#(absolutely not routed in anything canon that last one its just something brewing at the back of my mind that rounds the characters out)

[themalhambird]

Thinking about Tom Bertram's sick room and how we only see it in Fanny's imagination (painting from what Edmund's letters tell her) and I'm just. I don't see Tom's illness being the bonding time it can sometimes be taken as.

[gffa]

I've had something sort of slowly brewing in my head and, I suppose, I need to get it out before reliable TLJ spoilers come along.  I don't actually expect to be right about this, but I gotta distract myself from the anxiety somehow! Way back when I read the Thrawn novel for the first time, there was an absolutely fascinating exchange between him and the Emperor about why Thrawn would join the Empire:

   "As a start, I offer information," Thrawn said. If he was offended, Eli couldn't hear it in his voice. "There are threats lurking in the Unknown Regions, threats that will someday find your Empire. I am familiar with many of them."    "I will learn of them soon enough on my own," the Emperor countered placidly. "Can you offer anything more?"    "Perhaps you will learn of them in time to defeat them," Thrawn said. "Perhaps you will not. What more do I offer? I offer my military skill. You could utilize that skill in making plans to seek out and eliminate these dangers."    "These threats you speak of," the Emperor said. "I presume they're not simply threats to my Empire?"    "No, Your Majesty," Thrawn said. "They are also threats to my people."    "And you seek to eliminate all such threats to your people?"    "I do."    The Emperor's yellowish eyes seemed to glitter. "And you wish the help of my Empire?"    "Your assistance would be welcome."

The implication that, ooh, hey, the new version of the Yuuzhan Vong are maybe out there was interesting but I sort of dismissed it as Zahn hinting at maybe recanonizing some other stuff that may-or-may-not actually happen.  But it stuck with me as a reasonable explanation for why Thrawn, a character of honor at least in his own book, would join the Empire.  Because he believed they were stronger than the New Republic and, when the time came for that threat from the Unknown Regions (which is where the Chiss Ascendancy is), the Empire would be an ally to the Chiss. Fast forward to me reading a fair amount of the stuff from the sequel trilogy and the slowly growing question of, “Why the fuck is Jakku in EVERYTHING?  I thought it was a backwater planet that meant nothing!”  First there was the Battle of Jakku, the last major battle of the Galactic Civil War--hence all those downed ships that Rey was scavenging.  Okay, fair enough.  Then there’s the Emperor’s Observatory, where something more is hiding on that planet. And it just kind of keeps going.  (Bear with me, this gets kind of long.  Also some very minor spoilers for the TLJ Visual Dictionary )

The Observatory on Jakku had a bunch of computers there, displaying a map of the Unknown Regions, along with the Sith artifacts and the path down into the core of the planet to help blow it up as part of Operation Cinder.  The map was being generated by information he got from Thrawn and by the probes he’d sent out there. Then there’s Star Wars: Battlefront II and Project Resurrection (which is likely to be a SWBF2 thing, I think? not part of whatever this bigger thing is, I suspect) and Operation Cinder and the planet of Pillio where another of Palpatine’s Observatories exist.  It’s also where Luke finds a special compass that will come up again later.

I haven’t read the Aftermath trilogy yet, but it delves more deeply into the Observatory on Jakku, how Palpatine was absolutely obsessed with something coming from the Unknown Regions (whether it was a person or a tremendous well of the dark side or the source of some great power/the Force or what) and we know, in a more generalized Star Wars canon, that the Unknown Regions are precisely that because they’re incredibly difficult to explore.  They have few hyperlanes established, there are a bunch of black holes and such out there that make travel dangerous, etc. With the leaked Visual Dictionary for TLJ, we know that the compass Luke found on Pillio (and was mentioned in Legends of Luke Skywalker) was “attuned to hyperspace vectors”.

The Unknown Regions are also where where the First Order set up base after the remnants of the fallen Empire fled there to reestablish themselves.  (As a side note:  I suspect Mortis may at least be touched on in all this, but that was out in Wild Space, not the Unknown Regions.) I find it hard to believe that this isn’t building towards something.  Are we getting a new version of the Yuuzhan Vong?  Is that what Snoke already is?  (Unlikely since he was at least in the GFFA long enough to witness the Rise of the Empire.)  Or is this going to be what we’re facing in IX, when some major new threat comes along? Or will this be the subject of the new trilogy?  (I doubt that.  It’s been said that this is a part of SW lore that hasn’t been explored before and “a great enemy threat from the Unknown Regions” has definitely been explored before.)  Was the compass just to find Ahch-To, which is also in the Unknown Regions? Some other bits to chew on--from the leaked Visual Dictionary, there are special attendants in Snoke’s throne room:

Some sort of alien with an enlarged brain that can “process multidimensional calculations”, which sounds at least similar to what a droid does when it’s calculating a hyperspace route. But what got me really curious is catching up on Star Wars: Rebels, where the Phoenix crew are saved by the Lothwolves and they are lead through what looks VERY MUCH LIKE a hyperspace tunnel. It glows blue and then the way it reflects in Ezra’s eyes is very much like what jumping to hyperspace looks like.  (This is after the Lothwolves have very specifically gotten Ezra’s attention and made a point of getting Kanan involved in this, including calling out his name, “Dume.”

Once they get through the tunnel, they realize they’re on the entire other hemisphere of Lothal, that there are paintings on the walls depicting some kind of story. And that they’re pretty sure the Empire is doing something way more sinister here than just a new TIE defender:

Another Observatory?  We know there are ones on Pillio and Jakku, it might make sense for there to be one on Lothal as well (especially since it’s towards the edge of the galaxy, even if it’s on the other side)?  Maybe just an experiment on an Outer Rim world that they’re already strip-mining for supplies? Kanan confirms that the Lothwolves are deeply connected to the Force in some way and the paintings probably depict Jedi, including one falling from the sky (similar to how they themselves traveled through the hyperspace tunnel?) and Ezra says that it’s really familiar to the other Jedi Temple on Lothal--which means the Jedi are definitely connected to this. A couple of other shots of paintings we see:

It’s hard to make much out, but I keep looking at that wolf and it keeps reminding me of a line of stars, like a mapped route being laid out, a bit like...

It kind of reminds me of:

I think, whatever’s coming, it has to do with hyperspace lane routes and the Unknown Regions, but what precisely, I’m not sure.  Whether something is out there that is coming along those routes aor they’ll need them for something or if we’re looking at lanes that can be traveled without a ship.  Palpatine certainly wants to fucking know, obviously! And it’s tied up in other stuff going on--like Operation Cinder is about burning down the Empire out of SHEER SPITE if it can’t support and protect its Empire, that Palpatine doesn’t want anyone but himself to have it. But something with hyperspace, the Jedi, and the Unknown Regions seems to be coming.