Trivia / The Thrawn Trilogy

• Contest Winner Cameo: Of all the tropes in this trilogy, this one's what you'd least expect, but the tractor beam crewer and his officer in the first book, as it turns out...
• Development Gag: When Luke confronts Joruus C'baoth on Wayland and C'baoth introduces his new killer clone (which turns out to be a clone of Luke himself) Luke initially wonders if it might be a clone of Darth Vader, before realizing it's not tall enough. Zahn had originally intended that it would be a clone of Vader, but this was vetoed by Lucas Licensing.
• Duelling Works: A rare intra-franchise example between these novels and the concurrent Dark Empire comic book series written by Tom Veitch. Both series were conceived as immediate sequels to the Original Trilogy, and although Dark Empire was conceived first, Heir to the Empire was released a few months earlier. Zahn was purportedly dismissive of Dark Empire and refused to incorporate references to the storyline into his Thrawn books, but since both series were set in the same universe, Veitch's comic had to be pushed forward six years in the in-universe timeline to accommodate the events of Zahn's novels. The fact that both Zahn and Veitch had many of the same basic ideas caused some incongruities (e.g. both authors wanted to write a major plot point of Han and Leia having Force-sensitive children, but the twins Jacen and Jaina are only briefly seen in Dark Empire) that had to be ironed out in later works. Ultimately, while Dark Empire made a big splash initially due to its great artwork and crowd-pleasing elements, the runaway success of Heir to the Empire ensured that Zahn's trilogy would become much more influential to the formation of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (both the old and the new).
• No Export for You: The unabridged audio books are not available in the UK.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally Zahn wanted the character that became Joruus C'baoth to be an insane clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the clone he unleashes on Luke at the end of The Last Command to be a clone of Darth Vader. Lucas Licensing vetoed both of these.
  • Also vetoed was the original name he proposed for the Noghri: the Sith. Which explains the Vader connections—Zahn, like many fans, was speculating just what Vader's title 'Dark Lord of the Sith' actually meant. At the time, evil Force-users were simply called "Dark Jedi" in the Expanded Universe. The Noghri's bulging eyes and protruding jaws were also supposed to be the inspiration for the design of Vader's mask.
  • Some sources claim that, at one point, there were plans to have Shannon McRandle (the model who poses for Mara Jade on trading cards and book covers) make a brief cameo in Jabba's throne room in the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi, since it's established in this trilogy that Mara was hiding out there waiting to kill Luke. It may have been dropped because of George Lucas' dislike for the character.
  • According to Zahn at some fan panels, in earlier drafts, Thrawn was less cool and composed, had major traits of The Paranoiac, and was much less of a Benevolent Boss, thinking everyone was out to get him due to his non-human nature.