Before the Thrawn campaign of 9 ABY, the Chiss Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo, core name "Thrawn," sent a spaarti cloning cylinder to the Hand of Thrawn fortress on the planet Nirauan, storing a clone of himself in the cylinder, hiding it in a secret chamber. Before leaving Nirauan to commence his campaign, Thrawn told his Empire of the Hand forces that if he was reported dead, he would return in ten years. To accomplish that, Thrawn set up a timed system, which he reset every time he returned to the Hand of Thrawn, to awake his clone.
In 9 ABY, Thrawn's Noghri bodyguard, Rukh, killed him, and the Grand Admiral's forces began to await the Chiss's return. Ten years later, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and former Emperor's Hand Mara Jade infiltrated the Hand of Thrawn, discovering Thrawn's clone; however, several security droids that were protecting Thrawn's clone attacked the pair, and the infiltrators were forced to destroy a wall that led to a lake, flooding the chamber and killing the clone.
Grand Admiral Thrawn, the clone's template
By 9 ABY, Mitth'raw'nuruodo, core name "Thrawn," a Chiss Grand Admiral of the Galactic Empire sent a clone of himself to his Hand of Thrawn fortress on the Wild Space planet Nirauan. Storing the clone in a spaarti cloning cylinder in one of the fortress's sublevels, the Grand Admiral wrapped his duplicate in and flash-learning cables to feed the clone and share his memories with them. The Grand Admiral also placed ysalamiri, creatures that repelled the Force, around the clone.
Setting up a timed system to awake his clone in ten years, Thrawn told his forces, the Empire of the Hand, that if he was ever reported dead, he would return in a decade. In 9 ABY, the Grand Admiral left Nirauan to begin his campaign against the New Republic. Thrawn's Noghri bodyguard Rukh murdered the Grand Admiral during the campaign's Battle of Bilbringi.
Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade destroyed a wall that led to a lake, unleashing a wave of water that killed Thrawn's clone.
Ten years later, in 19 ABY, the clone was ready. Moff Vilim Disra hired the con man Flim to pose as Grand Admiral Thrawn in an attempt to gain power in the Imperial Remnant. Flim met with several Imperial and New Republic officials, and eventually, rumors of Thrawn's return reached the Empire of the Hand. Shortly after, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and former Emperor's Hand Mara Jade traveled to Nirauan and infiltrated the Hand of Thrawn. They encountered the fortress's commander, Admiral Voss Parck, who revealed that he was going to share the Empire of the Hand's existence with the Imperial Remnant, as he believed the rumors of Thrawn's return to be genuine. Jade unsuccessfully attempted to convince Parck that doing so would be a bad idea, and the admiral's forces imprisoned her. However, Skywalker rescued her and fled, entering the chamber that housed Thrawn's clone. The Jedi and his companion discovered the clone and discussed what he would do when he woke up, contemplating the possibility of bringing him to the New Republic's capital planet Coruscant to use Thrawn to defend the government from several threats from the Unknown Regions Parck had mentioned. As the clone had not done anything that deserved an execution, they refused to kill him.
After Jade suggested they should learn how much time the clone needed before awakening, the pair set off a defense system, sending two cortosis-plated sentry droids to confront the infiltrators. As the cortosis shut down their lightsabers upon impact, they were forced to destroy a wall that led to a lake; as a result, a wave entered the chamber and destroyed the droids and killed Thrawn's clone. The pair then escaped from the fortress and left Nirauan.
Luke Skywalker told Mara Jade that they had killed Thrawn's clone after the former Emperor's Hand speculated that another clone of Thrawn had developed Formbi's plot to eradicate the Vagaari (pictured).
In 22 ABY, Chiss Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano "Formbi" brought Skywalker, Jade, and a group of Vagaari soldiers, who had attacked the Chiss Ascendancy and the Chiss for years, to the Unknown Regions Redoubt star cluster. He showed them the remains of Outbound Flight, a starship Thrawn destroyed in 27 BBY in an attempt to prompt the Vagaari to attack the Chiss to justify a war against them. Formbi's plot was successful, and the Vagaari attacked the Chiss and they were subsequently defeated by the Chiss forces. After the events in the Redoubt, Jade doubted that Formbi had created the plan, speculating that a clone of Thrawn was eliminating the Unknown Regions' threats before another threat attacked the galaxy. Skywalker reminded her that they had destroyed Thrawn's clone, and Jade countered that Thrawn could have stored another clone of himself somewhere.
The circumstances of the clone's death were later covered in the New Republic Historical Council document The Essential Chronology, released just before 25 ABY's Yuuzhan Vong War. A 36 ABY updated edition of the document, The New Essential Chronology also covered his death.
As a clone of Grand Admiral Thrawn, they were a male Chiss who stood at 1.8 meters. The Grand Admiral's clone had blue-black hair, red eyes, and blue skin.
Master Skywalker did not know if the clone would have Thrawn's genius, leadership, or his single-minded drive.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo's clone first appeared in the 1997 novel Vision of the Future, the final installment of Timothy Zahn's Star Wars: The Hand of Thrawn Duology. The clone was first pictured in the reference book The New Essential Chronology, published in 2005. The clone's illustration was drawn by Tommy Lee Edwards.
- The Essential Chronology
- The New Essential Guide to Characters
- The Official Star Wars Fact File102
- The New Essential Chronology
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- The Essential Atlas
- The Unknown Regions
- The Essential Guide to Warfare
- The Essential Reader's Companion