Friday, June 20, 2014

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#125)

The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)
The Less Massive Index (Posts #101-#110)
The Second Less Massive Index (Posts #111-#120)

1241. Wodes. Wodes come from a high-gravity world; supposedly, this means that they tend to step heavily.

Uh... Perhaps they just have different instinctive reactions or something, but you know they call all that goofy stuff moonwalking and the Moon's gravity is really very light, right?

Rating: 1/5.

1242. Wol Cabasshites. Wol Cabasshites are weird sort of sluggish things. They're pretty small for things that can house roughly human-sized brains, with only tongues half their own length for manipulating their environment, and minimal to no locomotive abilities. They eat metal and absorb energy from plasma, and don't need to breathe so that they can survive in vacuum. They have second brains which control their digestion, exchange genetic material for reproduction by licking each others' tongues, and puke up their stomach linings to reproduce (the resulting blob of flesh pupates into a small Wol Cabasshite). They communicate by means of carefully modulated magnetic fields; they can "sing" to each other, but need to touch non-Wol Cabasshites to communicate with them this way.

Wol Cabasshites apparently are a non-technological species, but are deeply contemplative philosophers, spending most of their time sticking to things and contemplating the nature of the universe.

There was one in Jabba's palace that, like many other denizens of the place, was taken by the collective to be a non-sapient creature; he tried to lick passers-by to communicated with them.

There was also a Jedi Wol Cabasshite.

Rating: 5/5. Spectacular.

1243. Wookiees. Lots of people regard Wookiees as being these fuzzy doggy sidekick guys, which is a rather unfortunate result of them being furry and not speaking intelligible dialogue.

See, Chewbacca was roughly two hundred years old when he appeared in the movies (an age that Wookiees consider to be the prime of one's life). The reason Han got along with him so well was because he'd been virtually raised by a Wookiee. It'd be too much to say that Han thought of Chewbacca as a surrogate father, but he certainly didn't see Chewbacca as anything less than an equal.

That thing he said about Wookiees tearing arms off probably was one of those things he could only get away with because he is, essentially, an honorary Wookiee-in fact, he's also literally honorarily a part of Chewbacca's family. (If you pay attention, Chewbacca's temper isn't actually very noticeable except in scenes where Han is in serious danger. The man rescued him from being beaten to death while he was a slave and later [illegally] freed him. Of course he's going to react strongly to that.) The reason he takes the lead is because he's the better pilot and because he and Chewbacca live in a racist/speciesist society where Wookiees are treated particularly poorly and not speaking English/Basic is potentially a serious handicap.

Wookiee "pups" supposedly are almost a meter (three feet) long at birth. ...Sheesh, guys, Wookiees are pretty big, but that's still huge.

Befitting their size, Wookiees produce a huge variety (at least five, which is a lot of different named kinds for a Star Wars species) of extremely potent liquors, which will lay puny humans flat on their backs.

Wookiees are noted as being very adept at blending advanced technology with their traditional lifestyles, which, by the way, involve living in trees that dwarf the giant trees on Endor.

Rating: 5/5. It's... really hard not to like Wookiees. I just kind of get riled up about the degree of racism that's involved in their portrayals (by various authors); there's no less than two uses of the aforementioned quote on dismemberment on their page, many more references to the idea of dismemberment, and a reference to the idea that some in-universe slang for dismemberment is "wookinate." Sheesh.

1244. Woostoids. Woostoids are fairly stereotypical vaguely-of-the-flying-saucer-using-variety aliens in appearance.

They are big fans of order (to the point where they supported the Empire and believed that if it hadn't been so militaristic it would have been an unequivocally good thing) and fearful of the unknown (which makes them vulnerable to surprise attacks that don't make logical sense, which Grand Admiral Thrawn [of the Chiss, in case you've forgotten/didn't know/might want to reread that], greatest of the great Imperial strategists, took advantage of-the lack of logical sense involving pretending he had a weapon that could easily penetrate planetary shields mounted on one of his little picket ships). They're apparently naturals with computers and big on automation; because a large proportion of their economy could be directed towards recreation as a result, their homeworld Woostri turned into something of a tourist destination.

Rating: 2/5. I waffled a little, and then veered low just because there's nothing that jumps out at me about them.

1245. Worrites. Worrites are described as "crustacean/insect hybrids," which is kind of a silly description (if that was literally what they were, well, that would actually be a fairly specific thing, because "hybrid" means something pretty specific, and the way they use it rather comes across as "something with a few features associated with both/either" instead). They're roughly the same height as Wookiees, covered in heavy armored carapaces, and have four arms, two with massive pinchers (heavy enough to serve as useful bludgeons and strong enough to sever the limbs of many beings) and two with fine manipulators. They also have four eyestalks and are capable of learning many languages.

One Worrite who worked as a thug was often known as "the Big Bug." He's a character from an RPG, but unfortunately the Worrites don't have available stats for said RPG, and so we are left unable to use Worrite characters in said RPG. Curse youuuuu... Meh.

I'm over it, I guess.

Rating: 3/5. It'd be nice to have a picture.

1246. Wreans. The Wreans are from Wryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy Wrea.

Rating: 1/5.

1247. Wroonians. They're blue and apparently boastful people.

George Lucas sort of played one in the movies, but the character was retconned into a Pantoran.

Rating: 1/5.

1248. X'ting, or Cestians. The X'ting are the major inhabitants of the planet Cestus, to which the Spider People, which they named and may or may not have exterminated, are/were native.

X'ting are insectoids, and have rather long stingers (nine inches/a quarter of a meter). They apparently switch back and forth every three years between being male and female, and their fertile periods only occur at the beginning/end of each three year cycle.

They have an art style known as "chewed duracrete" (i.e. "chewed concrete") and also are major contributors to a company that was a successful droid manufacturing corporation, whose most famous product was unofficially known as the "Jedi Killer." This machine apparently uses Dashta eels, a sometimes-sapient species that has a normally positive relationship with the X'ting, as components; this tends to drive the eels insane.

Rating: 3/5. There's a few things here I like, but there's just so many other bug people who are so much more interesting.

1249. Xa Fel. The Xa Fel are "near humans" who appear only in various sourcebooks. They're supposedly extremely similar genetically to mainline humans, but their world suffered a disaster and is super-mega-sicknasty polluted. Thus, they're more used to nasty polluted environments, prone to fainting on "clean" worlds. They also are all born heavily diseased and nasty-looking.

...Right.

So if they're all mostly adapted to the nasty, then why are they all so very sick?

Rating: 1/5.

1250. Xamsters. Xamsters are sort of diminutive (relative to humans) reptochickens with big ears. Their name is simply amazing, and their homeworld's name, Xagobah, is also amazing (once one has the context of "Dagobah" to compare it to.

They live in fungus forests, hollowing out fungus trees and living in symbiosis with them-these trees also produce some pheromones that protect those covered in them from the carnivorous fungus trees that live in these forests-and use a drug that simulates death to evade enemies by faking death. Supposedly offworlders use the same drug to try to see visions of the afterlife; why all offworlders would be so specifically inclined mystifies me a bit.

They are described as "naturally peaceful."

Rating: 4/5. They're kind of entertaining.

-Signing off.

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