What Thrawn: Alliances Tells Us About Disney Parks’ Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

The latest Star Wars novel, Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn is out today. The story features the planet of Batuu and the settlement of Black Spire Outpost which is also the setting of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge which is coming to the Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World next year. Without getting into spoilers, here is what we learned about the settlement and the outpost from the book:

  • Batuu is located at the edge of the “Unknown Regions.”
  • One of the larger settlements on Batuu is Black Spire Outpost
  • A trading post with an attached cantina dominate the center of town and press up against the edge of the ruins of an ancient civilization
  • Some homes have been built into the ruins, though most are freestanding buildings
  • Petrified remains of giant black trees give the outpost its name and tower over everything
  • The corridor between the landing field and Black Spire is described as this: The air is rich with memory, full of the aromas of exotic plants and the sounds of distant birds.
  • Four species were represented in Black Spire: humans, Darshi, Shistavanens, and Jablogians
  • The Darshi are described has having long clawed limbs as well as narrow heads and bodies.
  • The Cantina serves Batuu Brew, Black Spire Brew, Blurrgfire, Toniray White, Andoan White, Moogan Tea among other drinks

The book takes place during both the Clone Wars and during the Galactic Civil War while guests will be visiting Batuu during the era of The First Order and the Resistance. Therefore, the descriptions of Batuu may not look exactly the same once guests are able to visit.

In an interview with StarWars.com, author Timothy Zahn had this to say about incorporating Batuu into his work:

I was getting a lot of still shots and descriptions of the Galaxy’s Edge part of the park for Walt Disney World and Disneyland, so I was able to incorporate things from that into the book. Now, I’m writing in a different era, so I don’t have to do any really detailed stuff. But if you see a town or a city that is like, you know, New York or something, in the ’30s, it’s going to be similar to New York in the ’50s. The buildings will change, the people will obviously change, but a lot of the same feel will still be there, and I was trying to add some of that into the book. I would like to go back to Batuu in future books, spend a little more time there and explore it, maybe need to leverage a trip to Galaxy’s Edge before it opens — hint, hint! Purely for research purposes, of course.