Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#108)

The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)

1071. T'Syriél. The T'Syriél are neighbors of the Calians, who as far as I'm concerned do not exist (don't ask, though you can of course go look at my tiny furious rant). They must be lonely.

There are apparently twelve tribes of them and they are united. They supposedly have bulldog faces.



That's a funny-looking bulldog.

Anyway, they're also thirty-plus feet tall, which their article doesn't mention, and there's a disturbing and bewildering image of one in same-scaled stormtrooper armor to be found here.

Rating: 3/5 for GIANT STORMTROOPERS.

1072. Tahlbooreans. The Tahlbooreans are divided into two races, the blue-skinned Troobs and the purple-skinned Hobors, and these two groups are apparently locked in constant warfare. Both are fairly primitive, though the Troobs embrace what they can get from the galaxy (the Hobors reject the galaxy at large), and their primitive state is the result of an ancient Tahlboorean civilization building a giant cannon and accidentally wrecking the planet with it. Huh.

Rating: 3/5. This is mostly because the Hobors look kind of neat (the Troobs look kind of like a different species) and because their big gun is kind of neat.

1073. Tai'ni. The Tai'ni home system is close to Both, the Bothan home system, and they are apparently allies of the Bothans.

There was a labor dispute in their system involving non-Tai'ni workers, and an important New Republic leader who happened to be a fleet commander was invited to mediate the dispute. Then it turned out that the Bothans (and possibly also the Tai'ni) had somehow arranged the dispute to coincide with the Caamas document crisis as a safety precaution, so that there would be a well-led fleet in the area.

Rating: 3/5. Dudes willing to do that sort of thing for pals are kind of neat.

1074. Tal Nami. The Tal Nami are native to Hutt Space, and really dislike the Hutts, who have basically enslaved the majority of them (the Hutts do that to everybody in Hutt Space, of course). They apparently vitally need to eat two foods that can only be found on their home planet, and this has turned them into Traders with a Capital T. They hate swindlers and hunt down anyone who actually cheats them with extreme prejudice, but have a code of honor that assumes each party is trying to get the better of the other person and that this is how one ensures fairness.

Rating: 3/5. Some of these features feel incompatible to me, and I'm the guy who thinks it's great when features clash with each other.

1075. Talid. The Talid homeworld of Ando Prime is a cold world similar to Hoth, and Talid thus mildly resemble yaks and have a cold-weather-biased culture. Their homeworld is also the location of many Bendu monasteries, the ancient Order of Dai Bendu being one of the predecessors of the Jedi Order.

In effect, Ando Prime is Space Tibet and the Talid are probably basically Space Sherpas. I can't say I find this especially tasteful in many respects.

Rating: 1/5. "Jedi-Bendu" was one of the early-draft names for the Jedi Order, for you trivia buffs.

1076. Tallan. Presumably native to the planet of the same name.

Except it doesn't actually have the same name, it's named Tallaan, and as near as I can tell there's no explicit connection between the Tallan and Tallaan-if there is, the article is not sufficiently enlightening.

Rating: 1/5.

1077. Talorons. The Talorons are blue-skinned "humanoids" (in this case meaning pretty close to human, other than their apparently blue skin) who were peaceful farmers and such until pirates took up residence in their system and started regularly raiding them. This resulted in the Talorons forming a group called the Taloron Hunters, who are elite mercenary types and bounty hunters and whatever. The conflict with the pirates would continue from late in the time of the Old Republic to the early days of the Empire.

As a group, the Hunters didn't take sides in the Galactic Civil War, and some hunted Rebels for the Empire while others went on missions for the Alliance.

Eventually (well after the movie era), their homeworld found itself inside the Chiss Ascendancy, the power ruled, of course, by the Chiss.

Rating: 3/5. The Taloron Hunters wear armor inspired by early sketches of the Emperor's Imperial Guards (those red-cloaked guys from Return of the Jedi), incidentally.

1078. Talortai. Apparently, the Talortai are universally or near-universally Force-sensitive. They don't see the light and dark sides of the Force the same way the Jedi Order does, however. They're bird people with shaggy feather/hair.

The only known member of the group was a bodyguard to Tyber Zann, a major crime lord that led a group strong enough to pose a military threat to the Galactic Empire. (Ah, Star Wars RTS games...)

Rating: 3/5. This is primarily based on appearance, and also slightly on the fact that I'm intrigued by the concept of alternate Force philosophies. Unfortunately, I seem to be the only one, because most of the time alternate Force philosophies will essentially be forcibly (oops, sorry about the pun) retconned into just being ALL DARK SIDE ALL THE TIME.

1079. Talvarians. A supposedly honorable "species of non-humans."

That is such an awkward phrasing it makes me wonder if there are actually supposed to be multiple species of humans in the Star Wars galaxy.

Rating: 1/5.

1080. Talz. The Talz are big, furry guys with four eyes and teeny tiny little proboscis things for mouths. The smaller pair of eyes are apparently diurnal eyes while the larger are nocturnal eyes; this is an adaptation against snowblindness, because they're from one of those always-arctic planets.

The Talz have massive claws, and this with their sheer size makes them intimidating to most species, but the majority of them are exceedingly gentle. (The Talz outcast Broonmark believed that they had once been brutal warriors and embraced the idea, but other Talz seem to reject the notion.) Their culture is very primitive, and they are often seen as dimwitted or even animals; they also have little concept of personal ownership, and so are often regarded as thieves.

They were supposedly discovered by the Galactic Empire, but there is a fair amount of evidence that handfuls of them could be found in the galaxy at large literal millennia before the Empire's founding, so that is quite dubious.

At some point well after the movie era, some Talz apparently served as stormtroopers. Again with the alien stormtroopers? Huh.

Rating: 4/5. Hum, not a single 5/5 this time around.

-Signing off.