At Disney's D23 fan event, Lucasfilm unveiled the trailer and release date for Ahsoka season 2, revealing that Grand Admiral Thrawn has returned from exile and declared war on the New Republic and Rebel Alliance. The reveal has sparked debate among fans, since Thrawn's threat is never mentioned during the later sequel trilogy films, raising questions about whether the new series contradicts established Star Wars canon.

Thrawn and Jedi Ezra Bridger vanished together in 1 BBY after being transported to a distant galaxy, while Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren were left stranded there while pursuing them. During his exile, Thrawn allied with the Nightsisters and rebuilt his Star Destroyer, engineering his return by the end of Ahsoka's first season, even as Imperial remnants elsewhere plotted independently to restore the Empire under Emperor Palpatine's contingency plan. The article notes that the sequel trilogy's apparent silence on Thrawn could reflect Lucasfilm's poor forward planning, though it suggests there is a deeper in-universe explanation, which the piece does not fully reveal before cutting off.