Monday, January 23, 2012

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #29

281. Esh-kha. From what I gather from their page, the Esh-kha are a really nasty bunch who, at a population of just 100,000 or so, gave nasty fights to the Old Republic and Sith Empire of about 4,000 years before the movies. And they had been trapped in stasis for 20,000 years or so before that, by an empire that had existed even longer ago. How and why? Apparently, they had caused some general nastiness for that old empire by destroying a bunch of their slave worlds or something, and after the war between the Esh-kha and said empire (which was called the "Infinite Empire"), only 100,000 of them were left.

Rating: 3/5. This sort of thing really indicates the scale of the Star Wars galaxy-it's got a long history. (EDIT: Hey, now they've got pictures! Revised score is 4/5, because they're cool.)

282. Esoomians. Esoomians are big (nine feet tall) guys who are rather cartoonishly topheavy and have rather interesting facial construction. Supposedly, they're simple-minded and garble their sentences.

Rating: 3/5. Mainly because they're rather cool to look at.

283. Etti. The Etti are almost human, except that they're described as having pale blue skin.

The most notable Etti was a half-Etti (and half human) Imperial officer who was so racist against nonhumans that even other humanocentric people thought he was an extremist.

Rating: 2/5. I don't really like humanlike races so much, but that's enough of an interesting piece (not to mention commentary on some real life bigotry) that this group at least sort of has their place.

284. Euceron. They're described as humanoid, with large domed heads and "delicate" limbs, and as dressing plainly "as if to offset their colorful buildings." They hosted the Galactic Games (i.e. the space Olympics) on their world shortly before the Clone Wars.

Rating: 2/5. Eh, kind of boring, but at least it adds something: The Star Wars galaxy has space Olympics.

285. Evocii. The Evocii were the natives of a planet named Evocar, which would later be called Nal Hutta.

In case you can't guess, the Hutts, whose homeworld died at some point, kicked them off in order to take it for themselves. (Incidentally, the fact that the Hutts survived the death of their homeworld caused the Hutts to believe they were gods, which might be why they're so nasty.) The Evocii were believed by many to be extinct in the present, but they weren't... at least until the Yuuzhan Vong showed up.

Rating: 3/5. Blipping Yuuzhan Vong.

286. Ewoks. The Ewok article on Wookieepedia is incredibly extensive, and for good reason: The Ewoks have a lot of material.

All I really have to say on them is that Michael Wong, who runs a fansite largely dedicated to measuring the effectiveness of science fiction military organizations against each other and real military organizations, thought that the Ewoks' performance against the Galactic Empire was perfectly realistic, and I mostly agree. Have you seen the sort of thing Ewoks have to deal with on a regular basis?

Rating: 5/5. Don't forget: If nothing else, the Ewoks will happily eat you.

287. Exargans. Exargans or Excargans are natives of Excarga, and apparently you can't tell whether a child is male or female until it's about thirteen.

Rating: 2/5. The profile notes that Boba Fett met an orphaned Exargan once. All I have to say is that I would feel particularly sorry for an orphan who's a member of a species which would need to have a version of "the talk" that would be that different from the norm.

288. Exodeenians. Exodeenians have six arms, six legs, and six sets of teeth. They also throw six-armed punches.

Rating: 3/5, merely because excessive sixes are kind of funny in this context. It's like guys with four arms and four eyes.

289. Extorin. The Extorin tried to take over their sector. But they didn't because the Jedi stopped them.

Rating: 1/5. Meh, whatever.

290. Fairfolk. The Fairfolk are some kind of psychic ghost Jawa-cloaked things.

That is all you need to know.

Rating: 4/5. Psychic ghosts wearing Jawa cloaks are pretty awesome, even if they apparently only showed up in a 3D story or something and thus have only funky art of them. They also had some kind of thing where they were being used by Darth Vader to try to mind control Luke, which is kind of amusing.

Holy cheese, next time will be #30, and the 300th entry! (Which, from the looks of things, will be something totally stupid! Yaaaayyy.)

-Signing off.

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