The Empire has been pretty much defeated by the time of The Mandalorian, but Ahsoka Tano is still on the hunt for Grand Admiral Thrawn. What’s interesting is, Thrawn is said to have his own special squad of soldiers, and they’re on a different level than Moff Gideon’s remnant stormtroopers.
According to Making Star Wars, Thrawn will be in command of stormtroopers that have allegedly been brought back to life by some kind of Nightsister magic, and they will be sporting armor that has been patched back together with gold (or something that looks like gold).
The look is said to be based on the Japanese art of Kintsugi which mends broken things with gold, resulting in a very unique look. The only other visual comparison we can make in the Star Wars lore in Kylo Ren’s reforged helmet from The Rise of Skywalker; but rather than gold, Kylo’s helmet was put together with a red material.
Admittedly, these are just rumors for now, but a lot of it definitely tracks when it comes to the timeline. Thrawn is known to be a master tactician, and it would be odd to have him as the main villain without being in control of some kind of army.
We don’t know when Lucasfilm plans to give us a new look at the Ahsoka series. Besides Rosario Dawson, we have yet to get a live-action look at Ezra, Sabine, and Thrawn himself. With a release set for later this year, I’m hoping we can get a look sometime around February.
