Handwaved CR?

a significant part of the reason why Thrawn keeps Jacob around is because not only does he know how to document, which already makes him a unicorn among engineers, he understands how the machinery of bureaucracy works and also he writes really good project proposals

I can believe it

Thrawn does like it when his subordinates show initiative

Jacob's got his own little R&D/fabrication laboratory aboard the Chimaera because he understands how to write to an audience.

and Thrawn, for all his brilliance, is still so clueless about this thing humans call politics and bureaucracy

he gets the principle, he just doesn't have the background he needs to deal with it effectively, plus humans have it literally everywhere, in places he's not used to dealing with it

like, the CEDF is an extremely strict meritocracy and you don't get things just by having the right connections the way you do in the Imperial Navy

yep

hence Thrawn getting himself in hot water all the time early in his carer

nah, that part is just Thrawn being Thrawn. He's gonna do what he knows is right and people can deal with it however they like.

indeed

He pulled that shit all the time in the CEDF and Ar'alani had to figure out how to frame it to the Aristocra so she didn't lose her best young officer.

(man Outbound Flight was such a good novel, srsly)

good news, the library has Outbound Flight

I plan to read it once I read the original Thrawn Trilogy

(I mean, I also have the ebook files, I just like to patronize the library)

nice!

but yeah, Thrawn also knows the importance of building a team whose strengths complement one another's, and who teach each other good habits instead of bad ones. Writing a decent project proposal is a rare skill in general, and Jacob's good at playing to his fellow engineers' love of good data to get them to document their shit

[nod]

something Thrawn certainly appreciates