I see him and I see his wife, and his children. I see her, I see the looks of concern and worry on her face. I see him, as he kisses her, and holds her, and tells her that he loves her and he will be back soon. I see his children crying as he leaves. Now look where he is... all because of you, he is here because of you, he is on this ship because of your actions. Where is his family now? What will you tell that woman? And her children? That because of you he died alone far from home? His last thoughts were of them you know... What would you say to them? How could you ever hope to confront them? The loved ones of every single one of them you've ever killed!? What would you tell them!? You did it for the cause!? For your precious Rebellion!? Would you look them in the eye!? And tell them their loved ones had to die because they were evil!? Would you have the will to even do such a thing, Jedi!? [mockingly] Ezra Bridger! Jedi Knight! Freedom Fighter! Hero of the Rebellion! Protector of Lothal! Fancy names you tell yourself to hide the fact that you are nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer!
• Shiny-Looking Spaceships: The ships used by the Celaphid Syndicates are known throughout the Unknown Regions for their silver-chrome hulls. Faro finds that design of the abandoned Celaphid starship the Chimaera encountered in Chapter 5 reminds her of the Naboo Royal Starships.
• Shout-Out: The design for the Voidlord's flagship is inspired by the Reapers from Mass Effect.
• Slave Race: The Narivan had their first encounter with alien life when the Vagaari invaded their planet and enslaved the entire populace. By the time the Chimaera arrives on Neriva, the Narivan have long since liberated themselves and successfully driven the Vagaari off their world, although the experience has left them distrustful of outsiders.
• Stern Chase: Much of the story focuses around the Seventh Fleet attempting to evade the Voidlord's forces as they navigate their way through the Unknown Regions to Chiss space.
• Take That!: When Palpatine's Royal Guards force Ezra to engage in a "sparring match" with them as payback for being buried under rubble during the Battle of Lothal, Ezra tries to intimidate them by boasting how his master Kanan defeated the Grand Inquisitor. The lead Royal Guard responds by mocking the Inquisitorius as a bunch of "poor Vader knock-offs" and tells Ezra this:
  Royal Guard: I hate to break it to you kid, but beating an Inquisitor is not an impressive feat, no self-respecting warrior should be using those idiotic spinning lightsabers.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Ezra finds himself having to team-up with Thrawn as his Force-sensitivity is the only thing able to allow Thrawn's fleet to safely navigate their way through the Unknown Regions. Neither party is particularly happy about this as most of the surviving Imperials understandably blame Ezra for stranding them in the Unknown Regions to begin with and Ezra is displeased at having to work with the very people who just tried to destroy his home via orbital bombardment.
• Terminally Dependent Society: Because the Vagaari are a nomadic species, they have to constantly raid planets in order to acquire the supplies and slave labor needed to sustain themselves and maintain their aged starships. A single failed raid is enough to push their entire society on the verge of collapse.
• Vestigial Empire: The Vagaari have been hit with this hard. In the past, they were a vast slave empire that threatened the Chiss Ascendancy, controlled a large portion of the Unknown Regions, and fielded an impressive fleet of warships hundreds strong. By the time the Chimaera encounters them, the Vagaari's repeated wars with the Chiss, combined with Miskara Pesh's incompetent leadership, have seen them reduced to living aboard a few dozen ramshackle starships in constant states of disrepair. This is even reflected by the state of the Miskara's throne room, which is brightly lit to create an illusion of opulence and has aged walls covered with rust. After the Voidlord makes off with all of the Vagaari's treasure ships, they are left in an even sorrier state as they suffer chronic resource shortages and their nomadic way of life is said to be on the verge of becoming unsustainable.
• Villainous Breakdown: Palpatine had one after Ezra prevented him from entering the World Between Worlds. He was so enraged by Ezra foiling his plans that immediately following the destruction of Lothal's Jedi Temple, he stormed in on Thrawn's meeting at Coruscant with demands for the Grand Admiral to forget his previous orders and immediately return to Lothal with the Seventh Fleet to carry out a full extermination of its populace.
• Why Isn't It Attacking?: In chapter 12, the Chimaera discovers the homeworld of the Narivan, an aggressively xenophobic and isolationist alien race, and is immediately confronted by a fleet of Narivan warships demanding that they leave or be fired upon. Thrawn calls them on their bluff, explaining to Ezra that if the Narivan really wanted to be left alone, they would destroy any alien vessels they encountered rather than letting them leave and risk spreading word of their planet's location. In Thrawn's case, there's even more incentive for the Narivan to attack since Thrawn had just told their fleet's commander that his ship was damaged, wandering in uncharted space, and had lost contact with the rest of his empire. As far as the Narivan know, they have everything to gain from destroying the Chimaera since the Empire would never learn of their existence nor would they face any retaliation for the act. Going off this, Thrawn deduces that the Narivan are making an empty threat because they know their ships are no match for the Chimaera and are hoping to scare him away before he realizes it as well.

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