Thursday, April 5, 2012

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #38

371. Ghawem. The Ghawem are "methane breathers," which is nonsense, but whatever. At least at one time, they kept members of another species as slaves. They're large and scaly.

What's more interesting is that apparently some Ghawem use special packs to generate compatible atmosphere for themselves, and a group of pirates used these to modify the atmosphere of a ship they were invading, which made things tough for the boardees.

Rating: 2/5. There's basically nothing on the Ghawem themselves that is specifically interesting, but they get a point for the more interesting idea of aliens in a galactic society using modifications of a ship's atmosphere using their personal breather units as a weapon, more or less.

372. Ghishi. The Ghishi are a race of "warrior-mantids." One was a podracer who was noted as much scrawnier than the average... although this is the only one who's ever made an appearance that I can tell.

Rating: 3/5. I like bug people, even if this isn't an especially interesting instance, but the fact that it's noted right off the bat that the only shown member is unusual gets them a bit extra.

373. Ghostlings. Ghostlings are practically human, but apparently incredibly fragile. Their "exotic" beauty means that they have something of a tendency to get into relationships with humans, and then they die. Not "can die," definitely die. Also, slavers like taking them as slaves because they're rare and beautiful.

Nice, writers. Nice.

Rating: 1/5. Y'know, excessive fragility could potentially be a workable trait for a fantasy race or a genetically engineered race. A science fiction race that naturally evolved? Not so much.

374. Giant algae-beds. Apparently, the Star Wars galaxy is inhabited by sapient algae.

Rating: 4/5, because that's great.

375. Gigorans. These apelike beings are apparently popular slaves.

Rating: 1/5. Meh.

376. Givin. Givin are beings who have skull-like faces, exoskeletons, and the ability to survive for brief periods in hard vacuum, thanks to their planet having atmospheric tides. The Givin needed to be aware of mathematics for their early history because of those tides, and so the modern Givin society exchanges greetings by asking each other to solve calculus equations.

Because all they need to survive in space are air tanks, they maintain big shipyards around their homeworld, Yag'Dhul (which has one of the coolest Star Wars planet names).

Rating: 5/5. I like the Givin. They're very distinctive.

377. Glarsaurs. The Glarsaurs of Gelgelar are large, brutish dinosaur-like aliens. From the sound of things, their homeworld is cold, so at least they probably aren't cold-blooded.

Rating: 3/5. They look reasonably cool, and their "brutishness" may simply have to do with them being primitive.

378. Glassferrans. Glassferrans have three "expressionless" eyes which are capable of independently focusing on different objects.

Rating: 2/5. Big whoop. Although now that I'm thinking about it, it'd be interesting to see an alien species with optical configuration similar to that of most herbivores, i.e. independently mobile and not even fully able to focus on a single object. (Even most herbivore-based aliens have stereoscopic vision, because it's what we're used to.)

379. Gloorags. Gloorags apparently somewhat resemble large snakes, but are covered in tendrils, eyestalks, and respiratory "stalks." The respiratory stalks are what they talk through, and apparently their mental configuration is such that they can easily hold more than one conversation at a time by talking with different stalks.

Rating: 5/5. Goshdarn if they don't sound like the friendliest Lovecraftian abominations I've ever heard of.

380. Glottalphibs. Glottalphibs, also known as 'phibs (heh), are basically water dragon people, complete with blaster-resistant scales and firebreathing. They prefer to keep wet because their scales flake off when their skin dries out.

They also keep watumba bats around because they eat a lot of things that live off of the watumba bats, but it seems like an awfully stupid thing to do, because the watumba bats "eat" Glottalphib firebreath and in the story where they appeared, swooped down a bunch of Glottalphibs' throats and killed them.

That is just stupid.

Rating: 3/5. While the watumba bat thing is egregiously stupid (and loses them at least a point), I have to admit that the Glottalphibs appeal to me overall.

-Signing off.

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