Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#50)

(Woohoo, hitting #500 today... Yay. I made a small revision to an older article based on stuff that's come out since I originally wrote it. [EDIT: What the heck, what's up with that stupid link error? Gah, Firefox and Blogger, why are you teaming up to do this to me?])

491. Jastaal. They're birds who apparently are land-bound, but come close to flying at times when they run.

Rating: 2/5. Very little information, but considering that there are real birds that do what these are said to, I find it an interesting description.

492. Jawas. Jawa language has a smell-based component, and Jawas can also detect numerous things about each other by scent (such as who their family is, mood, and whether or not they're in a state of arousal-yes, really, though that's less impressive than the family thing). They don't actually look like the costumes, as the costumes are their desert garb-instead, they're generally described as "rodent-like." Accounts differ as to whether the Jawas are related to the Sand People or if they're some kind of human degenerates.

A major part of Jawa culture revolves around their clans and shamans, who are always female and apparently are the only truly respected female members of their societies.

Also, if you've ever wondered where the Jawas got their sandcrawlers, about four thousand years before the movie era, a big mining corporation was trying to make a quick buck on Tatooine, but the stuff they were after turned out to be pretty worthless; taking their huge mining transport vehicles back offworld would likewise have been more trouble than it was worth, so they just abandoned them.

That's right, Jawas are driving around things older than most Earthly civilizations.

Rating: 5/5. I've got a soft spot for the little scavengers. (Notice how I focused on the less-well-known aspects of Jawas? It's not like I really needed to tell you that they're tiny technology scavengers and shady businessmen.)

493. Jazbinans. The Jazbinans are described as "humanoid with feline features," and this amounts to them essentially looking like more realistic versions of those generic animal people who are background characters in a lot of Disney comics.

Rating: 1/5. They're kinda creepy, and not in a good way, though of course one's mileage may vary. I can't stand them.

494. Jenet(s). The Jenet are scavenging rodent people who... are basically less primitive Jawas who exist in more places, and are ugly out in the open instead of covering up.

Huh.

Rating: 3/5. They're kinda boring without the Jawas' quirks (such as shouting "UTINI!"). The only noteworthy thing about them is that they claim to have fought a war with "tree goblins" called Danchaf that were classified as nonsapient by scientists, but who the Jenet claimed were once intelligent and ruled the world.

495. Jeodu. Jeodudes have these ugly triangle heads that make them rather distinctive. Apparently, as they have tiny white crystals on their heads, "Dequc," which means "whitehead," is a common name among them. Apparently, rather a lot of them joined a criminal organization called Black Nebula in order to try to revive the other criminal organization, Black Sun. Cute.

Rating: 3/5. This is almost entirely because they're so distinctively ugly.

496. Jerni. The Jerni supposedly developed a device called the Eternity Crystal in order to manipulate time to prevent cataclysms (by traveling back to try to avert said events), but Darth Vader probably made that up. The Jerni did apparently exist at one time, but they were pretty well extinct a long time ago. In fact, Wookieepedia lists their "average lifespan" as extinct, which is legitimately hilarious.

Rating: 2/5. I actually kind of like in-universe hoaxes when they're used well.

497. Jerrilekan. There's basically no information on their page (well, the possibility that they were aquatic was presented), but their planet Jerrilek's page has this tidbit: Jerrilek's civilization died out at least a million years before the events of the films. That's a long time even by the Star Wars galaxy's standards.

Rating: 2/5. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, those must be some pretty sturdy buildings if they're still there after a million years underwater.

498. Jeylac. Apparently an eyepatch-wearing guy from a find-your-fate type book kept one as a slave, and tried to use a device to mess with the poor entity's brainwaves. As this was in a find-your-fate type book, presumably at least some of the time it would result in your sudden unexpected death, and sometimes in eyepatch guy's.

Rating: 1/5. No information, not even whether the gadget mentioned actually works on said species.

499. Jiivahar. They appear to basically be bugmonkeys, by way of being tree-living guys who secrete sticky stuff to improve their climbing abilities. They also look amusing.

Rating: 3/5. Not much to say on them.

500. Jillsarians. Jillsarians have four arms, and otherwise look rather human, if with a tendency to be big and beefy.

Rating: 3/5. I'm probably being a bit generous because one of their probable members is a rather good-looking female.

-Signing off.