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Chiss Discussion

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Phatty:
For whatever reason, the first time I read of the Chiss and Thrawn, I was hooked.  Perhaps it was this unknown species with blue skin (my favorite color!).  Piercing red eyes that could impale your soul, and powerful minds, the Chiss makes me think of the possibility of an unknown humanoid species outside our own solar system!  I dug out much of this information on the Chiss from Wookiepedia, so thank them for all the hard work.  I just broke it down a bit and posted the important sections!

Reconsgt:
I think they are an interesting race, highly disciplined, I have not read to much outside of the Thrawn books and other novels where the Chiss play a role, I would have liked to see a more expanded history in the NJO series, and more backstories regarding the Fel's roles in the ascendancy, they did a good job with it, but I was curious for more

Tamer:
I, frankly, am surprised we have not seen one in the Prequel EU tales, either Old Republic or in some of the newer CW stuff. Surely the Chiss have to come to the Emperor's attention in some capacity? I have always thought that Thrawn may have willingly followed the Emperor in return for the Empire leaving his homeworld alone and that perhaps the Chiss were so intelligent that as long as one was in the service of the Empire they left said world alone and that the Chiss were a peaceful lot, but just brilliant strategists, so much so it was hereditary. Can't you just think of a great backstory to this one? Ofcourse, GL is souring me by turning the daggone Mandos pacifist.

dana.raye.smith:
There is a bit of backstory given in the Outbound Flight story, and a bit of a short story tagged on the end in  the same book.
As well, some more info is given piecemeal through out the books after the Thrawn trilogy.
Also info for Baron Fel and his clones joining the Chiss somewhere around the shadow emperor story line.
Or skip them all and just read the wiki on wookie...

These guys were the pacifist race... they could kick butt when necessary but frowned upon doing so outright.

Cimter:
OVERVIEW
The Chiss were a tall humanoid species, marked out from the majority of mainstream Galactic civilization by their pure blue skin, gleaming black hair, and glowing red eyes. Physically striking and instantly recognizable, and armed with a typically cool and disciplined manner, the mystique of the Chiss was further increased by the remote location of their territory in the Unknown Regions beyond the Outer Rim. But this remoteness also meant that they were largely disconnected from the galaxyspanning nexus of hyperspace travel and subspace communications that bound together the Old Republic, Empire and New Republic in turn, and thus detached from the associated pan-Galactic networks of economic, cultural and political contacts.

There is, in fact, evidence that intermittent, clandestine and low-level encounters between the Chiss and groups within the Old Republic had been ongoing for perhaps four millennia prior to the era of the Galactic Civil War; but these encounters left no visible, lasting impression on the galaxy as a whole, and the isolation of the Chiss can be gauged by the fact that they remained largely unaware of standard languages such as Huttese and Basic, with communications with outsiders being conducted instead through local trade-languages such as Minnisiat.

The pace of contact began to accelerate shortly before the Clone Wars, but it was only after the Battle of Endor that the Chiss became visible for the first time on the wider Galactic stage—largely due to the rise to prominence of the exiled warrior named Thrawn, a military genius who became the only non-Human Grand Admiral in the Imperial Starfleet. Thrawn's distinctive character has undoubtedly influenced subsequent popular perceptions of the Chiss as cool, enigmatic warriors, but he was a highly controversial figure among his own people, and two points must be borne in mind when considering the pattern of this and subsequent contacts. Firstly, interaction between outsiders and the Chiss remained largely restricted to encounters with military personnel, and the primarily martial nature of these encounters may not have reflected Chiss society as a whole. Moreover, it must also be appreciated that contact was made at this time with two distinct and entirely independent Chiss military forces, apparently reflecting two sharply diverging trends in Chiss opinion.

The first of these was Thrawn's own Household Phalanx, personally loyal to him and his ideals, and allied with the Imperial forces that he brought to the Unknown Regions—the faction that came to be known as the Empire of the Hand. The other group was the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet, which served the Chiss Ascendancy, the government which exiled Thrawn in around 20 BBY for breaking its strict codes of military conduct, and which apparently commanded the loyalty, or at least the acceptance, of the vast bulk of the Chiss population.

The frequent confusion between the CEDF and the House Phalanx was just one indicator of how little the wider galaxy knew or understood about the Chiss. Although Thrawn's fame ensured that they rapidly became one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable of all non-Human peoples, much about them remained mysterious to Galactic civilization at large, even as the Unknown Regions began to be opened up in the age of the Galactic Alliance. Moreover, what was known about them was often hard to fully understand, and sometimes seemed paradoxical—and that may well have been exactly how they wanted the rest of the galaxy to think of them.

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