Once achieving the rank of Grand Admiral, Thrawn was one of the highest ranking officials
within the Imperial military.
But he didn’t obtain that rank overnight, he climbed his way up from the very bottom
of the Imperial hierarchy, including attending an Imperial academy for a few months which
involved him getting harassed by fellow peers due to his Chiss alien origins.
Thrawn attended the prestigious Royal Imperial Academy on Coruscant alongside with Human
cadet Eli Vanto, his translator who had been assigned to him ever since Thrawn was first
taken by the Empire after they discovered him on an isolated planet, to which he was
exiled to by the Chiss Ascendancy due to his overly aggressive military tactics.
Eli Vanto was an Imperial cadet from wild space who was nearly finished with his own
training, and he was seeking to only become a supply officer so he could earn a modest
living for himself and his family.
But then Thrawn came along and Eli so happened to know a language that the Chiss was fluent
in, so he was assigned as his translator which completely rerouted his desired career path.
Anyway, both of them were sent to the academy for a few months by Emperor Palpatine himself,
who was impressed by Thrawn’s military prowse and for his profound knowledge of the unknown
regions.
Thrawn was sent to the Academy so he could familiarize himself with standard Imperial
military protocols and equipment, while Eli was sent there to finish his own training
as well as to serve as a translator for Thrawn.
But at that point Thrawn was pretty much fluent in Basic and only used Eli to help him with
slang.
When they arrived, both of them stood out among the Human filled academy, Thrawn for
his obvious alien origins, and Eli Vanto for being born outside of the inner core of the
galaxy, which was identifiable by his accent.
When they met with the Academy’s president, Commandant Deenlark, they were met with disdain
right off the bat.
At first Deenlark thought the two of them being admitted to the academy was some kind
of a joke.
He then began to question Eli’s intelligence, implying that those from wild space were of
lower I.Q., and he then casually gave a few racial slurs toward Thrawn due to his alien
origin.
They were then dismissed to go to their studies, but not before Thrawn was handed a lieutenant
plaque.
Deenlark stated that since Thrawn already had military experience that he would be graduating
at a higher rank than from his peers.
But Thrawn deduced that there was more to this than just skipping ahead of his peers,
that the real reason he was handed the lieutenant plaque was to make him an even bigger target
within the academy, as fellow cadets may look at him with envy or as a washed up lieutenant
who had to redo his training.
As a result he decided not to wear it in public.
Within the first month of his stay at the academy, Thrawn experienced at least three
incidences of bullying.
Most of these were pretty minor, with him only being called causal racial slurs or being
slightly shoved in the halls.
None of these incidents seemed to bother Thrawn though, who refused to report any of the harassment
he had undergone to the higher ups despite being asked to do so by Eli.
But that wasn’t because Thrawn didn’t want to see these people go unpunished.
He understood that reporting these minor incidences to the higher ups was likely to result in
nothing, as it ultimately came down to his word against his harassers’.
No instead he wanted to appear like he was an open target for bullying, so that his bullies
would one day overstep their harassment and do something that couldn’t be excusable.
Eventually this happened just as he had predicted.
Shortly after humiliating a few fellow cadets at a game of cards, Thrawn and Eli were ambushed
by three hooded individuals as they were making their way back to the barracks.
Their main target was Thrawn, whom they ganged up on after Eli was shoved away.
But luckily for Thrawn and Eli, the attackers retreated after a group of people witnessed
what was happening.
As a result, Thrawn only sustained minor external injuries.
The three hooded attackers were linked to the group of cadets that Thrawn had just beaten
at the card game earlier.
On top of the witnesses that saw the attack happen, he also had comlink evidence linking
the group to the attack.
Thrawn now had the evidence to give to the higher ups of the academy to punish these
cadets accordingly.
But then another problem arose.
Although Commandant Deenlark acknowledged the incident to have occurred, he was reluctant
to dish out any punishment, as the cadet who orchestrated the entire attack, named Spenc
Orbar, was the son of the senator of Coruscant.
Which means that he would be under fire from the Elite of Coruscant if he were to publicly
punish the senator’s son.
Seeing how it was very unlikely to convince Deenlark to punish the cadet, Thrawn suggested
an alternative solution.
Punish Spenc Orbar indirectly by taking away his friends.
The three attackers were some of Spenc’s closest friends, so Thrawn suggested that
perhaps it’d be best to send the three of them away without giving any reason as to
why.
So Spenc loses contact with his close friends and then worries about what had happened to
them.
Wondering if they were expelled from the academy or even given prison sentences.
But the 3 attackers wouldn’t be punished directly either.
Instead they would be transferred to Skystrike Academy as Thrawn noted that they would make
excellent pilots.
But they too wouldn’t be notified of this transfer until they actually got there.
So they would be in fear for a few days until they made their way over there.
These indirect punishments weren’t conceived by Thrawn as a means of revenge on his bullies,
but rather he genuinely believed that by doing this it would benefit the Empire the most.
For one, the 3 cadets being sent to Skystrike Academy did indeed show talent for being pilots,
and because they were sent to an Academy that excelled at the program, they’d likely choose
that career path, becoming great future additions to the Imperial starfighter core.
And when it came to the Coruscant senator’s son, Spenc Orbar, his separation from his
close friends would possibly make him get his act together and perhaps make him become
a respectable leader in the future.
Thrawn acknowledged the talent that all 4 of these cadets possessed, and he believed
it’d be a waste for them to get expelled from the academy for their bad behavior, either
for their harrassments toward him or for whatever they may have done in the future had they
remained together.
So perhaps mildly punishing them and forcing them to change their career paths would indeed
be the best and most efficient resolution for the Empire as a whole.
For that’s all that Thrawn cared for at the time: the success of the Empire and not
his own personal troubles.
Two months after the incident, Thrawn and Eli graduated from the Academy.
Thrawn became a lieutenant and was assigned to an Imperial cruiser, with Eli being assigned
as his aide, despite his protests of wishing to still become a supply officer.