Ahsoka blew Star Wars wide open last year with the revelation that Grand Admiral Thrawn’s grand return required a trip there and back to a completely new galaxy—the first time contemporary Star Wars canon had considered the universe beyond the far, far away place we’d already explored. But while Thrawn’s knowledge of worlds outside Star Wars‘ regular purview was a shocking piece of new information in modern continuity, the Grand Admiral had more than a few brushes with the idea in the old Expanded Universe.
What Was the Outbound Flight Project?
© Penguin Random House/Dave SeeleyConceived by Jedi Master Jorus C’boath, the Outbound Flight Project was a collaboration between the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order to develop and fund an expeditionary mission beyond the fringes of Republic space, through the “Unknown Regions”—an uncharted, albeit populated section of the galaxy that did not look to Galactic Core as the center of interstellar civilization—and beyond the galaxy’s known fringe. First conceived around three years after the events of The Phantom Menace, the project involved the recruitment of 50,000 civilian colonists and a large number of Jedi, as well as the purchase of six dreadnaught-class cruisers linked around a primary fuselage, creating the titular vessel of the endeavor, Outbound Flight.
Although ostensibly a joint taskforce commissioned by the Republic and the Jedi Order, in actuality the Outbound Flight Project was wrapped in a weave of ulterior motives beyond its exploratory intent. The Jedi Council hoped that excursion could locate the missing Fosh Jedi Vergere, who had been kidnapped by agents from a then-unknown extragalactic civilization who were ultimately revealed as early agents from the Yuuzhan Vong. Now Chancellor of the Republic after the ousting of Finis Valorum, Palpatine ostensibly backed the Senate’s hope that the excursion could lead to the founding of Republic colonies throughout the Unknown Regions and potentially beyond the known galaxy, expanding its reach.
However, in his true guise as Darth Sidious, Palpatine also saw the project as a chance to kill a large number of Jedi away from prying eyes, while also preventing the discovery of the extragalactic threat of the Vong before the galaxy was prepared to face them. On top of that, there was also Master C’boath himself, increasingly obsessed with the Jedi as a ruling class, who secretly prioritized the selection of Force-sensitive candidates for colonists, trained in those abilities in secret, in an attempt to foster new outposts and colonies of Jedi under his own influence.
After several years of planning—and the project itself almost being scuppered if not for a pact between Palpatine and C’Boath—the Outbound Flight departed from Yaga Minor, a world on the fringes of the Outer Rim in 27BBY. Almost immediately however, it faced issues. Two of the Jedi assigned to the mission, Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker (last minute additions intended to keep an eye on C’boath), were pulled from expedition before it left at the behest of Palpatine. Shortly thereafter, C’boath usurped command of Outbound Flight from its civilian captain, enacting harsh rules that cracked down on the freedom of non-Force sensitive personnel and colonists. That, ultimately, would prove the least of the mission’s problems.
How Was Thrawn Connected to Outbound Flight?
© Penguin Random House/Dave SeeleyPalpatine had never intended for Outbound Flight to make it through the Unknown Regions. Acting as Darth Sidious, he commissioned a secret task force of Trade Federation vessels to intercept Outbound Flight and destroy it by any means necessary. However, in operating in the Unknown Regions, the Task Force was confronted by a patrol from the Chiss Ascendancy’s Expansionary Defense Force. Commanded by a young Thrawn, the patrol destroyed all but a single ship in the ensuing battle—negotiating with the surviving commander to be put into contact with Sidious, who further explained the threat the Outbound Flight posed if it exposed the existence of the Vong, who had already become known to the Ascendancy through engagements with scouting parties into Chiss space.
Thrawn agreed to Sidious’ request to use his patrol unit to destroy the Outbound Flight, setting up a trap that ultimately nearly scuttled the Flight as well as killed nearly every Jedi and ultimately most of the colonists on board, save for C’Boath and his apprentice Lorana Jinzler. Driven to the dark side by the destruction, Thrawn ultimately killed C’boath, and Jinzler was forced to sacrifice herself (alongside Thrawn’s brother, Mitth’ras’safis, who had encountered the Outbound Flight while investigating his brother’s battle against the Trade Federation operatives dispatched by Sidious) by crash-landing the vessel on a planetoid at the edge of Chiss space, saving just 57 remaining colonists.
What Happened to Outbound Flight in the Expanded Universe?
© Penguin Random HouseWith the ship presumed lost by the Republic and the Jedi Order, the surviving colonists eked out survival in the remnants of the vessel, hidden away from the Chiss and the wider galaxy alike for almost 50 years. By the time Chiss agents discovered the existence of the surviving colony that had grown out of the ruins of Outbound Flight, the Galactic Republic had been transformed into the Empire, which itself had fallen and been replaced by the New Republic, alongside a new Jedi Order established by Luke Skywalker.
The Chiss offered the existence of Outbound Flight‘s “survival” to Skywalker to make up for their role in its destruction, but the colony rejected contact with the New Republic, scarred by their association with the Jedi after C’boath’s harsh rule, eventually aligning with a faction of Imperial remnants known as the Empire of the Hand—itself established by none other than now Grand Admiral Thrawn, who had perished years prior to Outbound Flight‘s rediscovery in his attempts to destroy the New Republic. Which, in and of itself, had a further connection to the Outbound Flight Project: during his campaign against the New Republic, Thrawn had recruited the crazed dark Jedi Joruus C’boath (note the extra ‘u’): a clone of the Jedi Master who had died aboard Outbound Flight. Small galaxy!
Could the Outbound Flight Project Return to Star Wars Canon?
© LucasfilmGiven that we’re setting up a major new storyline in Star Wars between the events of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens that deals with a resurgent Imperial remnant lead by Thrawn, it’s clear many of the events touched upon in Timothy Zahn’s iconic Heir to the Empire trilogy will at least get some nods in however this story comes to unfold across series like Ahsoka season two, and the upcoming films The Mandalorian & Grogu and Dave Filoni’s untitled “Mandoverse” team-up film. But the version of Outbound Flight that we know of in the Expanded Universe is unlikely to be adapted in any substantial means—its connections to either the original C’boath and his clone, Thrawn’s past prior to aligning with the Empire, or the existence of the Yuuzhan Vong making it too messy to entirely extricate.
But that doesn’t mean an attempt hasn’t been gestured at. Zahn’s return to Star Wars continuity for two separate Thrawn novel trilogies—one set during the rise of the Empire touching on his ascendance through Imperial ranks to become a Grand Admiral, the other a prequel series set during his career with the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet—canonized elements of the battle against the Outbound Flight that heavily referenced the stories Zahn had previously told in the Expanded Universe. While the ship is never explicitly named in those canon novels, details like Thrawn encountering a human vessel, and using them to set a trap and engage with the Vagaari, a rival civilization in the Unknown Regions, and the death of his brother Mitth’ras’safis, are all still parts of Thrawn’s canonical background.
Whether that ship will ever be revealed as the Outbound Flight—and whether or not its legacy could be tied to Star Wars continuity’s current extragalactic storytelling with Peridea and the original Nightsisters—remains to be seen. Stranger things have certainly happened.
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