I'm nearly finished with Zahn's "Thrawn Trilogy" (great books BTW) and I previously read his "Outbound Flight" PT story/tie-in to "Survivor's Quest" and I was wondering just how his mad clone came to exist? I'm near the end of "The Last Command" and so far, although everybody realizes that he is a clone and that he was aboard the doomed Outbound Flight Project, there's been no answers provided about his origin.
Does "The Last Command" provide an explanation or does it just leave that question open?
If it doesn't, does anybody have any theories about how/why he was created? There just doesn't seem to be any logical explanation for his existence (to me anyway). The only thing we do know is that he had to have himself cloned prior to departing on Outbound Flight but who would've cloned him and why?
The only theory that I've been able to come up with is that C'Baoth, whose personality wasn't exactly too different from his mad(der) clone, had himself cloned, perhaps thinking himself too important to die but somebody else would've probably had to tend to his clone in his absence. We don't actually get introduced to his clone until "Heir to The Empire", which, of course, takes place approximately 30-40 years AFTER the departure/destruction of Outbound Flight (by Thrawn).
Palpatine MIGHT have decided to make a clone of C'Baoth to be used for his own purposes but, given his attitude towards him in "Outbound Flight" he couldn't stand him and was more than happy to get rid of him and certainly could not have wanted a clone of him possibly competing with him for power.
However, C'Baoth was almost certainly a product of Spaarti Cloning, which Palpatine likely controlled so maybe some unknown Dark Jedi found out about the technology and used it to create C'Baoth for his/her own purposes but was later killed by him? C'Baoth does reference a previous "guardian" assigned by the Emperor to guard his storage on Wayland that he defeated. Was C'Baoth actually created by Palpatine for the sole purpose of guarding his treasure, particularly since C'Baoth had little or no interest in the Emperor's treasures, preferring instead to be able to rule over the inhabitants?
Anybody else have any thoughts? If there is an explanation provided at the end of "The Last Command" or elsewhere, I'll be finding out soon enough but there is no information in the Star Wars Databank so I'm presuming that this subject was never resolved.
*Also, what other Star Wars books that outline more about what happened to Thrawn between "Outbound Flight" and TTT? I noticed that, although he had his first contact with Palpatine/Sidious in OF, he doesn't actually join him then as I had expected.
Does "The Last Command" provide an explanation or does it just leave that question open?
If it doesn't, does anybody have any theories about how/why he was created? There just doesn't seem to be any logical explanation for his existence (to me anyway). The only thing we do know is that he had to have himself cloned prior to departing on Outbound Flight but who would've cloned him and why?
The only theory that I've been able to come up with is that C'Baoth, whose personality wasn't exactly too different from his mad(der) clone, had himself cloned, perhaps thinking himself too important to die but somebody else would've probably had to tend to his clone in his absence. We don't actually get introduced to his clone until "Heir to The Empire", which, of course, takes place approximately 30-40 years AFTER the departure/destruction of Outbound Flight (by Thrawn).
Palpatine MIGHT have decided to make a clone of C'Baoth to be used for his own purposes but, given his attitude towards him in "Outbound Flight" he couldn't stand him and was more than happy to get rid of him and certainly could not have wanted a clone of him possibly competing with him for power.
However, C'Baoth was almost certainly a product of Spaarti Cloning, which Palpatine likely controlled so maybe some unknown Dark Jedi found out about the technology and used it to create C'Baoth for his/her own purposes but was later killed by him? C'Baoth does reference a previous "guardian" assigned by the Emperor to guard his storage on Wayland that he defeated. Was C'Baoth actually created by Palpatine for the sole purpose of guarding his treasure, particularly since C'Baoth had little or no interest in the Emperor's treasures, preferring instead to be able to rule over the inhabitants?
Anybody else have any thoughts? If there is an explanation provided at the end of "The Last Command" or elsewhere, I'll be finding out soon enough but there is no information in the Star Wars Databank so I'm presuming that this subject was never resolved.
*Also, what other Star Wars books that outline more about what happened to Thrawn between "Outbound Flight" and TTT? I noticed that, although he had his first contact with Palpatine/Sidious in OF, he doesn't actually join him then as I had expected.
