Heir to the Empire

Author Annotations

Chapter 1

¹ Each of the three classic Star Wars movies includes a Star Destroyer in its opening scene. All of my Rebellion-era books do the same.

—TIMOTHY ZAHN

² I wanted to set up the Fleet as having suffered during the chaos and retreat of the years since Endor, slipping back from the generally efficient war machine shown in the movies to something less polished. Lieutenant Tschel was an example of the eager but inexperienced crewers that the Empire now had to whip into fighting shape, contrasting with the old-school competence and tradition of Captain Pellaeon.

—TZ

³ The Grand Admirals were to be part of this same overall plan: an extra layer put in at the top of the military command, its members appointed by and answerable only to the Emperor.

—TZ

⁴ Later, after the 501st Legion fan group began, it was also established that Vader similarly liked to grab the Empire’s best stormtroopers and add them to his personal legion. I got to play with that idea a bit in later books.

—TZ

⁵ When Heir first came out, I got a few questions about how this fit with the celebrations we saw at the end of Return of the Jedi. My answer was that those were spontaneous shows of relief and defiance by the galaxy’s ordinary citizens, but that the Empire’s military was far from defeated. In fact, it would be ten more years of Star Wars time until Vision of the Future, when the war with the Empire would finally end.

—TZ

⁶ I don’t see Thrawn as the type to use unwilling conscripts. Clearly, this was something other Imperial leaders had initiated before his return.

—TZ

⁷ I wanted Heir’s villain to be a military leader, as opposed to a governor, Moff, or Sith. But a normal admiral seemed too commonplace. Hence, the Grand Admirals.

I first ran across the title, by the way, in connection with the German navy in William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

—TZ

⁸ With none of Vader’s backstory available at the time, and having just invented the Noghri species for this story, I came up with the idea that Vader might have designed his mask to look like a stylized version of a Noghri face, the better to facilitate his command of the death commando squads. (At the time, of course, I didn’t know that it would be revealed in RotS that Palpatine had provided the mask.) I wasn’t allowed to explicitly make the mask/Noghri connection in Heir, but I thought I might be permitted to do so later in the trilogy, so I went ahead and designed the aliens’ faces with that resemblance in mind.

Of course, we know now that the mask (which had originally been based on Ralph McQuarrie’s preproduction drawings) was provided by Palpatine, based on his own twisted, evil Sith specs, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the Noghri.

Just as well that LFL hadn’t let me run with this one. Yet another instance where their caution about letting my imagination stray too far saved me from future embarrassment.

—TZ

⁹ Originally, I had Rukh and his fellows being Sith, keying off Vader’s title Lord of the Sith. Since at that point the term hadn’t been defined, I figured I was safe. But Lucasfilm was concerned that George would want to use the Sith at some future date (which, as we all know, he did) and told me to pick some other term for them.

I fumed about that for a while, but of course I’m very grateful now that they ordered me to make that change.

—TZ

¹⁰ My original idea was that Noghri skin started out a pale gray in childhood and gradually darkened to black as the Noghri grew to adulthood. But there were concerns about possible racial questions (even though the Noghri were eminently honorable and would eventually become New Republic allies), so I changed the skin to gray.

—TZ

¹¹ We never saw a command chair in any of the movies. The Star Destroyer bridge seemed to be modeled on the old sailing ship design, where the officers stood or paced as they observed the deck and rigging and gave orders. But it seemed to me that Thrawn would spend a lot of time up there, and to minimize the distractions of fatigue would arrange to have a chair.

Also, of course, ringing the chair with repeater displays would allow him to keep a closer eye on what was happening aboard his ship.

—TZ

¹² Thrawn’s—and Palpatine’s—real agendas for the Unknown Regions campaigns were fairly vague here. The background for all of that would be slowly developed and revealed in future books.

—TZ

¹³ Heir to the Empire wasn’t my original title for the book, but was suggested by Lou Aronica at Bantam. My choices were Wild Card (which was vetoed because Bantam was also doing the Wild Cards superhero anthology series) and Warlord’s Gambit. Though we ultimately went with Heir, there are still bits of setup—such as here—for that other title.

—TZ

¹⁴ Assault Frigates were modified Dreadnoughts, a little more than a third the size of a Star Destroyer. They were older ships—Clone Wars era—but still packed a hefty punch.

Both Assault Frigates and Dreadnoughts came by way of West End Games (WEG) and their Star Wars role-playing games sourcebooks.

More about WEG later.

—TZ

¹⁵ One reason we proposed Tim to Lucasfilm as the author of the new Star Wars trilogy was his background in writing military science fiction. His previous novels—including the Cobra series and Blackcollar—were excellent examples of the craft.

–BETSY MITCHELL

¹⁶ One of the criticisms often thrown at Star Wars is that X-wings fly like atmosphere fighters, banking and turning when the vacuum of space shouldn’t allow that. However, the movies posited S-Foils (which at the time I interpreted as “spacefoils,” as opposed to airfoils), which I also assumed were “pressing” against the universe’s vacuum energy (sometimes called zero-point energy). In that same vein, I created the etheric rudder, also interacting with the vacuum energy, to give steering capability.

The term never caught on, though, and has since quietly been dropped. But I think the principle still stands.

—TZ

¹⁷ One of the coolest parts of writing Star Wars books is when you occasionally see something you’ve done borrowed for use in another part of the vast Lucasfilm universe. In this case, it was the “Storm Over Ryloth” episode of the Clone Wars TV series, where the Marg Sabl maneuver is used against a Trade Federation blockade.

What’s even cooler is that the featurette of that episode on the DVD specifically credits the maneuver to Heir. Thrawn would have been pleased.

—TZ

¹⁸ I’m often asked where the whole art-as-tactical-insight idea came from. Sadly, I have no particular epiphany or historical reference I can point to. It’s just something that popped into my mind during the Thrawn development process.

—TZ

¹⁹ One of the questions I’m most frequently asked is how I came up with the idea and person of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

The Star Wars movies revolved around villains who led by coercion and fear. That may work for short-range operation (Vader’s crew certainly put their hearts into their work), but it’s not so good long-range or long-term.

So I decided to do something different to try to create a commander who could lead by loyalty.

What qualities does such a commander have to have? The first, obviously, is strategic and tactical skill. His troops must believe that any operation they’re going into has a good chance of success, with as few casualties on their side as possible.

There will be many other examples of Thrawn’s tactical skill throughout the book, but here’s the first: he defeats an entire New Republic task force without, apparently, ever even bothering to leave his meditation room.

There are a few other qualities that I came up with when mulling over Thrawn’s character. I’ll comment more on those as we go along.

—TZ

²⁰ Thrawn never did accept the legitimacy of the New Republic. Later, as I’ve filled in more of his backstory, I’ve tried to give some of the reasons for his stubbornness on this point.

—TZ

Chapter 2

¹ Having Ben show up in a dream was to be an echo of Luke’s vision of Ben (possibly his first visual contact) in his near-unconscious state in the swirling snow of the Hoth night.

On Hoth, I’ve assumed the timing and circumstances of the vision were mostly factors of Luke’s inexperience and lack of strength in the Force, requiring that borderline state of mind and body for Ben to make his appearance. Here, conversely, it’s Ben’s weakness or distance that dictates the means of contact.

—TZ

² I used a fair number of movie quotes in these books, not just to remind readers of those scenes (like any of us Star Wars fans really needed reminders), but also because important or traumatic events in a person’s life tend to remain vivid for years to come. Luke’s last conversation with Yoda would be one of those events, and something he would never forget.

—TZ

³ One of the parameters I wanted to set for the trilogy was that Luke would be entirely on his own as a Jedi, with no one he could call on for help or advice.

And though I didn’t know it at the time, the line about “the first of the new Jedi” nicely sets up Kevin J. Anderson’s Jedi Academy Trilogy, as well as many other future books.

—TZ

⁴ In the frenetic, life-and-death challenges of the movies, it’s easy to forget that Luke’s really had a pretty hard life. It’s the kind of thing that comes back most depressingly in the darkness and silence at three in the morning.

—TZ

⁵ One of the things I wanted to set up early in the book was that Force guidance didn’t always come as flashes of knowledge or the ability to block blaster shots. It can also come in more subtle ways, under circumstances where Luke himself might not understand the reason or even recognize that the nudge was coming from the Force. By the end of the Thrawn trilogy, it will become clear that Luke’s uneasiness about setting up shop here had good, solid reason behind it.

—TZ

⁶ At the time I knew that Coruscant was a planet-wide city, but I assumed that there would still be a few areas of wilderness (maybe called parks by the inhabitants) that would have no buildings on them. Mountains, for one thing, would probably not be cost-effective to knock down.

Besides, the rich and powerful always want some nature-type areas left open where they can build their private country retreats.

—TZ

⁷ Work-related problems are another of those cheery thought categories that usually hit about 3 A.M.

—TZ

⁸ This was one of those odd thoughts that came out of the blue and struck me as both clever and logical. Hot chocolate wouldn’t be something desert people would naturally gravitate toward. (There are cold deserts, of course, but with two suns I always assumed Tatooine is mostly pretty warm. Now, of course, the Star Wars Essential Atlas and other official material backs up that assumption.)

I also caught way more grief for this than I ever expected. Quite a few people took me to task for putting an Earth-based drink into the Star Wars universe.

Of course, those same people apparently weren’t bothered by the Millennium Falcon, or lightsabers. It was, though, a reminder that you never know what word or image might jolt someone out of their suspension of disbelief.

Anyway, why would anyone want to live in that Galaxy Far, Far Away if they don’t have chocolate? Inconceivable …

—TZ

⁹ C-3PO always seems about three steps behind everyone else, on pretty much everything. One of his many charms, and a lot of fun to write.

—TZ

¹⁰ When this book was being written, no one involved had a glimmer that one day one of Leia’s unborn children would someday turn to the dark side. Perhaps her time in the Imperial Palace was a contributor to that event …

—BM

¹¹ As we’ll see in Dark Force Rising, the place where the Emperor died is heavy with residual effects of his presence there.

—TZ

¹² Did Obi-Wan and Anakin have any of this same sense of Luke and Leia when Padmé was carrying them? An intriguing question, and one I’m not sure we ever had an answer for.

—TZ

¹³ One of the best parts about writing Heir was the opportunity to create new characters and fit them into the Star Wars universe. Winter was the first person I introduced into the “good guy” side of the equation.

Aside from her general usefulness as a character, she also gave me the opportunity to express my opinion that Leia always seemed too tomboyish to fit comfortably into the role of a soft, pampered member of the aristocracy.

Which, given that we now know her mother was the feisty, down-in-the-dirt Padmé, isn’t all that surprising.

—TZ

¹⁴ Siblings, even twins, usually have vastly different personalities. But given the way Luke and Leia had approached their Rebellion duties, I figured that they would both have similar tendencies to occasionally feel overwhelmed by the tasks still facing them. Especially since both would likely feel that they were the only ones who could handle their particular jobs.

—TZ

¹⁵ As no official map of the Star Wars galaxy existed at this time (and wouldn’t for many years to come), any positional relationship between Coruscant and Tatooine was pure guesswork.

—TZ

¹⁶ The lesson of Greedo’s carelessness is apparently still remembered in these parts.

—TZ

¹⁷ This was one of those little things that probably never even occurred to some of the Alliance leaders in the heat of the Rebellion: that all the ships they were converting to fighters or using—and often losing—as transports would translate to severely lowered carrying capacity once they tried to get the New Republic up and running.

There would be myriad such details, and I certainly couldn’t go into all of them in the book. But I wanted to give a flavor of why Leia is feeling such weight on her shoulders.

—TZ

¹⁸ A universal rule of human behavior: if you want someone to do something for you, make it profitable for them.

—TZ

¹⁹ Though this clearly is a job that only Han can do, and though he may grouse about it, there’s none of Luke’s or Leia’s angst over the burden. That’s just not the kind of guy Han is.

—TZ

Chapter 3

¹ “Sturm und Drang” (storm and stress) was an eighteenth-century German romantic literary movement emphasizing struggles of the individual against society. I thought those names would appeal to Karrde, whom I saw as being an educated, pun-loving sort.

This one didn’t get me nearly as much grief as the hot chocolate reference. My assumption is that those who caught the reference were more amused than annoyed by it.

—TZ

² I wrote this scene long before we had any cats of our own. Little did I know just how true-to-life it was.

—TZ

³ In some ways, Karrde is my vision of how Han might have ended up if he hadn’t dropped into the Mos Eisley cantina that afternoon for a quiet drink. Both men have a code of honor, especially toward their friends, and both are willing to be part of a larger group, though Han admittedly dragged his feet a long time before getting to that place.

—TZ

⁴ Not sure Imperial ships (or Rebel ships, for that matter) had their names or operating numbers anywhere on their hulls. Still, it is something most Earth navies do, so I figured it was reasonable here, too.

—TZ

⁵ At the time of Heir, we had no idea what the common honorific was in the Star Wars universe. C-3PO called Luke master, but that might have been a droid thing. Other people were typically addressed by rank or title.

Still, I think this is the only time I used Mr. in the book. Even Karrde is later referred to as captain, though I’m not sure that’s really accurate. (He owns and runs ships, but doesn’t usually captain them.)

Now, thanks to the prequels, we know that master is indeed the universal term.

—TZ

⁶ One of the tricky things about writing Star Wars (or any other shared media work) is to not only keep track of what was done in the movies, but also keep track of what wasn’t done. If something that could have been useful wasn’t done, it means there must have been a good reason why not.

The ysalamiri are a good example. A creature that can block Jedi abilities should have been used all over the place throughout the movies by anti-Jedi forces … unless they were unreliable, difficult to find, difficult to use, et cetera. To be on the safe side, I invoked two of those limiting parameters: the creatures are relatively unknown (the Jedi would hardly broadcast their existence, after all), and they’re hard to get off their trees without killing them.

—TZ

⁷ Early on, I set up Karrde to be more than just a smuggler, but also a seeker of information. That would turn out to have useful ramifications here as well as in several other books down the line.

—TZ

⁸ Karrde’s not alone here—there are many readers who also want to learn Mara’s backstory.

On the other hand, there are also many readers who want that backstory to remain shrouded in mystery. Whatever I end up doing on this one, I’m going to be in trouble with somebody.

Still, there are a few things we do know about Mara’s past. We’ll get to those in a bit.…

—TZ

Chapter 4

¹ I had a whole hyperdrive system worked out, modeled on the time-dilation formula from Relativistic physics, with a range of possible lightspeed numbers that ran exponentially from zero (dead stop) to one (infinite speed). It was elegant, looked very cool, and allowed me to actually use some of my college physics.

Alas, later on, when I wasn’t looking, Lucasfilm and/or West End Games came up with an entirely different system. Still, it was fun while it lasted.

—TZ

² With the official definition of Sith still a few years in the future, I had to come up with a label for a Jedi who has fallen to the dark side. I chose the descriptive if not very original term Dark Jedi.

The definition is unfortunately a bit squishy, referring nowadays to both a fallen Jedi and also a Force-user who never underwent proper training, but perhaps learned under the tutelage of another Dark Jedi.

For this reason (and probably a few others), the term is somewhat discouraged. At the time, though, it was the best any of us had to work with.

—TZ

³ Tantiss was named after Tantalus, a son of Zeus who was admitted to the company of the gods—and then abused the privilege. (The stories about how he did so are many and varied.) That seemed to fit the Emperor—he had the gift of the Jedi, but had abused his power to enslave the galaxy.

The Sith philosophy, we know now, isn’t quite that simple. But it still involves the use and abuse of power.

—TZ

⁴ One might ask why Thrawn didn’t routinely wear body armor, given that this shows he had it available.

The answer is that body armor tends to be heavy and uncomfortable, and Thrawn would normally not bother with it unless he expected to be going into danger.

—TZ

⁵ My original reasoning was just what’s laid out here: that whomever Palpatine had left to guard his storehouse had been killed by Joruus C’baoth when he somehow stumbled on the place.

To my mild surprise, speculation quickly arose that C’baoth was the original guardian, and it was merely because of his insanity that he thought he’d killed someone and taken his place.

Such speculation is wrong, of course.

I think …

—TZ

⁶ A Jedi Master like no other! George Lucas’s first three films gave us Obi-Wan, Yoda, and Darth Vader. The concept of someone wielding Jedi powers whose grip on reality is, shall we say, tenuous, was entirely new.

—BM

⁷ In my first outline this character was an insane clone of Obi-Wan Kenobi, created before the Clone Wars by the Emperor and put here to guard the storehouse. That would have given me a very interesting dynamic to work with, especially when Luke faces him in Dark Force Rising. At that point, with his own emotions running high, Luke would have to determine whether this was a trick, or in fact a reincarnation of his old friend and Master.

Lucasfilm vetoed the idea. I lobbied very hard to keep it, modifying it six ways from Sunday to try to make sure I didn’t step on George’s yet-to-be-written prequel toes. But it was to no avail. Reluctantly, grouchily, I rewrote the part for C’baoth instead.

Now, as is the case with so many of the strictures and boundaries Lucasfilm put on me, I’m glad they reined me in. Not only is C’baoth an interesting character in his own right, but my subsequent Outbound Flight novel would have had to be drastically different.

C’baoth, incidentally, is pronounced SA-bay-oth, with the first vowel pronounced like the a in has. If I’d realized how hard it was going to be for everyone else to figure out, I would have changed the spelling.

To be fair, part of the problem was also that when the audio adaptations of the books came out, several of the names and words were a bit mangled, leaving a lingering confusion in the minds of everyone who heard them.

It wasn’t just my stuff, either. Anthony Daniels, who did one of the readings, later told me the pronunciation sheet he was given had Tatooine wrong, too.

—TZ

⁸ Thrawn doesn’t show this kind of emotion very often. It’s likely some of this is the distant memories of his encounter years earlier with the original, nonclone C’baoth.

Of course, I didn’t know that until years later when I wrote Outbound Flight. An other case of being able to fit pieces into a puzzle that at the time I didn’t even know I was making.

—TZ

⁹ This scene sets up a balance of two kinds of power that will affect the next three books: Thrawn’s military command and tactics-oriented mind versus C’baoth’s Force abilities and the danger of his completely unpredictable thought processes.

—BM

¹⁰ I caught more grief for this one than even the hot chocolate incident. The complaints mostly focused on the idea that the Force is created by living beings, and that it can’t be “pushed back” in the way I described, certainly not from other living beings.

Note, though, that I didn’t say that was the case. Thrawn did, and contrary to popular belief Thrawn doesn’t know everything.

What’s actually happening—and we’ll see it in action later—is that ysalamiri simply suppress the level of the Force to something below the threshold that Jedi can access. It’s a fine distinction, but an important one.

Still, the bottom line for Jedi—and more important for C’baoth—is basically the same. Thrawn can therefore be excused for perhaps oversimplifying his explanation.

—TZ

¹¹ Actually, we know from The Empire Strikes Back that the cloaking shield was at least marginally functional at that time.

But the rumors may not have reached Thrawn, out in the Unknown Regions, until closer to Endor.

—TZ

¹² I borrowed this from Sauron’s driving of his forces in The Lord of the Rings. Much as I sympathize with the Alliance, I felt there had to be something going on beneath the surface to explain their victory at Endor.

It’s also, I think, consistent with Palpatine’s pride and nature. Endor was to be his victory over the Rebellion, and he would have made sure he could claim it as such.

Logic aside, of course, I also needed this ability for C’baoth to use later in the books.

—TZ

¹³ Thrawn had spent years observing Palpatine, watching how he used his power, seeing what his goals and desires were. From that analysis, he would naturally have concluded that all Dark Jedi would want the same kind of power over people and worlds.

—TZ

¹⁴ Outbound Flight was essentially a throwaway line, a way to confirm that this C’baoth was indeed a clone, as well as to underline Thrawn’s military capabilities.

But it didn’t stay a throwaway for long. I ended up working out a few more details in Specter of the Past and Vision of the Future, and ultimately did an entire novel, Outbound Flight.

I wish I’d known at the time that the project was going to grow to that size. I would have given it a much cooler name.

—TZ

¹⁵ Again, my assumptions about the Clone Wars were exactly backward: I assumed the clones would be fighting against the Republic instead of being on their side. (Nice twist, George!)

Fortunately, facing doesn’t necessarily mean fighting. My choice of words here was pure luck, but it helped me avoid a retroactive gaffe.

—TZ

Chapter 5

¹ In Return of the Jedi, Mon Mothma said that Bothan spies had learned the new Death Star’s location and an Imperial code that would allow a surreptitious Rebel approach. Even though all that turned out to be a trap, I figured the Bothans would probably use that to work themselves into a good position in the fledgling New Republic hierarchy.

Especially if I gave them a high level of smooth political maneuvering skills. The result of that train of thought was Borsk Fey’lya.

But even beyond that, I wanted to show the New Republic as being a somewhat uneasy patchwork of differing political views, motivations, and goals. We have this conflict in any group of humans of any size—surely among different types of aliens the effect would be even more pronounced.

So, again, Borsk Fey’lya. For all the frustration and trouble he causes, he’s not a “villain” in the usual sense. He and his people simply have different ways of achieving their political goals. The fact that his approach causes chaos and possible destruction is apparently never a concern to him. It’s the way Bothans have always done things, and he—and they—see no reason to change.

—TZ

² This seems to imply that Han first met Mon Mothma in Return of the Jedi, around the time of the Endor operation briefing. However, in Allegiance I have them meeting shortly after the Battle of Yavin, nearly four years earlier.

Does that make this line a goof? Well … maybe not. In a much later story, “The Tale of the ‘Tonika Sisters,’ ” from Tales from the Star Wars Cantina, I have a Rebel agent getting hold of a segment of the second Death Star’s prototype superlaser. Ergo, as far back as Yavin, rumors of a second Death Star would already be swirling around the Empire. Ergo, the line in Allegiance isn’t really a mistake.

Note that among other things, that bit of retrofitting implies that it took the Rebellion those same four years to track those rumors down. No wonder the Bothans came in for high praise when they brought the name Endor to Alliance attention.

Still, don’t let all these clever explanations give you the impression that I had this whole immense thing mapped out in advance. Right now, I’m using the Indiana Jones approach, and making it up (more or less) as I go.

—TZ

³ And Mon Mothma undoubtedly recognizes the problem and conflict: future dividends of Leia as a Jedi versus present dividends of Leia as diplomat. Present versus future: a decision we all have to make from time to time.

And that’s one of the reasons the Star Wars movies were so successful. They portrayed real people—with real, timeless, human problems and challenges—against the backdrop of a wondrous universe.

—TZ

⁴ “Just exactly like old times” perfectly calls to mind various scenes in the original Star Wars: Luke practicing his newfound Force abilities, Chewie and R2-D2 playing dejarik, Han and Leia sniping at each other. Therefore there’s no need to spell out what occurs between the end of this chapter and the beginning of chapter 6. Tim simply announces that the Falcon has arrived at Bimmisaari.

—BM

Chapter 6

¹ One of the subtle tricks George used in the Star Wars movies was to show us only a few different planets, but to then use throwaway mentions of others along the way, thus giving us a feel for a much larger galaxy than we were actually seeing.

I wanted to continue that technique by throwing in short visits to lots of different worlds such as Bimmisaari.

—TZ

² Han’s line here is pitch-perfect. One of Tim’s greatest challenges in this book was to re-create the voices of the film characters. It’s so easy to imagine Harrison Ford grinding out, “I like marketplaces. I like ’em a lot.”

—BM

³ As with extra planets, I can easily throw lots of different aliens into the background scenes.

One of the advantages books have over movies—my costume and makeup departments don’t take up much space.

—TZ

Chapter 7

¹ I thought long and hard about how to write the sound of an igniting lightsaber. I finally went with snap-hiss.

—TZ

² This gadget is now called a fibercord whip, but at the time it either hadn’t been named or I’d failed to find the right reference. (I suspect the former, since Lucasfilm didn’t correct it in the manuscript.)

On the other hand, as with many things Star Wars, it’s quite possible the weapon had several names. Maybe Fibercord Whip was once a trademarked name that has now fallen into common usage, while smart-rope was the generic name.

Back in my physics days, we used to call this procedure hand-waving. I’ll be using more of it as we go along.

—TZ

³ As I mentioned in the foreword, one of my goals in writing Heir was to do something that was Star Wars but which didn’t just cover the same territory as the movies. Part of that challenge was to come up with new problems and weapons for our heroes to face.

Lightsabers are great for blocking blaster bolts and cutting through AT-AT armor, but what about something semiliquid?

Of course, once I’ve gotten Luke into this situation, I also have to come up with a way to get him out of it.…

—TZ

⁴ A writer absolutely has to make his villains clever and competent. It’s no fun—and no challenge—for the heroes to get out of trouble without sweating about it first.

—TZ

⁵ From the Star Wars movies, it’s clear that George loves a good, swashbuckling, Errol Flynn–type rope swing. Luckily, so do I.

—TZ

⁶ Along with things like the hot chocolate, one of the major complaints I received was that I’d used too many of the movie lines in the book. The accusation was that I was simply trying to connect to the movies to add legitimacy to my books.

I disagreed, and this particular quote is a good example of what I was actually trying to do. Every family, over their years together, develops a collection of private words and phrases that evoke incidents in their past—a kind of shorthand to their shared memories. In this case, Han’s comment is a reminder of the asteroid field incident, when his snap judgment (or so Leia thought at the time) proved to be the correct action. Leia’s response, again echoing that time, is her admission that he was right in that case and, yes, he’s probably right in this one, too.

—TZ

⁷ Even Yoda carried one, as we know now from the prequels.

—TZ

Chapter 8

¹ Admiral would be the normal shipboard form of address (Grand Admiral is awkwardly long for casual conversation), but C’baoth almost invariably uses the entire rank. Not as a form of respect, of course, but as a form of sarcasm.

—TZ

² The second quality of a good commander: the ability to hear, evaluate, and adopt good ideas even if—perhaps especially if—they come from those who are technically his inferiors.

—TZ

³ At the time I was writing Heir, all we knew about the Old Republic’s political system was that it had included a Senate. Rather than try to guess at any other details, I settled on giving the New Republic a provisional form of government, with the implication that it would be changed at some point in the future.

That way, if I got more details along the way as to how things were supposed to be done, I could have Leia and Mon Mothma revamp the whole thing.

—TZ

⁴ I generally dislike writing characters who deliberately distort, misinterpret, or ignore facts for their own political ends the way Fey’lya does here. Probably because I dislike seeing that done in real life.

But sometimes the requirements of the story mean you just have to take a deep breath and do it.

—TZ

⁵ Han Solo: master of tact. You gotta love him.

—TZ

Chapter 9

¹ The third quality of a good commander: the ability to see what is most valuable in his troops. Competence and the ability to learn are more important than the trappings of pomp and pageantry.

Though Pellaeon clearly still misses that pomp, at least a little.

—TZ

² I have another double planet, Poln Major and Poln Minor, as the centerpiece of my latest Star Wars book, Choices of One. There must be something about double planets I really like.

—TZ

³ Once again one would think, from this description of tactics, that Tim has a military background. He does not!

—BM

⁴ The fourth quality of a good commander: he plans ahead as much as possible.

—TZ

⁵ I was just a couple of weeks into Heir when I received a big box containing some of the sourcebooks and game modules that West End Games had created over the years for the Star Wars role-playing game. Along with the books came instructions from Lucasfilm that I was to coordinate Heir with the WEG material.

As usual, I groused a little about that. But once I actually started digging into the books I realized the WEG folks had put together a boatload of really awesome stuff, including lists of aliens, equipment, ground vehicles, and ship types.

So as it turned out, not only was the WEG material easy to coordinate with, but it saved me the work of having to invent all my own technology as I went along.

—TZ

⁶ Another of the challenges of writing Heir was to come up with phrases that are familiar and are properly descriptive, but aren’t quite the way we would normally say them. Thus hit-and-run becomes hit-and-fade.

—TZ

⁷ All of Karrde’s ship names involve puns or some other kind of wordplay—Wild Karrde (wild card), Starry Ice (starry eyes), Etherway (either way), and so on.

—TZ

⁸ Like Karrde, Mara has an ethical core that doesn’t take kindly to broken promises or bent loyalty.

—TZ

⁹ Over the years I’ve slowly gotten better at the art of teaching, but I can strongly identify with Luke’s concerns over his own ability in that area. Especially when all I had to do was teach elementary physics, and he has to train a Jedi.

—TZ

¹⁰ For some reason, Han not lumping Bpfassh in with the “unpronounceable” ones strikes me as both funny and very Han.

—TZ

¹¹ Rogue Squadron was half convenience and half a throwaway line—a unit I could move around wherever I needed it, with Wedge in command because anyone who can survive three Star Wars movies is welcome in my book any day.

I would never in my wildest dreams have guessed how well and how far Mike Stackpole and, later, Aaron Allston would run with the whole idea.

—TZ

¹² One of the more subtle goofs in Heir is in the dating. At the time, George hadn’t settled on the final time line, and we were told that the Clone Wars took place thirty-five years before A New Hope.

However, from the prequels we now know that the Clone Wars ended only nineteen years before ANH. All the dates in Heir are therefore off by those sixteen years.

Personally, I put it down to the chaos of information loss during the Empire, and sloppy work on the part of post-Empire historians. These things happen …

—TZ

Chapter 10

¹ Slipping someone’s name and/or personal characteristics into a book Is sometimes called Tuckerizing, after Wilson “Bob” Tucker, who did a lot of it throughout his writing career.

Normally, I do this in connection with charity auctions, where I auction off a walk-on role to the highest bidder. But sometimes, it’s just for fun. In Heir, I slipped in several friends, many from the Tampa-area Necronomicon convention, others just random friends as happened to occur to me.

This one is an Illinois friend named Don Vandersluis. If I remember, I’ll point out some of the others as we go along.

—TZ

² In fact, as we all know, Luke knew about the torture before it actually happened. But under the circumstances Leia may have been a little fuzzy on the details.

Luke may also have fudged those same details a bit to keep Leia and the others from knowing how far away he’d been. Later, we’ll learn that he’s still keeping Dagobah’s significance a secret.

—TZ

³ Another Tuckerization: Mark Jones of Tampa. Fortunately, Mark never took offense that Jomark was only a minor world.

—TZ

⁴ In various sources this weapon is identified as a “Taim & Bak auto blaster cannon,” a “BlasTech Ax-108 ‘Ground Buzzer’ surface-defense blaster cannon,” and simply as “concealed blaster cannon.”

I figure that my term, underside swivel blaster, is probably a generic term for all such handy gadgets.

—TZ

⁵ The West End Games material gave me the model designation for the Falcon. Unfortunately, it didn’t mention that the ships were pretty common throughout the galaxy. Ergo, digging one up wouldn’t have been nearly as hard as Han implied here.

Probably what Han meant wasn’t that they’d found another YT-1300, but that they’d found one with the same quirks and add-ons as the Falcon. Sure—that’s what he meant.

—TZ

⁶ A couple of weeks after I finished Heir and sent it in, my editor, Betsy Mitchell, called to chat about the manuscript. In the course of the conversation she asked if I liked Han best of all the movie characters.

I assured her that I liked them all, and asked why she would think I liked Han best. She said, “Because you gave him all the best lines.”

She may have been right. But in all fairness, as far as giving Han good lines is concerned, George got there a long time before I did.

—TZ

⁷ Like Rogue Squadron, Page was another mostly background character whom other authors later picked up and ran with.

Ran with in both directions, in fact, as he was retroactively added into the Rebellion era.

Or at least his name was. There were certainly Rebel commandos running around making trouble for Palpatine’s Empire—it was only after Heir was published that Page was associated by name with some of those operations.

—TZ

⁸ Again, a word that echoes a familiar term—hacker—but is different enough to fit comfortably into the Star Wars universe.

—TZ

Chapter 11

¹ Luke’s actually wrong here—Yoda couldn’t have affected his X-wing’s systems at that distance. (Otherwise, Ben wouldn’t have had to physically go to the tractor beam station on the Death Star.)

But Yoda could have affected Luke’s perception at the critical time.

—TZ

² I’d always been a little confused about this. In The Empire Strikes Back, it appears that Luke is going into a cave; yet on the soundtrack that scene is listed as “The Magic Tree.”

Fortunately, I was able to work the description so that I could sort of have it both ways.

—TZ

³ Depending on the motivation and the object of the curiosity, I suspect it can serve either side.

—TZ

⁴ One of the challenges I faced was to find a way to describe R2-D2’s sounds without having Skywalker Sound to draw on.

I also didn’t want to simply say “he beeped” every time he said something, since that could get boring. So I made up a small note card with alternatives and kept it handy.

Hence, at various spots throughout the book, Artoo warbles, chirps, twitters, grunts, gurgles, jabbers, beeps, and probably a few others that I’ve forgotten.

Amazing what an hour with a thesaurus can accomplish.

—TZ

⁵ One of the rules of fantasy and SF writing (and of mysteries, for that matter) is to make sure to give the readers all the bits and pieces of information that you’ll be using later—it’s unfair to suddenly spring something on them just when you need it to get out of the corner you’ve painted yourself into.

Nearly every reader will remember that Luke has a mechanical right hand, and most will assume I’m just putting this in as another link to the movies. But of course, it’s also going to turn out to be very important down the road.…

—TZ

⁶ Another Tuckerism: longtime Athens, Georgia, fan Klon Newell, one of the most enthusiastic supporters of my original Cobra series way back in the eighties.

—TZ

Chapter 12

¹ There apparently is no paper in the Star Wars universe, so the term paper pusher is again one of those that needs a little tweaking.

—TZ

² One of my all-time favorite movie examples of How To Do Technology Right is from A New Hope. During the escape from the Death Star, Han and Luke head up and down to the quad lasers. However, by the time they arrive at the gun wells, gravity has turned ninety degrees, which is what allows them to comfortably sit in the gunner seats facing up and down for firing.

This is exactly the way people do things in the real world: if you have gravity plates (or whatever), you adjust and position them to get things arranged the way you want them to be. People do that with pretty much any technology.

It’s completely and properly underplayed in the movie, of course. After all, Luke and Han are used to things working this way, so they wouldn’t comment on it.

But having appreciated that little touch of cleverness back when the movie came out, I wanted to remind the readers about it here.

—TZ

³ One of the great and satisfying aspects of Star Wars is that no one is deadweight. All of the characters have their chance to shine, to come up with the clever way to think or fight their way out of whatever predicament they happen to be in at the moment.

Maintaining that balance was yet another of the challenges—and fun parts—of writing Heir.

—TZ

⁴ Another Tuckerism: the Stonehill Science Fiction Club of Tampa, which puts on the Necronomicon convention every October.

—TZ

⁵ Before he became a full-time novelist, Tim was a grad student shooting for a PhD in physics. Here is just one place where he brings his science background into play. Checking for breathable air is always a good idea before jumping out of your ship on a strange planet.

—BM

⁶ Bestselling writers often use the literary device of the cliffhanger to grip readers. How many times have you stayed up far too late at night because something enthralling happens at the end of a chapter and you simply have to find out what happens next? Tim brings the use of the cliffhanger to a high art in Heir. I defy anyone to put this book down after a closing line like Leia’s.

—BM

Chapter 13

¹ This line is undoubtedly out of date now, with the other books that have been written in the gap between Return of the Jedi and Heir. But it was true when I wrote it.

—TZ

² Coincidence is, of course, a necessary part of fiction, and Star Wars is no exception. What would have happened, for instance, if Han and Chewie hadn’t dropped into that Mos Eisley cantina for a drink?

But unlike the case with most fiction, it can be argued that in Star Wars there’s an underlying purpose to seemingly random events. The Force may be subtly guiding encounters such as this.

—TZ

³ A small thing that I never would have anticipated, and never even knew before I was invited to a Star Wars convention in Munich:

The thr combination apparently doesn’t exist in German, or so I was told. German Star Wars fans therefore have terrific difficulty pronouncing Thrawn’s name.

—TZ

Chapter 14

¹ Also echoes the phrase beck and call. Karrde isn’t the only one who likes puns.

—TZ

² The Katana fleet isn’t going to become important until Dark Force Rising. But again, it’s important to start setting things up as soon as possible.

—TZ

³ The beckon call was originally nothing more than a plot device, something to get Luke to Lando’s in time for all of them to have this conversation together. The suggestion that the call had belonged to the Dark Jedi was supposed to be the complete explanation, and so I moved on to other matters and forgot about it.

But not all of the readers bought my explanation. Speculation arose that there was a plot thread lurking in there that I was planning to use somewhere down the line.

The more I thought about that, the more I liked the idea of coming up with a more interesting history for this particular piece of jetsam.

So when I was contracted for the book The Hand of Thrawn (which was subsequently split into Specter of the Past and Vision of the Future), that’s exactly what I did.

—TZ

⁴ The name of the Wookiee home world has always bothered me—from what I’ve heard of Wookiee speech, I’m not convinced they can actually pronounce the word.

In fact, before I knew the world had already been named, I had planned to call it Rwookrrorro.

When I learned that Kashyyyk was already on the books, I suggested that could be the name the Republic and Empire knew it by, while Rwookrrorro was the local Wookiee name.

I was turned down, probably on the grounds that a planet with two different and completely unconnected names would be confusing.

So instead, we used Rwookrrorro as the name of the specific village Leia would be traveling to.

Interestingly, the name Rwook was later used to denote the subspecies that Chewie and some of the other Wookiees belong to.

—TZ

⁵ I got at least one letter from a reader who took me to task for using borg, which he informed me was a Star Trek word.

I wrote back and explained that borg comes from cyborg, which is a contraction of cybernetic organism and was coined by Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline in 1960.

On top of that, the term borg was first used in Star Wars in 1978 in one of the Marvel Comics adventures, thus predating Star Trek’s borg concept by about eleven years.

Not that anyone’s counting. Just thought you’d like to know.

—TZ

⁶ When Episode IV came out, Vader was described as “Dark Lord of the Sith,” but at the time no one knew what that meant. The explanation of Sith was far in the future.

Or should that be far in the past? It’s so hard to keep track of these things sometimes.…

—TZ

Chapter 15

¹ Someone at a convention once suggested to me that, instead of art, Thrawn might do better to study an alien race’s myths and legends to get insights into their cultural psyche.

In general, it’s an excellent idea. The problem, from Thrawn’s point of view, is that he would have to read those legends in translation, which might lose key nuances, or else spend years learning all the associated languages. Their artwork, in contrast, he can study directly, in either physical or holographic form.

—TZ

² Various readers over the years have noted certain similarities between Thrawn and Sherlock Holmes. Here’s one of the spots where that kinship comes most clearly into view.

Once my current reading stack gets a little smaller, it’ll probably be time for me to pull out my complete Sherlock Holmes collection and start through it again.

—TZ

³ Early on, I decided that I was going to use only humans as point-of-view characters. Not because I have a problem with aliens or droids, but because I was afraid that giving those POV segments a truly alien flavor might distract from the flow of the story.

That meant I would never get into Thrawn’s skin and see how exactly he thought. Thus Pellaeon’s role was expanded from simply Thrawn’s second in command to the man through whom Thrawn was to be seen.

To be, in effect, the Dr. Watson to Thrawn’s Sherlock Holmes.

—TZ

⁴ Another mostly throwaway line, put in to remind the reader that, for all his skill and urbanity, Thrawn can be ruthless if and when necessary.

But as I read this again, I find myself intrigued by the possibilities. Somewhere in the future, I may have to tell this particular story.

—TZ

Chapter 16

¹ The Interdictor Cruiser had been invented by West End Games, keying (I assume) off Admiral Piett’s line in Return of the Jedi that the Imperial forces at Endor weren’t to attack, but merely to keep the Rebel ships from escaping.

Thrawn, typically, would come up with several interesting tactical uses for the ship and its projected gravity well during his campaign against the New Republic.

—TZ

² Two more Tuckerizations, only these two were charity auction winners. Chris Peterson won the chance to be in my next book, and Brian Colclazure won the decision of whether Peterson lived or died. Since Peterson’s death was his decision, I figured it might as well also be his fault.

At the time of the auction they had no idea (nor did I) that my “next book” would be Heir. I hope they were both surprised and pleased with their appearances.

—TZ

³ Brasck and Par’tah, mentioned here, will make important appearances in The Last Command.

—TZ

Chapter 17

¹ West End Games’s source material included a splendid X-wing schematic, with all the cool tech stuff a writer could ever ask for.

—TZ

² It’s always important that the heroes have a plan for getting out of whatever trouble the writer has thrown them into. Even if the plan is never used, or isn’t used the way the character expected, heroes need to be proactive. Luke can’t just sit around hoping that by some stroke of luck he’ll be rescued.

Well, okay—technically, he is just sitting around right now. But you know what I mean.

—TZ

³ This was the description of Kashyyyk that I was given: immensely tall trees with Wookiee cities perched on them, with a layered ecology that got more and more vicious as you traveled down toward the ground below. Sort of an organic version of the tall, layered cityscape of Coruscant, now that I think about it.

I was really looking forward to getting a glimpse of that world when I heard it would be featured in Revenge of the Sith. I was also curious as to the kind of tactics the Wookiees would use against the Separatist forces on such a battlefield. But either the planet had been redesigned when I wasn’t looking, or else George simply chose to use a ground-level area of the world for that scene.

Maybe someday in a special edition …

—TZ

⁴ I got to experience this same effect on a recent cruise to Alaska. When looking over the rail at a glacier, with no trees, animals, or other objects near the ice to show scale, it was impossible for me to get a genuine feel for the size of what I was seeing. A chunk that looks like an ice cube falls off, and a boom rolls across the water, and you realize that the “ice cube” was probably the size of a refrigerator.

—TZ

⁵ I generally like to use brackets when I’m showing that a character is speaking in an alien language. It’s always seemed to me that an odd touch like that helps add to the alienness of the speech.

—TZ

⁶ Just in case the brackets weren’t enough alienness, I also threw in an extra letter at the end of r-ending words.

This is the sort of thing that drives copy editors crazy …

—TZ

⁷ I needed to be able to have actual conversations with one of the Wookiees, and since I’d committed myself to never directly translating Chewie (it was never done in the movies), I came up with this idea that a “speech impediment” actually made Ralrra easier for humans to understand.

—TZ

⁸ A close hug does look a lot like vertical wrestling, after all. Probably even more so with Wookiees.

—TZ

⁹ One of the neat things about the Star Wars universe is that there’s always room for something new. Jumping off of the Kashyyyk background that I’d been given, I was able to add a few new things, such as the kroyies, into the ecological system.

—TZ

¹⁰ I liked the idea of Wookiees being arboreal and living on huge trees kilometers above the ground. The problem was that they didn’t seem to be built for that sort of life. So I added the protractible claws to make tree-climbing practical.

Unfortunately, in the process I forgot my own admonition that I needed to pay attention to what wasn’t seen in the movies. Specifically, why weren’t these claws ever seen, particularly when Chewie was fighting for his life?

Fortunately, the West End Games folks also spotted the lapse and came to my rescue. In one of the later sourcebooks they explained that it was a matter of honor that Wookiees never used these claws in combat, but kept them strictly for climbing.

—TZ

¹¹ Art imitating life. I have the same problem that I’m attributing here to Leia. Airplanes don’t bother me; the Seattle Space Needle observation deck does.

—TZ

Chapter 18

¹ Someone asked me once what kind of modern-day car Karrde would drive. I told him that it would probably be a nice, simple, family-style sedan or minivan. A Toyota or Ford maybe … with a Lamborghini V-12 engine tucked away under the hood.

—TZ

² I envisioned a force cylinder as being a cylindrical version of the atmosphere screen we saw in the movies in big hatchways like those of the Death Star. An emergency docking tube, probably meant for temporary use only.

But given the prominent use of the term the Force, I really should have come up with a different name for this. Vac-walk cylinder, maybe. Way too late now.

—TZ

³ Somewhere along the line, one of the artists tackling Karrde either missed this description or else ignored it, and drew the man with long, flowing hair and a goatee. That’s the image that has now stuck for him.

Which is fine with me. Karrde is the type who would probably find it useful to change appearance every so often anyway, and by the end of the Thrawn Trilogy he could very well have looked like that.

It was also that image that Decipher used when they brought Mike Stackpole and me out to Virginia for a photo session to create their special Talon Karrde and Corran Horn cards.

I would never have guessed, as I was writing Heir, that I might someday end up on a collectible card. Life can be very strange sometimes.

—TZ

⁴ This became the basis of a line in the Essential Guides, which then became an entire book: Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover.

—TZ

Chapter 19

¹ This image of carved wood with blue light shining through the gaps comes from a couple of visits we made to a place called the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. It’s an absolutely stunning architectural masterpiece, and several of the rooms have this sort of background lighting.

—TZ

² I read mythology voraciously when I was a child, and my favorites were the Norse myths. This one is straight out of the Siegfried legend—all we’re missing is a sword stuck in the tree.

—TZ

³ “What is a Froffli-style haircut?”

I got asked this kind of question a lot with Heir and the other two books. The questions came from my editor, Lucasfilm, the copy editor, or sometimes all three.

The answer: I don’t know. The idea was to sprinkle these alien non-Earth references throughout the books, with the intent being to add a little more Star Wars feeling to it.

Of course, the throwaway lines also served another, more devious purpose. The reader never knew whether one of these things was merely some local color, or whether it was a subtle setup to an important plot point somewhere down the line.

An aside: the comics depict Chin’s hair as spiky.

—TZ

⁴ The official currency of the Star Wars galaxy is the credit, but I never really liked that term—I guess it always seemed too fifties SF to me. (So do blasters, actually, but for some reason that one doesn’t bother me nearly as much.)

So I took a page from Han’s bargaining with Obi-Wan for the Alderaan trip and tried wherever possible to simply avoid mentioning the type of currency, figuring that it would be understood by both parties.

—TZ

⁵ When I was offered this first Star Wars contract, and I was wandering the house trying to think up a story, the ysalamiri and their effect on the Force was the first thing that came to my mind. The initial idea was to use them to build a sort of cage around a captured Jedi.

Interestingly enough, even though that was the first idea I had, the story ended up growing in another direction and it never actually made it into any of the three books. That specific aspect of the idea had to wait several more years, until Vision of the Future.

—TZ

Chapter 20

¹ Thanksgiving weekend 1989, a couple of weeks after I’d been given the Thrawn Trilogy, was the local Chambanacon SF convention, which as usual we were attending. On Saturday evening we went out to dinner at a nearby Sizzler with four close friends, friends to whom I’d entrusted the still-secret project I’d just been handed. And not just entrusted with the knowledge: I’d let them read the first-draft outline I’d written up for the trilogy.

Naturally, I wanted to discuss the story with them and get whatever feedback they’d come up with. But as we sat there, we realized we had a problem. All around us were other SF fans from the convention, and at the first utterance of the names “Han,” “Luke,” or “Leia” ears would rotate like radar dishes, and I would be in big trouble with Lucasfilm.

So we did exactly what I had Han and Winter do here: we came up with a code on the fly. Luke and Leia became Brother and Sister; Han became Friend, Chewie became Copilot, and so on. Names like Mara and Thrawn weren’t a problem, of course, since they would be meaningless to anyone else.

I was actually surprised at how well we all pulled it off, especially without any prior consultation.

They say “write what you know.” In this case, I definitely did.

—TZ

² Another Tuckerism: more friends from Tampa.

—TZ

³ Mike LoBue plays bagpipes, and plays them very well. So I’m sure this “annoying music” wasn’t bagpipes. Certainly not his.

—TZ

⁴ Tuckerism: Necronomicon, mushed together with their traditional Ygor/Igor party.

—TZ

⁵ The numbers here don’t fit with any of the various Star Wars dating schemes, but are references to the local planetary dating system. Another subtle indication that the New Republic’s hold on these systems isn’t as strong as they might like.

—TZ

⁶ Once again, I’m indebted to West End Games for the rules and subtleties of sabacc.

—TZ

⁷ Another code created on the fly. One of Han’s many hidden talents.

—TZ

⁸ The established rules of sabacc included the random shifting of the cards’ values. The skifter itself, though, was my creation.

—TZ

⁹ Just one more indication that Karrde has an ethical core lurking under the surface.

Also another indication of how many of Lando’s contacts are of the somewhat dubious sort.

—TZ

Chapter 21

¹ Ideally, any confrontation between characters should play out as a sort of stylized chess game, with the writer playing both sides. One side makes a move—Mara sealing the door—and then the other side makes a countermove—Luke searching for and finding the power outlet.

Also ideally, the side that wins a particular round does so out of cleverness, and the side that loses does so not so much out of stupidity but because they missed something. Here, there’s a little fact about Luke that Mara and Karrde either didn’t know or, in the rush of the moment, didn’t think all the way through.

Just as the heroism of your hero is measured against the villainy of your villain, so too is the hero’s cleverness measured against that of his opponents.

—TZ

Chapter 22

¹ And now, with all the other books being written in the Expanded Universe, there are even more such incidents for Karrde to be thinking of.

—TZ

² I used both watch and chrono to designate timekeepers in Heir. The former I envisioned as small, personal timepieces, while the latter would be located aboard ships or the equivalent of wall or desk clocks.

I don’t think anything like watches ever showed up in the movies. But surely people there still needed easily portable ways to tell time.

—TZ

³ More art imitating life. In those days, whenever I found myself on my own (usually when I was off on one of my three-day, writing-intensive retreats), I would follow this same schedule: early breakfast, early dinner, no lunch.

—TZ

⁴ Tuckerism: Wade Warren, another Tampa fan.

—TZ

⁵ For someone who was never intended to be anything but a minor character, Ghent has picked up a surprising following among the readers over the years.

No doubt it’s a combination of his computer skills, his open-faced honesty, and his complete oblivioun to all the political machinations swirling around him.

If he’s not the king of the Star Wars nerds, he’s certainly one of the royal family.

—TZ

⁶ An odd echo (pre-echo?) of the “Jaynestown” episode of the TV series Firefly, where an action that was seen by some as heroic was really nothing more than pure pragmatism on the part of the person involved.

In this case, Ghent saw Han’s donation of the slaver ship and cargo to the victims as an act of charity, whereas Han’s motivations had been less altruistic than practical.

I adopted this particular incident from the Star Wars Sourcebook, where it was described briefly by one of the slavers’ victims. I thought it would be interesting to show Han’s side of it, especially since back then he wasn’t the noble yet lovable rogue we all know from the movies.

—TZ

⁷ Again, a bit of foreshadowing for something that won’t become important until the next book.

—TZ

⁸ Droid rhino boot! This concept made me laugh. But it’s so believable!

—BM

⁹ Like the use of borg earlier, the term corvette got me another letter chastising me for using such a non–Star Wars term—and this one the name of a modern car, to boot.

I had to write back and explain that a corvette was originally a seventeenth-century warship, that its use was already well established in the Star Wars universe, and that there was nothing we could do about General Motors having borrowed the name before we got to it.

—TZ

¹⁰ On the surface, this looks like another comment that’s since been overthrown by other stories, including a bunch of my own.

But it’s clear from the rest of Heir and the other books of the trilogy that she’s actually quite skilled with a lightsaber. I don’t remember what exactly I was thinking at the time I wrote this line, but my guess is that she’s merely being sarcastic.

Either that or it’s a flat-out typo, and I meant to say that she hadn’t picked up a lightsaber very often in the past few years.

One of those questions where the answer is now unfortunately lost in the mists of time.

—TZ

Chapter 23

¹ In the real world, this maneuver (minus the throttle cutback) is called an Immelmann turn. It’s not much used by modern-day fighters, but shows up frequently in air shows.

—TZ

² The preferred generic term for these things is now electrobinoculars, with the older macrobinoculars referring to a somewhat lower-quality version of the devices.

—TZ

³ Writing dialogue that mirrors the human characters’ voices is one thing, but Tim also manages to reproduce a distinctive range of machine-made noises. I had no trouble throughout this book hearing the correct R2-D2 utterance, whether it was a warbling question, a surprised squeal, a shriek of warning, or here, the “squeamish-sounding awe.”

—BM

⁴ Tuckerism: Ken and Denise Hillyard of Tampa.

—TZ

⁵ In my original outline, this scene had the same ultimate result—Mara grudgingly agreeing to work with Luke to get out of the forest alive—but I didn’t yet have any of the details worked out. Betsy spotted that, and pointed out that I needed a good reason for Mara putting aside her desire to just kill Luke then and there.

I agreed, and just to be on the safe side I gave her two reasons: R2’s sensors, and the counterpart encryption system that would let her find out what Karrde had told the Imperials and, therefore, what she would need to say to make their stories match up.

And of course, both reasons also require her to keep R2 intact, which she also didn’t want to do. Given subsequent events, it’s just as well she gave in on that point, too.

—TZ

Chapter 24

¹ In the original outline, it was Han and Leia, not Han and Lando, who went to see Karrde. In that version, Chewie and Lando did little after Nkllon except fly around the New Republic, pretending Leia was aboard their ship, in the hope of drawing away all the unwelcome Noghri attention she’d been receiving.

The final version is much better. While Star Wars can be seen as being the story of Luke Skywalker, it really is an ensemble cast. The final version of Heir gives each person in that ensemble more of a role, and more of a chance to shine.

—TZ

² In the real world, the repercussions of Jabba’s death would ripple a long way outward.

Little details like that were what helped make the Star Wars movies feel genuine and realistic, and I tried to put some of those same touches into Heir.

—TZ

Chapter 25

¹ Though I tried to give each of the three main movie characters a fair share of the action in Heir, it was in the nature of this part of the story that Leia got a bit shortchanged.

Still, she has a few memorable moments, this being one of them. And of course, she’ll have a much larger and more pivotal role later in Dark Force Rising.

—TZ

² I was pleased, during this reread, to find very few things I would have edited differently now from the way I did twenty years ago. One exception appears here. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Leia, and obviously some time has passed. Yet there’s no mention of her advancing pregnancy. It’s odd that I didn’t request a sentence or two, especially as I was going through my own first pregnancy at the time and discovering that there is not a moment when that developing child escapes a mother’s awareness. Yet Leia doesn’t give a thought to her baby bump in this very exciting chapter.…

—BM

³ I had a small problem with the Ewoks of Return of the Jedi. Not that they weren’t effective as aliens, but they were just so darned cute—as they were of course meant to be—that it was hard for me to visualize them as real fighters.

The Noghri were sort of my answer to that. They were roughly the same size as Ewoks, with a similar family and village life and a sense of honor and commitment to those they’ve accepted as friends and allies.

Only they’re true warriors, and extremely deadly. And they’re not at all cute.

—TZ

⁴ It would, in fact, be another ten years before the war with the Empire would end (in the Hand of Thrawn Duology).

And that brief period of peace would be quickly followed by the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, which would be followed by more trouble, and yet more trouble. Some galaxies never seem to catch a break …

—TZ

Chapter 26

¹ Killing off a character, or even just lopping off one of his or her major body parts, can be highly traumatic, not only for the character but for the audience. Just ask Luke.

That’s one of the handy things about droids. You can rip off any component you need to, and after a quick visit to the body shop everything will be fine.

Gilbert Gottfried, who voiced the parrot Iago in Disney’s Aladdin, once commented that the screenwriters’ philosophy seemed to be, “When in doubt, hurt the bird.”

Not that I would ever deliberately think that way about R2. Of course not.

—TZ

² Mara Jade’s creation began with a simple idea and plan: to tie the opening section of Return of the Jedi more closely to the main story presented by the Star Wars movies.

To elaborate a bit: Han’s rescue was, of course, a vital part of Jedi. But to me, it always felt a little disconnected from the main Rebellion plot line. (Which it was, of course. Rescuing Han was strictly personal, on everyone’s part.)

As I mulled it over, it occurred to me that, after Vader’s attempt to persuade Luke to join him in The Empire Strikes Back, the Emperor might very well have decided that Luke was more liability than potential asset and sent someone to take him out when he turned up at Jabba’s palace.

What kind of person might Palpatine send? It would have to be someone competent, naturally. It would also have to be someone who could meet Luke’s Jedi power head-on. Finally, it would have to be someone who was out of the normal chain of command, lest Vader get wind of the plan.

From all that came the idea of the Emperor’s Hand, a shadowy agent under Palpatine’s sole command. And from that, ultimately, came Mara Jade.

And although her early history still remains mysterious, I’ve now had a chance to tell a few of the stories of her life as the Emperor’s Hand, in Star Wars: Allegiance and the upcoming Star Wars: Choices of One.

—TZ

Chapter 27

¹ In Greek myth, the Chimaera was a fantastical fire-breathing beast that combined lion, goat, and snake. It was also held to be unconquerable, though it was eventually killed by Bellerophon.

Nowadays, the word refers to something made up of disparate parts (usually as a result of grafting or genetic manipulation), or something wildly and grotesquely imaginary.

All of those elements went into my decision to name Thrawn’s flagship the Chimaera. Disparate elements (human plus Chiss), considered imaginary (and hence not taken seriously by others until Thrawn was ready to move), and unconquerable.

—TZ

² Cloaking shields are one of those SF gadgets that almost beg to be abused by the writer. A cloak of invisibility that lets you sneak up right beside your enemies and deliver lethal blows can make life way too easy for you, and way too easy for your characters.

I would probably not have used cloaking shields at all if it hadn’t been for that comment in The Empire Strikes Back. Given that the Empire did have such a device, I couldn’t very well ignore it, any more than I could ignore the existence of clones and cloning.

Fortunately, by the time I began writing Heir, West End Games had already come up with the kind of limiting factor that cloaking technology needs. Along with its expense, they also postulated that it was a two-way shield, with no light or signal getting out that your enemy could see, but also no sensor data getting in that you could see. A doubleblind shield is automatically more difficult to use safely and effectively than the one-way type that often shows up in science fiction.

Fortunately, coming up with inventive ways to use limited and otherwise questionable technology is one of Thrawn’s specialties.

—TZ

Chapter 28

¹ From the very beginning it was clear that Luke and Mara worked well together.

At least, when Mara was willing to cooperate.

—TZ

² One of the unexpected complications with the Heir manuscript was that the copy editor evidently had never dealt with Star Wars before. When I got the manuscript, I discovered that this kind and thoughtful person had painstakingly changed all the stormtroopers to the more correct (at least for Earth usage) storm troopers.

I just as painstakingly changed all of them back again.

—TZ

Chapter 29

¹ In the original outline, which had Han and Leia coming to Myrkr instead of Han and Lando, this confrontation took place with the Chimaera still orbiting overhead. In that scenario, Chewie and Lando were scheduled to swoop in after the Imperials’ defeat and pull Luke and the others off the planet before Thrawn could intervene.

As a matter of pure logic, not to mention reasonable storytelling, it’s just as well that I came up with this version instead of having to use that one.

—TZ

Chapter 30

¹ This, plus the last bit of chapter 32, was where I’d originally planned to end this book. But after reading the outline, Betsy told me I needed something even more slam-bang exciting to close off this first part of the trilogy. Hence, Sluis Van.

—TZ

² For comparison, this is about 4.3 times the distance from our sun to Pluto. A nice, quiet neighborhood, perfect for this kind of gathering.

—TZ

³ The fifth quality of a good commander: he keeps his priorities straight.

—TZ

Chapter 31

¹ Final Tuckerization of this book: Mark Callen, Florida fan.

—TZ

² Pellaeon, by the way, was named after Pelleas, an idealistic young knight in the King Arthur mythos.

—TZ

³ Tim reminds me that his original outline had the book end with Luke’s escape but that I requested something bigger, saying his proposed finish wasn’t exciting enough to close out a Star Wars adventure. The climactic clash at Sluis Van was the result. As well as being a space battle worthy of the giant screen, it also ties together a number of seemingly minor plot elements Tim had been setting in place throughout the book: the shortage of freighters that sent Han to the smugglers, the theft of the mole miners, Lando’s presence on the scene, and more.

—BM

⁴ Spacetroopers were another cool invention from West End Games.

—TZ

⁵ The sixth quality of a good leader: he doesn’t waste his troops, but does what he can to get them to safety once their mission is complete or has been rendered impossible by the circumstances of the battle.

—TZ

⁶ The final quality of a good commander: a willingness to retreat when the circumstances of battle make the objective no longer attainable.

Note that at the same time, he’s maintaining the “glass half full” attitude vital to keeping up his troops’ morale.

—TZ

⁷ So here at last we have all the pieces that went into the creation of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

He’s competent and capable, enough so that his troops can be assured that they have the best possible chance of winning whatever battle they’re being sent into.

He cares about his troops, and they know he won’t sacrifice them for nothing.

And he’s driven by logic and reason, not anger or ego or wounded pride.

Throw in the semi-mystical art thing (through which he can anticipate his enemies’ moves), and make him an alien (because the Emperor disliked aliens, and would never give such a rank to one unless he was really, really good) … and when you’ve done all that, Grand Admiral Thrawn simply falls out of the equation.

I think the greatest compliment Thrawn has ever received came from a U.S. serviceman. (I can’t remember if he was a soldier or marine.) He told me he and his buddies had read the Thrawn Trilogy, and had agreed that they would unreservedly follow a commander like Thrawn.

Oh, and what would have happened if Thrawn had been in command at Endor? The Rebels, in my humble opinion, would almost certainly have lost.

—TZ

Chapter 32

¹ Just as Tim is masterful at creating cliffhangers at the end of chapters, he brought this book to a close with so many compelling cliffhangers that readers came in droves to the next book. Ackbar’s arrest is only one of them.

—BM

² I always liked the way the Back to the Future movies did this: with a “To Be Continued” after the first movie (the later version of it, anyway), and a “To Be Concluded” at the end of the second, thus assuring the viewer that the saga would indeed be ending with part 3.

Little did we know at the time that the Star Wars Expanded Universe wasn’t about to be concluded. In fact, it was just getting started.

—TZ