The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)
The Less Massive Index (Posts #101-#110)
The Second Less Massive Index (Posts #111-#120)
1261. Yalarans. The Yalarans were apparently primitive sapients that some Jedi was worried weren't ready for contact with the galaxy, so said Jedi somehow built a cloaking device intended to protect them by... hiding their planet... maybe?
At any rate, it didn't work out too well, because later some Noghri Death Commandos were apparently sent to their planet to take possession of the cloaking device, and they apparently massacred the Yalarans while doing so.
...Oops.
Rating: 1/5.
1262. Yalor. The (technically unlicensed) Yalor were from Yaloris.
Rating: 1/5.
1263. Yam'rii, or Huk. The Yam'rii are basically giant praying mantids. Because the original puppet needed somewhere for someone to sit inside it, said puppet was essentially wearing an immense billowy dress, and later Yam'rii appearances sometimes depict them wearing similar clothing despite only appearing in other media, which is rather amusing. Because of artistic inconsistencies, some Yam'rii look less like mantids and more like mantid-gremlins.
Being mantis people, Yam'rii eat meat and eggs, supposedly including the flesh of their own species and the eggs of other sapient species. They're also just generally straight-up assholes, having invaded a planet and enslaving its inhabitants, the Kaleesh. When the Kaleesh rebelled against them with great success (and turning the name "Huk" into a pejorative meaning "soulless bug"), to the point where they started pursuing them to other worlds despite having started it all as primitives, the Yam'rii retaliated by convincing the Old Republic that the Kaleesh needed to be stomped on. (To be fair, the Yam'rii were apparently in danger of extinction. Ironically, the end result of all this was the "creation" of General Grievous [or rather, his conversion from Kaleesh hero to menacing Separatist minion], who ended up being recruited by the Yam'rii's allies. Although when Grievous in his cyborg identity found some Yam'rii on some world or another, he apparently quite gleefully had them slaughtered.)
While the Kaleesh apparently still caused them problems here and again, the Yam'rii were still around many decades later, and were one of the many species who fell under the sway of the Killiks.
Rating: 3/5. I've often talked about how some jerky aliens kind of need to be around to make antagonist fodder. These guys are such, and they're nasty enough that they end up in my "love to hate" category even if they are mantids.
1264. Yammosks, or war coordinators. Yammosks are huge tentacled creatures created by the Yuuzhan Vong (who are finally going to get an entry next article, barring unforeseen circumstances), and related to the dhuryam. Some of their longer, thinner tentacles can be about sixty miles in length, though most of them are much shorter. They each have a single immense "tooth" that emits acid in the manner of a spider's chelicerae emitting venom; one yammosk used this to burrow through the icy crust of a frozen planet into its interior ocean, so obviously they're very powerful physically.
However, a yammosk's strength isn't in its physical abilities but in the fact that it is essentially an immense brain designed to aid the Yuuzhan Vong in combat with its telepathy. Yammosks will actually telepathically link with every soldier in range and guide their military actions with eerie coordination, determined to protect the soldiers and ships it has linked to as if they are its offspring. While the Yuuzhan Vong are essentially invisible to the Force, yammosk telepathy interacts with Force-based telepathy quite strongly, begging a few questions.
Yammosks are seen by the Yuuzhan Vong as the physical incarnations of their war god Yun-Yammka.
Rating: 4/5. I've noted that I don't care for the Yuuzhan Vong, but I kind of adore the yammosks (I also feel I should have given the dhuryam a higher rating at this point).
1265. Yao. Some friend of Han Solo and Chewbacca was a Yao.
Rating: 1/5.
1266. Yapi. The Yapi are doglike creatures (heh-"yappy") who were created by the DarkStryder, creation of the Kathol of the oft-mentioned and much-adored (by me, at least) Kathol Rift.
Some served the DarkStryder; others rebelled against it. In general, while they obviously warred among themselves, they actually were capable of meeting peaceably on a regular basis for trade and exchanging information. They believed that only "a tribe's shaman" (which is an odd, ambiguous statement) could manipulate Ta-Ree energy (a Kathol Rift twist on the Force which was made of Kathol souls), which... wasn't true. When the FarStar, the main shipful of protagonists associated with the Kathol Rift, showed up to stop an alliance between an Imperial moff and the DarkStryder, at least some Yapi, along with the Charr Ontee and a sapient species that the Yapi regard as food (reportedly, allying with such was tricky for the Yapi) allied with the FarStar's crew against the moff and the DarkStryder.
Rating: 3/5. Even minor players among the Kathol Rift are generally entertaining, and these guys are about as uninteresting as the Rift gets, to be frank.
1267. Yarin. Yarin resemble trees despite being a mobile, sapient species.
One individual was the harbormaster of a resort on the planet Dac/Mon Calamari.
Rating: 1/5. There are more interesting tree-beings in Star Wars.
1268. Yarkora. The Yarkora are camel aliens.
They apparently have redundant internal organs, which contributes to them having very long lifespans and being much less likely to die of natural causes than many species. They apparently are rather solitary by nature, rarely living together, and have a very slow reproductive cycle that makes it impossible for them to have more than one child every fifteen years, which creates a societal pressure for all female members of the species to have at least one child. Their homeworld's location is a deep secret, which as I've mentioned is a thing often used in science fiction that doesn't make much sense in the the crowded Star Wars galaxy.
Yarkora have excellent eyesight and hearing, and are believed by some to be able to affect the emotions of others; they are known to be creepy and off-putting.
Rating: 3/5. The Yarkora are really odd, and I think of them as mostly being one of the "texture" species, i.e. they create "texture" to make the general feel of the universe they're in more interesting.
1269. Yatir. The Yatir are "humanoid" and were sympathetic with the Rebellion, causing them to be suppressed by the Empire, initially without much success (though they didn't last forever). Their planet may have been only relatively recently contacted by the Old Republic (in the last thousand years), although we don't really know.
Rating: 1/5.
1270. Ychthytonians. Ychthytonians have four arms and an awesome name.
Rating: 2/5. Not much else to say.
-Signing off.
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query kathol rift. Sort by date Show all posts
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Friday, July 11, 2014
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #16
151. Charon. Oh, boy, the Charon!
...Um, this is a bit of a complex deal. Let's see how quickly I can explain it.
The Charon are a race of spider-inspired sort-of humanoid beings. (If you recall me noting how I hate the vagueness of the term "humanoid," critters like the Charon are why. They have eight limbs and an abdominal segment, but are still shaped enough like human beings that you could almost call them humanoid. Even a frikkin' velociraptor is "humanoid" by many measures, and SF author Stanley Schmidt [if I recall correctly] once described them as humanoid in a book about creating aliens. End ranty aside.) They exist primarily in otherspace, some kind of weird dimension that is most often accessed due to hyperdrive accidents.
Now here's the doozy: They have a death-obsessed religion and use organically derived technology, just like the Yuuzhan Vong, those overblown long-term event villains, who also come from outside the Star Wars galaxy. There's a key difference in that the Yuuzhan Vong worship death as a part of life, while the Charon worship death as the absence of life, but it's pretty obvious that whoever invented the Yuuzhan Vong was pretty much just cribbing notes from the Otherspace sourcebooks.
Wow, that didn't take that long at all.
They're better than the Yuuzhan Vong for a completely unrelated reason: They apparently use their natural webbing to entrap enemies. This will never fail to be hilarious.
Rating: 4/5. I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong, but for additional reasons I'll explain momentarily, I like the Charon. They may have lost a point by association, though.
152. Charr Ontee. Charr Ontee? Charrontee? Charron... Charon?
Yes, actually. The Charr Ontee are a genetically engineered species created as farmers by a group called the Kathol, after which the Kathol Rift, the center of the Star Wars galaxy's most blatant Lovecraft references, is named. The Kathol Rift was apparently created in a travel accident (maybe-it might also have been created by the Celestials, #142 in this list) and the accident propelled a population of Charr Ontee into otherspace, where they became the Charon. (Which is why I call the Charon a "race": As the event that propelled them into otherspace was merely thousands of years ago, it's likely they're still technically the same species.)
The Charr Ontee of recent times were survivors of the Rift Disaster that created the Rift, and were in place to protect and serve the DarkStryder, an entity created by the Kathol to preserve them for resurrection at some point. However, the DarkStryder and the Charr Ontee stopped getting along, and they essentially broke into a war with each other. The Charr Ontee are also noted as among the most adept users of a type of Force power that could apparently only work within the confines of the Kathol Rift.
Rating: 5/5. The Charr Ontee are pretty awesome. Spider farmers who went to war with a Lovecraftian computer thing that was guarding the essences of their creator race? Yeah, sure, I'll take two.
153. Chazrach. The Chazrach were a slave race used as mind-controlled expendable footsoldiers by the Yuuzhan Vong. Hey, I thought those guys had some kind of honor thing going on, didn't they...?
Rating: 3/5. Purely because they're really cool-looking reptile dudes.
154. Chestrashi. It took me a moment to parse that name, and then I realized you could interpret it as "chest-rash-i." That's hilarious.
The Chestrashi were only mentioned in a role-playing sourcebook that was about technology and weapons, which noted that they had an interest in biological warfare even though the piece of technology associated with them in the book was called a "void spear," which does not sound like biological warfare equipment at all.
Rating: 1/5. Blah.
155. Chev. The Chev are nearly indistinguishable from humans, and there is debate as to whether or not they are "near-humans" or descended from native primate life. They spent most of recorded history as the slaves of the Chevin, who are next on the list. They apparently had two hearts, and sources disagree as to whether they could live for three hundred years or a mere seventy-some.
Rating: 1/5. They're not really even aliens except for the two-hearts thing, which I'm not sure makes any difference.
156. Chevin. Holy cheese, what's up with all the closely linked ones today?
The Chevin are "pachydermoid" beings, that is to say, they're claimed to be elephant-like. They're actually huge faces with arms and legs, though. Their strength and durability (able to kill humans with their foreheads), surprising speed (supposedly they're only a bit slower than longer-legged forms like humans), and the fact that their mouths are low enough that they can eat things on the ground while watching the horizon (seriously, you need to look at the pictures to understand what a Chevin looks like) let them conquer the Chev and keep them as slaves. Even in the modern era (that is, the era of the films) they commonly keep Chev as slaves. Because of this, a lot of Chevin are on the shady side of the law.
And one of them was possibly Jabba the Hutt's only real friend. Seriously.
(A bit of backstory: Ephant Mon, the Chevin in question, was once Jabba the Hutt's partner when the Hutt was still building his power base. The two were betrayed by others and abandoned on a cold world, Ephant Mon badly injured. Jabba wrapped his huge, fatty body around Ephant Mon, which kept him warm enough that he lived through the night. Ephant Mon didn't entirely believe that Jabba was still his friend during the Return of the Jedi time period, which actually upset Jabba a little.)
Rating: 5/5. The Chevin are kind of awesome, too.
157. Chiggnash. Usually, I hate ultra-short entries. This entry is ultra-short, but it's got enough details that I can proclaim I love the Chiggnash. Why? They are described as "scorpion-like" beings who "could use the control mind Force power" to "breed a large number of warrior drones" and also may form extortion rings.
Rating: 4/5. I laughed so hard. They sound like fun. The article also has a "behind the scenes" note that says they aren't explicitly sapient, "but the fact that they could form an extortion ring heavily implies that they were." NORLY?
158. Chikarri. The Chikarri are "sapient rodents," which means that they're short. Their world is described as having many lakes and plateaus. Does it have any other geographical features?
They are also described as being technology fiends who like to take things apart to understand how they work and possibly improve upon them.
Rating: 3/5. Eh, nothing notable, nothing awful. Move along.
159. Children of the Green Planet. George Lucas once promised Stephen Spielberg, after the latter put Star Wars merchandise in E.T. the Extraterrestrial, that he would put E.T.-based aliens in the next Star Wars movie (which turned out to be The Phantom Menace). And so here they are.
Rating: 3/5. The article hilariously speculates (with plenty of reasonably well-founded evidence) that even in E.T.'s own movie, his species was from the Star Wars galaxy. That earns it a few points for making me chuckle.
160. Chironian. Chironians are "centauriforms," i.e. they're shaped like centaurs, who also have antler-like horns. The only Chironian to appear in a story is Lusa, one of Luke Skywalkers Jedi trainees, who was more pacifistic than many of Luke's Jedi and was killed by a Yuuzhan Vong creature called a voxyn (which was specifically bred to hunt down Jedi and help kill them).
Rating: 3/5, because I like the character but we know nothing about the species at large. Alas, poor Lusa, we barely knew thee. Her death made me kind of sad by virtue of her being involved in one of the interspecies romances that more people would have found kind of weird; the other party, the human Raynar Thul, honestly had a fate that made hers look pretty tame by comparison. (And no, the relationship wasn't a sexual thing, Raynar was just incredibly smitten with Lusa. There was nothing creepy about it; in fact, Lusa was possibly not even entirely aware of it.)
-Signing off.
...Um, this is a bit of a complex deal. Let's see how quickly I can explain it.
The Charon are a race of spider-inspired sort-of humanoid beings. (If you recall me noting how I hate the vagueness of the term "humanoid," critters like the Charon are why. They have eight limbs and an abdominal segment, but are still shaped enough like human beings that you could almost call them humanoid. Even a frikkin' velociraptor is "humanoid" by many measures, and SF author Stanley Schmidt [if I recall correctly] once described them as humanoid in a book about creating aliens. End ranty aside.) They exist primarily in otherspace, some kind of weird dimension that is most often accessed due to hyperdrive accidents.
Now here's the doozy: They have a death-obsessed religion and use organically derived technology, just like the Yuuzhan Vong, those overblown long-term event villains, who also come from outside the Star Wars galaxy. There's a key difference in that the Yuuzhan Vong worship death as a part of life, while the Charon worship death as the absence of life, but it's pretty obvious that whoever invented the Yuuzhan Vong was pretty much just cribbing notes from the Otherspace sourcebooks.
Wow, that didn't take that long at all.
They're better than the Yuuzhan Vong for a completely unrelated reason: They apparently use their natural webbing to entrap enemies. This will never fail to be hilarious.
Rating: 4/5. I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong, but for additional reasons I'll explain momentarily, I like the Charon. They may have lost a point by association, though.
152. Charr Ontee. Charr Ontee? Charrontee? Charron... Charon?
Yes, actually. The Charr Ontee are a genetically engineered species created as farmers by a group called the Kathol, after which the Kathol Rift, the center of the Star Wars galaxy's most blatant Lovecraft references, is named. The Kathol Rift was apparently created in a travel accident (maybe-it might also have been created by the Celestials, #142 in this list) and the accident propelled a population of Charr Ontee into otherspace, where they became the Charon. (Which is why I call the Charon a "race": As the event that propelled them into otherspace was merely thousands of years ago, it's likely they're still technically the same species.)
The Charr Ontee of recent times were survivors of the Rift Disaster that created the Rift, and were in place to protect and serve the DarkStryder, an entity created by the Kathol to preserve them for resurrection at some point. However, the DarkStryder and the Charr Ontee stopped getting along, and they essentially broke into a war with each other. The Charr Ontee are also noted as among the most adept users of a type of Force power that could apparently only work within the confines of the Kathol Rift.
Rating: 5/5. The Charr Ontee are pretty awesome. Spider farmers who went to war with a Lovecraftian computer thing that was guarding the essences of their creator race? Yeah, sure, I'll take two.
153. Chazrach. The Chazrach were a slave race used as mind-controlled expendable footsoldiers by the Yuuzhan Vong. Hey, I thought those guys had some kind of honor thing going on, didn't they...?
Rating: 3/5. Purely because they're really cool-looking reptile dudes.
154. Chestrashi. It took me a moment to parse that name, and then I realized you could interpret it as "chest-rash-i." That's hilarious.
The Chestrashi were only mentioned in a role-playing sourcebook that was about technology and weapons, which noted that they had an interest in biological warfare even though the piece of technology associated with them in the book was called a "void spear," which does not sound like biological warfare equipment at all.
Rating: 1/5. Blah.
155. Chev. The Chev are nearly indistinguishable from humans, and there is debate as to whether or not they are "near-humans" or descended from native primate life. They spent most of recorded history as the slaves of the Chevin, who are next on the list. They apparently had two hearts, and sources disagree as to whether they could live for three hundred years or a mere seventy-some.
Rating: 1/5. They're not really even aliens except for the two-hearts thing, which I'm not sure makes any difference.
156. Chevin. Holy cheese, what's up with all the closely linked ones today?
The Chevin are "pachydermoid" beings, that is to say, they're claimed to be elephant-like. They're actually huge faces with arms and legs, though. Their strength and durability (able to kill humans with their foreheads), surprising speed (supposedly they're only a bit slower than longer-legged forms like humans), and the fact that their mouths are low enough that they can eat things on the ground while watching the horizon (seriously, you need to look at the pictures to understand what a Chevin looks like) let them conquer the Chev and keep them as slaves. Even in the modern era (that is, the era of the films) they commonly keep Chev as slaves. Because of this, a lot of Chevin are on the shady side of the law.
And one of them was possibly Jabba the Hutt's only real friend. Seriously.
(A bit of backstory: Ephant Mon, the Chevin in question, was once Jabba the Hutt's partner when the Hutt was still building his power base. The two were betrayed by others and abandoned on a cold world, Ephant Mon badly injured. Jabba wrapped his huge, fatty body around Ephant Mon, which kept him warm enough that he lived through the night. Ephant Mon didn't entirely believe that Jabba was still his friend during the Return of the Jedi time period, which actually upset Jabba a little.)
Rating: 5/5. The Chevin are kind of awesome, too.
157. Chiggnash. Usually, I hate ultra-short entries. This entry is ultra-short, but it's got enough details that I can proclaim I love the Chiggnash. Why? They are described as "scorpion-like" beings who "could use the control mind Force power" to "breed a large number of warrior drones" and also may form extortion rings.
Rating: 4/5. I laughed so hard. They sound like fun. The article also has a "behind the scenes" note that says they aren't explicitly sapient, "but the fact that they could form an extortion ring heavily implies that they were." NORLY?
158. Chikarri. The Chikarri are "sapient rodents," which means that they're short. Their world is described as having many lakes and plateaus. Does it have any other geographical features?
They are also described as being technology fiends who like to take things apart to understand how they work and possibly improve upon them.
Rating: 3/5. Eh, nothing notable, nothing awful. Move along.
159. Children of the Green Planet. George Lucas once promised Stephen Spielberg, after the latter put Star Wars merchandise in E.T. the Extraterrestrial, that he would put E.T.-based aliens in the next Star Wars movie (which turned out to be The Phantom Menace). And so here they are.
Rating: 3/5. The article hilariously speculates (with plenty of reasonably well-founded evidence) that even in E.T.'s own movie, his species was from the Star Wars galaxy. That earns it a few points for making me chuckle.
160. Chironian. Chironians are "centauriforms," i.e. they're shaped like centaurs, who also have antler-like horns. The only Chironian to appear in a story is Lusa, one of Luke Skywalkers Jedi trainees, who was more pacifistic than many of Luke's Jedi and was killed by a Yuuzhan Vong creature called a voxyn (which was specifically bred to hunt down Jedi and help kill them).
Rating: 3/5, because I like the character but we know nothing about the species at large. Alas, poor Lusa, we barely knew thee. Her death made me kind of sad by virtue of her being involved in one of the interspecies romances that more people would have found kind of weird; the other party, the human Raynar Thul, honestly had a fate that made hers look pretty tame by comparison. (And no, the relationship wasn't a sexual thing, Raynar was just incredibly smitten with Lusa. There was nothing creepy about it; in fact, Lusa was possibly not even entirely aware of it.)
-Signing off.
Friday, November 1, 2013
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#96)
951. Schizodes. Schizodes are ambiguously canonical four-armed, pincher-handed insectoid/humanoid beings. They're apparently known for being quite capable in skilled physical tasks such as combat and craftsmanship.
They apparently also have minimal senses of self, and rather than having clear personal goals, every new day they start mimicking a different person that they see as admirable (never mind that admiration is one of those things that's probably tied to self identity).
That's pretty great.
Rating: 4/5. I waffled between a 3 and a 4, and settled on a 4 despite having reservations about the fact that you could interpret them as a bit (or potentially very) racist. I think they're a great concept, but I also think they should be handled carefully.
952. Sea people. The sea people are the third of three tribes of a world called Gala. They're not really a species, and they're all basically just humans with varying skin color and uninteresting cultures.
Rating: 1/5.
953. Sea-dragons, or waterworms. Sea-dragons start their lives as small, lizard-like beings. Despite being small enough to fit in a human hand, they apparently are quite intelligent even at this age, able to serve as incognito spies (like the Covallons or the frog-dogs, only as cute little gator-lizard things instead of good-sized awesome dog/lizard/lions or ugly good-sized frog/dog things). Their adult forms are much more plesiosauroid, as one might expect of creatures called sea-dragons (though not of creatures called waterworms).
As near as I can tell, they communicate via underwater sonic emissions, and so they seem to need translation devices to communicate with other species (though presumably they can understand the languages of other species quite well). Despite this, they apparently formed an alliance with a human group of criminals/pirates.
Rating: 5/5. The Covallons are pretty awesome. These guys are Covallons as babies and have the potential to be similar to the Swimming People of Dellalt (plesiosauroid people from the Han Solo Adventures that I'll get to sooner or later, who will probably get a good rating when that happens) as adults.
954. Sebiri. The Sebiri of Sebiris (that's never fun for trying to keep pluralization usage straight) are relatively typical local noble savage type aliens-expert hunters, warriors, and trackers; can be friendly if you bring gifts but will kill your backside for trodding on sacred ground; have sign language and a spoken language made of "staccato phrases and phrases" (an actual quote from the wiki); all that stereotypical junk.
There are two things of actual note about them: First, they're reptilian people with shaggy manes of hair who have wonky proportions that make them all look like they're made to wear Urkel pants; and second, their home planet is in the Kathol Sector and they claim that their home region was created by "those who came before," who may actually have existed.
Rating: 3/5. This is primarily for their appearance and presence in the Kathol sector, as that other stuff is either standard fare or offensive, depending on how it gets portrayed.
955. Sedrians. They're basically merfolk-shaped seal people. That is, they're human-shaped above the waist (except for seal heads) and seal-shaped below the waist. Despite being mammalian in general appearance, they have gills in addition to lungs.
They're the civilization that used the Golden Sun, a sapient, Force-using coral reef, as a power source for their industry, but were killing it in their efforts to protect it, despite the fact that they also straight-up worshiped the thing. (It had been the center of their civilization since well before industrialization, for the Golden Sun nurtured and protected them with its Force healing powers.) There's still no indication on Wookieepedia what happened to the Golden Sun at this point.
Anyway, there's also the fact that the Sedrians were attacked by the Empire, helped by the Rebel Alliance, and then later provided weapons, specifically hoverboats, to the New Republic.
Rating: 4/5. They're fairly interesting in their interactions with the Golden Sun.
956. Segmi. The Segmi are more inhabitants of the Kathol sector, in fact the planet Kathol itself. Specifically, they were created by the DarkStryder (see the Kathol entry) as a replacement for the Charr Ontee after it banished them for rebelling against it. The Segmi would build a fortress for the DarkStryder, and when the fortress was finished, they wandered off and formed a civilization. Later, the DarkStryder would recapture a number of them to force them to do more construction work for it. Like many Kathol Rift inhabitants, they were masters of the Ta-Ree life energy, a form of Force powers exclusive to the region.
What I haven't mentioned is that the Segmi are apparently giant worms that excrete slime that turns into a sort of hard resin, and that's why they're so good at building.
Rating: 5/5. I love the Kathol Rift so darned much.
957. Seikoshans. The Seikoshans are modestly interesting in appearance, with green skin, red eyes, and funky T. rex-hand toes. They are also described as "very tall." Other than that (heck, even with that), they're basically just vanilla almost-humans.
Not mentioned on their page is the fact that their homeworld apparently was neutral during the time of the Galactic Empire's war against the Rebel Alliance.
Rating: 2/5, mostly because of their homeworld thing.
958. Sekct. The Sekct (that reversed k/c arrangement is deceptively hard to type) are basically lizard people.
Now, usually, I don't care for that phrase being used casually, for various reasons having to do with the fact that a "lizard" is actually a very specific type of animal but people use the word as a generic label for all reptiles. Many modern "reptiles" are no more closely related to each other than they are to us; crocodiles are more closely related to birds than other living reptiles, lizards and snakes are actually closely related to each other and little else (it would not be inappropriate to label them "true reptiles"), and turtles and tuataras are each part of only distantly related families. (It has to do with their skulls and such, which is more fundamental and more easily tracked in fossils than silly measures like whether something has scales. But that's far beyond the scope of this post.)
But the Sekct are basically drawn as lizards with incongruously almost human hands and legs. You don't get much more "lizard people" than that.
They're all primitive and tribal and junk, and rely on oral tradition; their bands are led by individuals called "She-Who-Speaks" who supposedly is the physically strongest and also responsible for remembering their oral traditions.
Incidentally, they're also a race of female lizard people, like a few real-world lizards able to reproduce parthenogenically.
Rating: 4/5. Their unusual features make me like them.
959. Selkath. The Selkath were once, about four thousand years before the era of the movies, quite important politically, as their homeworld was and apparently still is the source of a substance called kolto, which is valuable in medical procedures. Remember the tank that Luke was floating in for a bit in Empire Strikes Back? Kolto was/is used much the same way as bacta, the substance in that tank. Kolto apparently was used this way for a long time, while bacta wasn't really widely seen in the market yet. In the years between then and the movie era, apparently due to bacta being cheaper and possibly more effective, kolto virtually disappeared from the market, putting the Selkath into a sorry economic position. It is unclear, but possible that kolto's effectiveness might have changed over time, going from comparable to bacta to much less effective. (Note that differing sources probably portray kolto rather inconsistently.)
At any rate, the Selkath are an amphibious species with large, rather fisheating-oriented mouths and large barbel-like flaps on their faces. They look very interesting, and would probably do well enough as interesting just based on their appearance and their geopolitics. But it goes a little further:
The Selkath were apparently somehow related to a species of sharklike creature called firaxan sharks. One of these animals, known as the Progenitor, was a female of prodigious size, and could somehow actually control Selkath and other firaxan sharks, driving them into mad frenzies with its cries. The Selkath worshiped the Progenitor and believed it to be their ancestor and the source of the kolto. Incidentally, the Progenitor was a video game boss that was killed by the protagonist of that particular game in order to disrupt kolto production.
Rating: 5/5. That's a lower five than some fives, but not by a lot.
960. Selonians. Out of a given hundred Selonians, only one is male and five will be fertile females. The remaining 94 would be sterile females. That alone says a lot about what Selonians should probably be like; they sequester the males and fertile females to protect them.
Selonians are basically supposed to be huge, mildly anthropomorphic weasel-like people with long tails. That is, their bodies are long, their limbs are a bit stumpy, and they on average stand taller than humans. (The males are notably smaller than the females of either type; while sterile females are slender, fertile females, I am led to believe, are rather more heavyset.) This description is lost on a lot of people, and so they're more likely to be depicted with the wrong proportions and often with human-like breasts (actually, now that I'm thinking about it, they're also often depicted as looking like human/kangaroo hybrids, which isn't really much better). Guys, that doesn't make sense, even if one was good-looking enough to a human to get his attention. (Yes, this happened. They broke up because they turned out to be allergic to each other.) That's not even going into problems with the presence of male Selonians in the wider galaxy, at least one of whom was drawn as a bear/wolf/wolverine person.
Anyway, all that aside, the Selonians are pretty interesting for another reason: Their homeworld is one of five heavily inhabited planets in the Corellia system, along with the Drall's homeworld, Corellia itself, and two other planets that orbit a big space station (wacky as that sounds).
Rating: 3/5. They lose a point for the inconsistency with which they get portrayed visually.
-Signing off.
They apparently also have minimal senses of self, and rather than having clear personal goals, every new day they start mimicking a different person that they see as admirable (never mind that admiration is one of those things that's probably tied to self identity).
That's pretty great.
Rating: 4/5. I waffled between a 3 and a 4, and settled on a 4 despite having reservations about the fact that you could interpret them as a bit (or potentially very) racist. I think they're a great concept, but I also think they should be handled carefully.
952. Sea people. The sea people are the third of three tribes of a world called Gala. They're not really a species, and they're all basically just humans with varying skin color and uninteresting cultures.
Rating: 1/5.
953. Sea-dragons, or waterworms. Sea-dragons start their lives as small, lizard-like beings. Despite being small enough to fit in a human hand, they apparently are quite intelligent even at this age, able to serve as incognito spies (like the Covallons or the frog-dogs, only as cute little gator-lizard things instead of good-sized awesome dog/lizard/lions or ugly good-sized frog/dog things). Their adult forms are much more plesiosauroid, as one might expect of creatures called sea-dragons (though not of creatures called waterworms).
As near as I can tell, they communicate via underwater sonic emissions, and so they seem to need translation devices to communicate with other species (though presumably they can understand the languages of other species quite well). Despite this, they apparently formed an alliance with a human group of criminals/pirates.
Rating: 5/5. The Covallons are pretty awesome. These guys are Covallons as babies and have the potential to be similar to the Swimming People of Dellalt (plesiosauroid people from the Han Solo Adventures that I'll get to sooner or later, who will probably get a good rating when that happens) as adults.
954. Sebiri. The Sebiri of Sebiris (that's never fun for trying to keep pluralization usage straight) are relatively typical local noble savage type aliens-expert hunters, warriors, and trackers; can be friendly if you bring gifts but will kill your backside for trodding on sacred ground; have sign language and a spoken language made of "staccato phrases and phrases" (an actual quote from the wiki); all that stereotypical junk.
There are two things of actual note about them: First, they're reptilian people with shaggy manes of hair who have wonky proportions that make them all look like they're made to wear Urkel pants; and second, their home planet is in the Kathol Sector and they claim that their home region was created by "those who came before," who may actually have existed.
Rating: 3/5. This is primarily for their appearance and presence in the Kathol sector, as that other stuff is either standard fare or offensive, depending on how it gets portrayed.
955. Sedrians. They're basically merfolk-shaped seal people. That is, they're human-shaped above the waist (except for seal heads) and seal-shaped below the waist. Despite being mammalian in general appearance, they have gills in addition to lungs.
They're the civilization that used the Golden Sun, a sapient, Force-using coral reef, as a power source for their industry, but were killing it in their efforts to protect it, despite the fact that they also straight-up worshiped the thing. (It had been the center of their civilization since well before industrialization, for the Golden Sun nurtured and protected them with its Force healing powers.) There's still no indication on Wookieepedia what happened to the Golden Sun at this point.
Anyway, there's also the fact that the Sedrians were attacked by the Empire, helped by the Rebel Alliance, and then later provided weapons, specifically hoverboats, to the New Republic.
Rating: 4/5. They're fairly interesting in their interactions with the Golden Sun.
956. Segmi. The Segmi are more inhabitants of the Kathol sector, in fact the planet Kathol itself. Specifically, they were created by the DarkStryder (see the Kathol entry) as a replacement for the Charr Ontee after it banished them for rebelling against it. The Segmi would build a fortress for the DarkStryder, and when the fortress was finished, they wandered off and formed a civilization. Later, the DarkStryder would recapture a number of them to force them to do more construction work for it. Like many Kathol Rift inhabitants, they were masters of the Ta-Ree life energy, a form of Force powers exclusive to the region.
What I haven't mentioned is that the Segmi are apparently giant worms that excrete slime that turns into a sort of hard resin, and that's why they're so good at building.
Rating: 5/5. I love the Kathol Rift so darned much.
957. Seikoshans. The Seikoshans are modestly interesting in appearance, with green skin, red eyes, and funky T. rex-hand toes. They are also described as "very tall." Other than that (heck, even with that), they're basically just vanilla almost-humans.
Not mentioned on their page is the fact that their homeworld apparently was neutral during the time of the Galactic Empire's war against the Rebel Alliance.
Rating: 2/5, mostly because of their homeworld thing.
958. Sekct. The Sekct (that reversed k/c arrangement is deceptively hard to type) are basically lizard people.
Now, usually, I don't care for that phrase being used casually, for various reasons having to do with the fact that a "lizard" is actually a very specific type of animal but people use the word as a generic label for all reptiles. Many modern "reptiles" are no more closely related to each other than they are to us; crocodiles are more closely related to birds than other living reptiles, lizards and snakes are actually closely related to each other and little else (it would not be inappropriate to label them "true reptiles"), and turtles and tuataras are each part of only distantly related families. (It has to do with their skulls and such, which is more fundamental and more easily tracked in fossils than silly measures like whether something has scales. But that's far beyond the scope of this post.)
But the Sekct are basically drawn as lizards with incongruously almost human hands and legs. You don't get much more "lizard people" than that.
They're all primitive and tribal and junk, and rely on oral tradition; their bands are led by individuals called "She-Who-Speaks" who supposedly is the physically strongest and also responsible for remembering their oral traditions.
Incidentally, they're also a race of female lizard people, like a few real-world lizards able to reproduce parthenogenically.
Rating: 4/5. Their unusual features make me like them.
959. Selkath. The Selkath were once, about four thousand years before the era of the movies, quite important politically, as their homeworld was and apparently still is the source of a substance called kolto, which is valuable in medical procedures. Remember the tank that Luke was floating in for a bit in Empire Strikes Back? Kolto was/is used much the same way as bacta, the substance in that tank. Kolto apparently was used this way for a long time, while bacta wasn't really widely seen in the market yet. In the years between then and the movie era, apparently due to bacta being cheaper and possibly more effective, kolto virtually disappeared from the market, putting the Selkath into a sorry economic position. It is unclear, but possible that kolto's effectiveness might have changed over time, going from comparable to bacta to much less effective. (Note that differing sources probably portray kolto rather inconsistently.)
At any rate, the Selkath are an amphibious species with large, rather fisheating-oriented mouths and large barbel-like flaps on their faces. They look very interesting, and would probably do well enough as interesting just based on their appearance and their geopolitics. But it goes a little further:
The Selkath were apparently somehow related to a species of sharklike creature called firaxan sharks. One of these animals, known as the Progenitor, was a female of prodigious size, and could somehow actually control Selkath and other firaxan sharks, driving them into mad frenzies with its cries. The Selkath worshiped the Progenitor and believed it to be their ancestor and the source of the kolto. Incidentally, the Progenitor was a video game boss that was killed by the protagonist of that particular game in order to disrupt kolto production.
Rating: 5/5. That's a lower five than some fives, but not by a lot.
960. Selonians. Out of a given hundred Selonians, only one is male and five will be fertile females. The remaining 94 would be sterile females. That alone says a lot about what Selonians should probably be like; they sequester the males and fertile females to protect them.
Selonians are basically supposed to be huge, mildly anthropomorphic weasel-like people with long tails. That is, their bodies are long, their limbs are a bit stumpy, and they on average stand taller than humans. (The males are notably smaller than the females of either type; while sterile females are slender, fertile females, I am led to believe, are rather more heavyset.) This description is lost on a lot of people, and so they're more likely to be depicted with the wrong proportions and often with human-like breasts (actually, now that I'm thinking about it, they're also often depicted as looking like human/kangaroo hybrids, which isn't really much better). Guys, that doesn't make sense, even if one was good-looking enough to a human to get his attention. (Yes, this happened. They broke up because they turned out to be allergic to each other.) That's not even going into problems with the presence of male Selonians in the wider galaxy, at least one of whom was drawn as a bear/wolf/wolverine person.
Anyway, all that aside, the Selonians are pretty interesting for another reason: Their homeworld is one of five heavily inhabited planets in the Corellia system, along with the Drall's homeworld, Corellia itself, and two other planets that orbit a big space station (wacky as that sounds).
Rating: 3/5. They lose a point for the inconsistency with which they get portrayed visually.
-Signing off.
Friday, August 1, 2014
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#130)
The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)
The Less Massive Index (Posts #101-#110)
The Second Less Massive Index (Posts #111-#120)
(The end is near. I'm not sure how I'm going to cover the "Unidentified species" category, because it's going to be a lot of pointless stubs.)
1291. Zeffliffl. Zeffliffl resemble seaweed even though they can live as terrestrial creatures (they do seem to need immersion in salt water, or at least to stay damp), and apparently live in small quasi-familial groups with some sort of soft hive-mind thing going on (which is described as a "subconscious" connection-I'm not sure whoever used that word was using it correctly) that means they don't trust outsiders very much.
Zeffliffl only appeared in fiction once, that appearance being when a group of them asked the extradimensional intelligence Waru to use his anti-Force powers to heal one of them. Han Solo was convinced it was all a scam, but it wasn't.
Rating: 2/5. Conceptually, they're kind of interesting, even if it's a bit of a screwy idea too.
1292. ZeHethbra. At first, I thought ZeHethbra were some kind of dogs or bears or something. They're not.
They're mustelids, specifically something very much like wolverines. We're not talking that one short mutant guy, we're talking the creatures that have also been called "skunk-bears." Because bears that are also skunks/skunks that are also bears are a lot scarier than some guy with metal claws who narrates a lot.
Regardless, as that implies, they have a sort of natural mace/pepper spray, to which they themselves are immune, and are good-sized rather bearish dudes.
They apparently have pheromones that can be used by an informed ZeHethbra to identify an individual's entire family history; each ZeHethbra can identify any other ZeHethbra by this scent.
ZeHethbra value honesty, social status, and leadership qualities, but are also temperamental. When they colonized other planets, their tempers led to conflict with the natives of one of these planets, the Dugs, who have a comparable reputation for bad tempers. This contributed to Old Republic sanctions against the Dugs.
Incidentally, the Dugs really got a raw deal from the Old Republic; not only did the ZeHethbra colonize their planet and get the Dugs punished for it, but so did the Gran, supposed pacifists, and those guys outright subjugated them. Good grief but the Old Republic of the prequel era was screwed up.
Rating: 4/5. I really hate the Gran, but the ZeHethbra are frikkin' skunk-bear people. Can't argue with that.
1293. Zelosians. Zelosians really strongly resemble humans, but have chlorophyll instead of blood.
I'm pretty sure I've seen a pretty similar species description, but... I have no idea what it was. It's been so long.
Rating: 1/5. That's not how biology works. (I almost wrote "that's now how biology works," which would have been hilarious but wrong.)
1294. Zeltrons. Zeltrons are basically pink or red humans with really strong pheromones, minor telepathy/empathy and virtually no boundaries.
Yeah, they're basically a race of sexy sex fiends.
Their planet, Zeltros, has supposedly been invaded a number of times, but these invasions tend to end in wildorgies parties rather than violent battles. The only races whose invasions didn't end this way were the Hiromi's (by virtue of being interrupted by two other successive invasions, those being the other two-and there seem to be hints that, despite being cartoonish bug people, they were potentially susceptible to the Zeltrons' charms), the Nagai's (by virtue of not being particularly charmed by the Zeltrons, which utterly flabbergasted the Zeltrons), and the Tof (who were chasing the Nagai and were basically an army of dudebro rapist barbarians, which would have ended differently for obvious reasons if they hadn't been stopped by the New Republic instead).
...Marvel Star Wars was weird, guys.
Rating: 4/5. I kinda like the Zeltrons, because they're a sexy fanservice race who have what appears to be a healthy relationship with sex instead of a history of sex slavery (coughTwi'lekshack). Also, while we don't see much of them, it's quite unambiguous that dude Zeltrons are regarded the same way lady Zeltrons are.
1295. Zeolosians. From Zeolosia.
Rating: 1/5.
1296. Zeuols. Zeuols have pale faces and large eyes akin to a Grey's. (I've been using that link a lot more in the last few entries. Apparently creativity runs out towards the end of the alphabet.)
They had a senator who showed up at the funeral in Episode III.
Rating: 1/5. Meh.
1297. Zexx. Zexx look a lot like Esoomians, who look cool (because they're both based on rancor concept art, which isn't as cool as the rancor but is still cool), and are speculated to be related.
They find the idea of "borrowing without permission" completely equivalent to theft and thus very offensive.
Rating: 4/5. They actually look a little cooler than Esoomians because their facial features are unambiguously tusks (they could be tentacles on the Esoomians).
1298. Zilkins. Zilkins are vaguely frog-faced tiny cartoonish aliens who have eyes on stalks. Their design is apparently loosely based on Gungan concept art, which is a thing that the Clone Wars show did a lot (basing things on rejected concept art for the movies, that is).
Rating: 3/5. They're modestly amusing.
1299. Zisians. Zisians apparently are reptilian, but at least one (creepy old man dudebro) expected to be able to have children with a human, so apparently they're "near-human."
Rating: 1/5.
1300. Zizimaak. Creations of the DarkStryder, they joined the Yapi, Segmi, and other races and the crew of the FarStar in an alliance against the DarkStryder, which must have involved some really awkward incidents, because Yapi regard Zizimaak as prey and Zizimaak regard Segmi as prey.
Unlike other Kathol Rift inhabitants, the Zizimaak can't use Ta-Ree powers (like the Force, but Kathol Rift-ier).
I've said all this without mentioning that the Zizimaak are basically giant dragonfly/hummingbird hybrids, which is hilarious.
Rating: 4/5. Kathol Rift, you complete me. (Sadly, that's almost certainly the last time I get to talk about it unless I get creative.)
-Signing off.
The Less Massive Index (Posts #101-#110)
The Second Less Massive Index (Posts #111-#120)
(The end is near. I'm not sure how I'm going to cover the "Unidentified species" category, because it's going to be a lot of pointless stubs.)
1291. Zeffliffl. Zeffliffl resemble seaweed even though they can live as terrestrial creatures (they do seem to need immersion in salt water, or at least to stay damp), and apparently live in small quasi-familial groups with some sort of soft hive-mind thing going on (which is described as a "subconscious" connection-I'm not sure whoever used that word was using it correctly) that means they don't trust outsiders very much.
Zeffliffl only appeared in fiction once, that appearance being when a group of them asked the extradimensional intelligence Waru to use his anti-Force powers to heal one of them. Han Solo was convinced it was all a scam, but it wasn't.
Rating: 2/5. Conceptually, they're kind of interesting, even if it's a bit of a screwy idea too.
1292. ZeHethbra. At first, I thought ZeHethbra were some kind of dogs or bears or something. They're not.
They're mustelids, specifically something very much like wolverines. We're not talking that one short mutant guy, we're talking the creatures that have also been called "skunk-bears." Because bears that are also skunks/skunks that are also bears are a lot scarier than some guy with metal claws who narrates a lot.
Regardless, as that implies, they have a sort of natural mace/pepper spray, to which they themselves are immune, and are good-sized rather bearish dudes.
They apparently have pheromones that can be used by an informed ZeHethbra to identify an individual's entire family history; each ZeHethbra can identify any other ZeHethbra by this scent.
ZeHethbra value honesty, social status, and leadership qualities, but are also temperamental. When they colonized other planets, their tempers led to conflict with the natives of one of these planets, the Dugs, who have a comparable reputation for bad tempers. This contributed to Old Republic sanctions against the Dugs.
Incidentally, the Dugs really got a raw deal from the Old Republic; not only did the ZeHethbra colonize their planet and get the Dugs punished for it, but so did the Gran, supposed pacifists, and those guys outright subjugated them. Good grief but the Old Republic of the prequel era was screwed up.
Rating: 4/5. I really hate the Gran, but the ZeHethbra are frikkin' skunk-bear people. Can't argue with that.
1293. Zelosians. Zelosians really strongly resemble humans, but have chlorophyll instead of blood.
I'm pretty sure I've seen a pretty similar species description, but... I have no idea what it was. It's been so long.
Rating: 1/5. That's not how biology works. (I almost wrote "that's now how biology works," which would have been hilarious but wrong.)
1294. Zeltrons. Zeltrons are basically pink or red humans with really strong pheromones, minor telepathy/empathy and virtually no boundaries.
Yeah, they're basically a race of sexy sex fiends.
Their planet, Zeltros, has supposedly been invaded a number of times, but these invasions tend to end in wild
...Marvel Star Wars was weird, guys.
Rating: 4/5. I kinda like the Zeltrons, because they're a sexy fanservice race who have what appears to be a healthy relationship with sex instead of a history of sex slavery (coughTwi'lekshack). Also, while we don't see much of them, it's quite unambiguous that dude Zeltrons are regarded the same way lady Zeltrons are.
1295. Zeolosians. From Zeolosia.
Rating: 1/5.
1296. Zeuols. Zeuols have pale faces and large eyes akin to a Grey's. (I've been using that link a lot more in the last few entries. Apparently creativity runs out towards the end of the alphabet.)
They had a senator who showed up at the funeral in Episode III.
Rating: 1/5. Meh.
1297. Zexx. Zexx look a lot like Esoomians, who look cool (because they're both based on rancor concept art, which isn't as cool as the rancor but is still cool), and are speculated to be related.
They find the idea of "borrowing without permission" completely equivalent to theft and thus very offensive.
Rating: 4/5. They actually look a little cooler than Esoomians because their facial features are unambiguously tusks (they could be tentacles on the Esoomians).
1298. Zilkins. Zilkins are vaguely frog-faced tiny cartoonish aliens who have eyes on stalks. Their design is apparently loosely based on Gungan concept art, which is a thing that the Clone Wars show did a lot (basing things on rejected concept art for the movies, that is).
Rating: 3/5. They're modestly amusing.
1299. Zisians. Zisians apparently are reptilian, but at least one (creepy old man dudebro) expected to be able to have children with a human, so apparently they're "near-human."
Rating: 1/5.
1300. Zizimaak. Creations of the DarkStryder, they joined the Yapi, Segmi, and other races and the crew of the FarStar in an alliance against the DarkStryder, which must have involved some really awkward incidents, because Yapi regard Zizimaak as prey and Zizimaak regard Segmi as prey.
Unlike other Kathol Rift inhabitants, the Zizimaak can't use Ta-Ree powers (like the Force, but Kathol Rift-ier).
I've said all this without mentioning that the Zizimaak are basically giant dragonfly/hummingbird hybrids, which is hilarious.
Rating: 4/5. Kathol Rift, you complete me. (Sadly, that's almost certainly the last time I get to talk about it unless I get creative.)
-Signing off.
Friday, July 18, 2014
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#128)
The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)
The Less Massive Index (Posts #101-#110)
The Second Less Massive Index (Posts #111-#120)
1271. Yevetha. The Yevetha are one of several different species which would later serve as a blueprint of sorts for the Yuuzhan Vong (and I'll finally get to talk about them later in this very post). That's their main claim to fame, to be honest, but let's look at them on their own merits.
Yevetha look like gaunt, almost skeletal near-humans of some sort, but they have some seriously weird physiognomy. First off, their brains are in their rib cages and they have long (like, Wolverine-sized) dewclaws that pop out of the insides of their wrists. Second, female Yevetha apparently lay huge weird eggs called birth casks. Birth casks need external nourishment, and receive it in the form of Yevethan blood. Normally, the mother would provide it, but it doesn't need to be the mother; low-ranking Yevethan males may seek honor by offering to provide their blood to the children of a high-ranking male-which usually involves the low-ranking individual being killed.
This crazy aspect of their society-that people can be killed to nourish children and it's seen as "natural"-contributes to the most defining cultural trait of the Yevetha, that being their (excuse the pun) bloody-mindedness. They don't see anyone who doesn't have Yevethan blood as being really people, and even if they did, it probably wouldn't make a difference, as this quote from one of their leaders shows:
Your wars are decided by the death of a tenth of a population, a third of an army. Then the defeated surrender their honor and the victors surrender their advantage. This is called being civilized. The Yevetha are not civilized, General. It would be a mistake to deal with us as though we were.
Yes, among other things the Yevetha reject the idea that they're a civilized people. They also had never been aware that there were stars other than their own because their homeworld was in a place where individual stars in the sky were impossible to make out, and so the idea that there might be someone else "out there" was foreign to them-they actually explored other planets without hyperdrive for a while, finding only unintelligent life-before first contact, which appears to have been with the Galactic Empire, natch.
Anyway, all that is bad enough, but then there's the fact that they're naturals with technology. Their tech base wasn't especially sophisticated when the Empire rolled in and made their homeworld into a shipyard, using the Yevetha for slave labor.
Yes, the Empire gave them access to their own tech base. You can guess what happened at some point after the Empire began collapsing. In fact, thanks to Imperial complacency, the Yevetha actually captured the entire fleet that the Empire had in the area. They would then spend about a decade and a half consolidating their forces and advancing their technology, eventually beginning a campaign known as the Yevethan Purge, which resulted in the extinctions of several sapient species, including the Corasgh (...I had to type it again, dang it). The Yevetha lost their Imperial capital ships when some Imperials that they'd kept as slaves on their crews rebelled (oh, the irony), and their timely departure was basically the only reason that the New Republic was able to to stop the Yevethan fleet. (Rather comically, the spherical capital ships that the Yevetha built for themselves were known to New Republic forces by the call sign "Fat Men.")
The Yevetha would later be rendered virtually extinct (with a population in the tens of thousands at most) themselves by the very race that they were a prototype to, the Yuuzhan Vong, in a bit of special irony. Even more ironically, the Yevetha had been building up an even larger fleet than they'd had before at the time, and presumably the Yuuzhan Vong had to spend quite a bit of resources taking them out, so that may well have made a critical difference in the Yuuzhan Vong war itself.
Rating: 4/5. Aspects of the Yevetha are actually very interesting, even if they're bloody-minded savages to a degree that's pretty unsettling.
1272. Yimi. The Yimi are indigenes of the planet Kathol that were created by the DarkStryder. They have large, complex brains that serve only one purpose, that being to have skills flash-imprinted into them. As a result, Yimi can't learn new skills; it's speculated that the DarkStryder created them in the image of the Kathol themselves as a sick joke.
Incidentally, if that's true, then the picture of the unfortunate Yimi slaves from the page is the best guess we have at what the Kathol look like. It's a little predictable that they look like tiny big-brained flying saucer aliens.
Rating: 3/5. ...I've mentioned way too many times that I love the Kathol Rift, right?
1273. Yinchorri. Yinchorri are described as turtle-like. Surprisingly, they have cultural characteristics, such as a society built around "might makes right," that one would expect in lizard people. On the other hand, they don't actually have shells and their heads don't look very turtle-like (they look rather more like poor renderings of dinosaur heads), and so they're arguably not turtle people at all, just kind of chubby lizard/dinosaur people.
It is known that at least some female Yinchorri have "prominent breasts," which Wookieepedia, classy as ever, feels the need to bring up. Despite this, Yinchorri are also known to lay eggs.
The Yinchorri are also known to be among the species immune to Jedi mind tricks.
At some point, the Yinchorri rebelled against the Galactic Empire, who promptly bombed them back to the stone age. They received aid from the New Republic later, but the Yinchorri refused to ally with another galactic government at the time. Their homeworld would come under the control of Darth Krayt's Empire at some point, and whether they were as a whole allied with his forces is ambiguous, but at least one stormtrooper in his forces was a Yinchorri.
The Yinchorri invented a flight pack with dragonfly-like wings, which makes for a rather amusing contrast with the rather portly Yinchorri.
Rating: 3/5.
1274. Yonnas. In an early draft of what would become A New Hope, Yonnas were something that danced, apparently expensively.
Rating: 1/5.
1275. Yourellians, or Ureallians. The old Jedi general Han Solo was a Yourellian.
Yes, another part of an early draft.
Amusingly (to me, at least), Yourellians are hulking and slimy and apparently hunted Wookiees, making the old Han Solo pretty antithetical in some respects to the one we got.
Rating: 3/5. This is probably my single favorite piece of weird old world-building from the early drafts.
1276. Yrashu. The Yrashu are primitive green-furred primates who are also all Force-sensitive.
Their page picture, incidentally, doesn't seem to mesh with this idea, being a sort of bulgy, vaguely furless dog-thing that looks like it was drawn by Rob Liefield on acid.
Anyway, they apparently have a naturally gentle disposition except for a tribe called the Low Ones, who are dark siders who presumably are largely made up of the outcasts of the other tribes.
Of considerable significance to their culture is a ceremonial training in survival skills that include learning how to make a certain kind of tree root into a club; this is apparently a dangerous journey of sorts, at least some of the time.
The Yrashu opposed the Galactic Empire because they could sense its dark side nature.
Rating: 2/5. Eh, I dunno.
1277. Yresilini. All that's really known of the Yresilini is that a Chiss once successfully recruited a group of them into an army that was very loyal to her.
Rating: 1/5. Well, I like their name, anyway.
1278. Yunu. They're basically primitive ape/bigfoot people.
They apparently allied with a group of Jedi refugees led by the amazing K'Kruhk.
Rating: 2/5. It's kind of funny to see references to K'Kruhk anywhere, to be frank, just because he lived over such a long period of time.
1279. Yuuzhan Vong. The Yuuzhan Vong are among the most infamous aliens of the entirety of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and with good reason: They've got the concentrated bastardry of a whole bunch of other species in there.
To wit, the Yuuzhan Vong take elements from the Charon (death cult, organic technology), the Ssi-ruuk (mysterious outsiders from an unknown location with horrific technology, their tendency to enslave their victims), and the Yevetha (their particular brand of warlikeness, contempt for other species, their general brutality, being humanoid and ugly, their military strength, aspects of the arms race between sides, their name having a Y and a V). That's a lot of general nastiness in one package; add terrifyingly over the top sadomasochism to that and you have the Yuuzhan Vong.
They also notably borrow from the ysalamiri (Force invisibility) and cortosis (in the form of having lightsaber-resistant solid materials usable in personal weaponry and armor), which just goes to show how much creative bankruptcy can coexist with creative fertility all at once. (Momentary aside: I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong themselves very much, but their technology almost invariable fascinates me. It's just so quirky and different from even the typical weird organic tech one often sees. They also have a heck of a lot of cultural details.)
The Yuuzhan Vong have a raging hatred for "traditional" technology and especially droids, arising from the fact that the Abominor and Silentium wrecked some Yuuzhan Vong worlds whilst fighting a war with each other. Supposedly, they actually drove the Abominor and Silentium from said galaxy, but I have my doubts; the Silentium particularly were pretty danged dangerous to a degree that makes the Yuuzhan Vong look like wimps. (My own opinion is that the Silentium must have whipped the Abominor and then left of their own volition.)
Being from a different galaxy (at least sort of), the Yuuzhan Vong had their own ways of making war and their own technology, and this complicated efforts to fight them. They also were a pretty big group overall, and their whole people were involved in the effort to some degree; they built huge worldships that made the intergalactic journeys.
I note that they're "sort of" from another galaxy. It's a bit ambiguous, because their original homeworld had an "offspring," Zonama Sekot, which lived in the Star Wars galaxy. Whether Sekot had moved or what is ambiguous, at least from what I've read. The Yuuzhan Vong are known to have exterminated most of the native species of their own galaxy.
They may or may not be related genetically to humans.
There's a ton more, but I'm out of time and it'd take ages.
Rating: 4/5. I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong "event." I do, on the other hand, find a ton of the material surrounding them interesting. Their religion, for instance, has an interesting creation story.
1280. Yuvernians. Yuvernians are massive two-headed giraffe-snakes.
Rating: 3/5. That's an amazing description.
-Signing off.
The Less Massive Index (Posts #101-#110)
The Second Less Massive Index (Posts #111-#120)
1271. Yevetha. The Yevetha are one of several different species which would later serve as a blueprint of sorts for the Yuuzhan Vong (and I'll finally get to talk about them later in this very post). That's their main claim to fame, to be honest, but let's look at them on their own merits.
Yevetha look like gaunt, almost skeletal near-humans of some sort, but they have some seriously weird physiognomy. First off, their brains are in their rib cages and they have long (like, Wolverine-sized) dewclaws that pop out of the insides of their wrists. Second, female Yevetha apparently lay huge weird eggs called birth casks. Birth casks need external nourishment, and receive it in the form of Yevethan blood. Normally, the mother would provide it, but it doesn't need to be the mother; low-ranking Yevethan males may seek honor by offering to provide their blood to the children of a high-ranking male-which usually involves the low-ranking individual being killed.
This crazy aspect of their society-that people can be killed to nourish children and it's seen as "natural"-contributes to the most defining cultural trait of the Yevetha, that being their (excuse the pun) bloody-mindedness. They don't see anyone who doesn't have Yevethan blood as being really people, and even if they did, it probably wouldn't make a difference, as this quote from one of their leaders shows:
Your wars are decided by the death of a tenth of a population, a third of an army. Then the defeated surrender their honor and the victors surrender their advantage. This is called being civilized. The Yevetha are not civilized, General. It would be a mistake to deal with us as though we were.
Yes, among other things the Yevetha reject the idea that they're a civilized people. They also had never been aware that there were stars other than their own because their homeworld was in a place where individual stars in the sky were impossible to make out, and so the idea that there might be someone else "out there" was foreign to them-they actually explored other planets without hyperdrive for a while, finding only unintelligent life-before first contact, which appears to have been with the Galactic Empire, natch.
Anyway, all that is bad enough, but then there's the fact that they're naturals with technology. Their tech base wasn't especially sophisticated when the Empire rolled in and made their homeworld into a shipyard, using the Yevetha for slave labor.
Yes, the Empire gave them access to their own tech base. You can guess what happened at some point after the Empire began collapsing. In fact, thanks to Imperial complacency, the Yevetha actually captured the entire fleet that the Empire had in the area. They would then spend about a decade and a half consolidating their forces and advancing their technology, eventually beginning a campaign known as the Yevethan Purge, which resulted in the extinctions of several sapient species, including the Corasgh (...I had to type it again, dang it). The Yevetha lost their Imperial capital ships when some Imperials that they'd kept as slaves on their crews rebelled (oh, the irony), and their timely departure was basically the only reason that the New Republic was able to to stop the Yevethan fleet. (Rather comically, the spherical capital ships that the Yevetha built for themselves were known to New Republic forces by the call sign "Fat Men.")
The Yevetha would later be rendered virtually extinct (with a population in the tens of thousands at most) themselves by the very race that they were a prototype to, the Yuuzhan Vong, in a bit of special irony. Even more ironically, the Yevetha had been building up an even larger fleet than they'd had before at the time, and presumably the Yuuzhan Vong had to spend quite a bit of resources taking them out, so that may well have made a critical difference in the Yuuzhan Vong war itself.
Rating: 4/5. Aspects of the Yevetha are actually very interesting, even if they're bloody-minded savages to a degree that's pretty unsettling.
1272. Yimi. The Yimi are indigenes of the planet Kathol that were created by the DarkStryder. They have large, complex brains that serve only one purpose, that being to have skills flash-imprinted into them. As a result, Yimi can't learn new skills; it's speculated that the DarkStryder created them in the image of the Kathol themselves as a sick joke.
Incidentally, if that's true, then the picture of the unfortunate Yimi slaves from the page is the best guess we have at what the Kathol look like. It's a little predictable that they look like tiny big-brained flying saucer aliens.
Rating: 3/5. ...I've mentioned way too many times that I love the Kathol Rift, right?
1273. Yinchorri. Yinchorri are described as turtle-like. Surprisingly, they have cultural characteristics, such as a society built around "might makes right," that one would expect in lizard people. On the other hand, they don't actually have shells and their heads don't look very turtle-like (they look rather more like poor renderings of dinosaur heads), and so they're arguably not turtle people at all, just kind of chubby lizard/dinosaur people.
It is known that at least some female Yinchorri have "prominent breasts," which Wookieepedia, classy as ever, feels the need to bring up. Despite this, Yinchorri are also known to lay eggs.
The Yinchorri are also known to be among the species immune to Jedi mind tricks.
At some point, the Yinchorri rebelled against the Galactic Empire, who promptly bombed them back to the stone age. They received aid from the New Republic later, but the Yinchorri refused to ally with another galactic government at the time. Their homeworld would come under the control of Darth Krayt's Empire at some point, and whether they were as a whole allied with his forces is ambiguous, but at least one stormtrooper in his forces was a Yinchorri.
The Yinchorri invented a flight pack with dragonfly-like wings, which makes for a rather amusing contrast with the rather portly Yinchorri.
Rating: 3/5.
1274. Yonnas. In an early draft of what would become A New Hope, Yonnas were something that danced, apparently expensively.
Rating: 1/5.
1275. Yourellians, or Ureallians. The old Jedi general Han Solo was a Yourellian.
Yes, another part of an early draft.
Amusingly (to me, at least), Yourellians are hulking and slimy and apparently hunted Wookiees, making the old Han Solo pretty antithetical in some respects to the one we got.
Rating: 3/5. This is probably my single favorite piece of weird old world-building from the early drafts.
1276. Yrashu. The Yrashu are primitive green-furred primates who are also all Force-sensitive.
Their page picture, incidentally, doesn't seem to mesh with this idea, being a sort of bulgy, vaguely furless dog-thing that looks like it was drawn by Rob Liefield on acid.
Anyway, they apparently have a naturally gentle disposition except for a tribe called the Low Ones, who are dark siders who presumably are largely made up of the outcasts of the other tribes.
Of considerable significance to their culture is a ceremonial training in survival skills that include learning how to make a certain kind of tree root into a club; this is apparently a dangerous journey of sorts, at least some of the time.
The Yrashu opposed the Galactic Empire because they could sense its dark side nature.
Rating: 2/5. Eh, I dunno.
1277. Yresilini. All that's really known of the Yresilini is that a Chiss once successfully recruited a group of them into an army that was very loyal to her.
Rating: 1/5. Well, I like their name, anyway.
1278. Yunu. They're basically primitive ape/bigfoot people.
They apparently allied with a group of Jedi refugees led by the amazing K'Kruhk.
Rating: 2/5. It's kind of funny to see references to K'Kruhk anywhere, to be frank, just because he lived over such a long period of time.
1279. Yuuzhan Vong. The Yuuzhan Vong are among the most infamous aliens of the entirety of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and with good reason: They've got the concentrated bastardry of a whole bunch of other species in there.
To wit, the Yuuzhan Vong take elements from the Charon (death cult, organic technology), the Ssi-ruuk (mysterious outsiders from an unknown location with horrific technology, their tendency to enslave their victims), and the Yevetha (their particular brand of warlikeness, contempt for other species, their general brutality, being humanoid and ugly, their military strength, aspects of the arms race between sides, their name having a Y and a V). That's a lot of general nastiness in one package; add terrifyingly over the top sadomasochism to that and you have the Yuuzhan Vong.
They also notably borrow from the ysalamiri (Force invisibility) and cortosis (in the form of having lightsaber-resistant solid materials usable in personal weaponry and armor), which just goes to show how much creative bankruptcy can coexist with creative fertility all at once. (Momentary aside: I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong themselves very much, but their technology almost invariable fascinates me. It's just so quirky and different from even the typical weird organic tech one often sees. They also have a heck of a lot of cultural details.)
The Yuuzhan Vong have a raging hatred for "traditional" technology and especially droids, arising from the fact that the Abominor and Silentium wrecked some Yuuzhan Vong worlds whilst fighting a war with each other. Supposedly, they actually drove the Abominor and Silentium from said galaxy, but I have my doubts; the Silentium particularly were pretty danged dangerous to a degree that makes the Yuuzhan Vong look like wimps. (My own opinion is that the Silentium must have whipped the Abominor and then left of their own volition.)
Being from a different galaxy (at least sort of), the Yuuzhan Vong had their own ways of making war and their own technology, and this complicated efforts to fight them. They also were a pretty big group overall, and their whole people were involved in the effort to some degree; they built huge worldships that made the intergalactic journeys.
I note that they're "sort of" from another galaxy. It's a bit ambiguous, because their original homeworld had an "offspring," Zonama Sekot, which lived in the Star Wars galaxy. Whether Sekot had moved or what is ambiguous, at least from what I've read. The Yuuzhan Vong are known to have exterminated most of the native species of their own galaxy.
They may or may not be related genetically to humans.
There's a ton more, but I'm out of time and it'd take ages.
Rating: 4/5. I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong "event." I do, on the other hand, find a ton of the material surrounding them interesting. Their religion, for instance, has an interesting creation story.
1280. Yuvernians. Yuvernians are massive two-headed giraffe-snakes.
Rating: 3/5. That's an amazing description.
-Signing off.
Friday, October 25, 2013
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#95)
941. Sarkhai. The Sarkhai are basically pale-skinned, pale-haired humans (to the point where I can see implications that they interbreed with humans, meaning they aren't actually what I'd call a species, more like an ethnic group). They apparently have traditional facepaint they wear that they originally used to scare off predators. ...Right, a few vaguely jagged black lines will certainly boost my scariness ratio 150%.
Anyway, apparently Force sensitive Sarkhai are really rare, like "one or two at a time in the whole population" rare.
Also, during an era about 3500 years before the movies, the Sarkhai homeworld was a hotly contested planet in conflicts between the three powers of the day, the Galactic (AKA Old) Republic, the Sith Empire (no relation to most of the other empires of Star Wars, despite those also usually being ruled by Sith), and a group called the Rift Alliance (imagine if the Confederacy of the US Civil War formed during one of the world wars or something because they didn't approve of how the war was being handled and you have an idea of what these guys are), all wanted its defense technologies.
Rating: 2/5. The whole being fought over for technology bit is interesting, but it's the only actually interesting thing.
942. Sarrish. The Sarrish are ugly rubber-forehead aliens from a planet named Sarrish. Their homeworld had its own defense force before and during the Clone Wars, but despite this was occupied by the Separatists and became the site of one of their greatest victories during the war.
More notably, the Sarrish article is the site of this horrendous sentence:
At the end of the Clone Wars, in 19 BBY, Senator Padmé Amidala was died from childbirth and was sent to her homeworld of Naboo to be buried.
That's right, she was died from childbirth. (If you're wondering what a sentence like this was doing here, the Sarrish senator was at the funeral.)
Rating: 3/5. I like the details of them having their own military and being loyal to the Republic (things from this era that don't often go together), and yet they get stomped on by the Separatists even with help from the Republic. (In fact, multiple important named characters fought on their side in the conflict, and they still lost.)
943. Saurians. Okay, before I get into these guys, let's start a little running count. How many aliens with the combination of letters "s-a-u-r" at the beginning of their names are reptilian?
Saurians are lisping snake-headed reptilians (1 out of 1). Apparently they are widely known to wear drab colors, but at least one wore bright colors.
...That'sabout exactly it.
Rating: 2/5. Eh, they might have gotten better if they weren't universal lispers because I (slightly disproportionately) like snake people.
944. Saurin. The Saurin are a somewhat distant offshoot of the Trandoshans, reptilian people (2 out of 2-DING!) who are known as hunters. The Saurin apparently follow the same religion as the Trandoshans despite having somehow managed to evolve completely different hand structures from their cousins. (Saurin women also somehow have breasts-thanks, creepy ol' Wookieepedia-despite there being no evidence that Trandoshan women do.) They are apparently humorless, but despite being known for being in toughs-type occupations (i.e. thugs, bodyguards, etc.), their homeworld also was a major participant in the Old Republic's refugee program during the Clone Wars.
Now, that has slightly disturbing potential implications when the Saurin follow a religion that involves hunting, but as far as I can tell there's no evidence of untoward motives at all. The Saurin government of the time was just a bunch of nice guys, apparently (and there's no evidence that the population was upset about it, either).
Rating: 3/5. I've mentioned before that I like good guy reptiles. These guys have made it into my good books, even if there are some weird bits about them that I don't like so much.
945. Saurtons. Saurtons are reptilian beings (3 out of 3! DING DING DING!) with crocodilian features. These crocodilian features include straight up crocodile heads (classic) and the less well known but quite accurate feature of powerful immune systems combined with being hideously filthy (well, I tend to think they borrowed that second bit from monitor lizards, but the immune system thing is definitely true of actual crocodiles) to the point where they can get other beings sick by mere contact, and their cities apparently were not especially sanitary-they don't feel the need to clean it, so why bother? (On the one hand, this is essentially a "what dirty beasts" vaguely racist sentiment; on the other hand, why would they feel the need to clean up germy filth?)
They may have gold skin and apparently usually stand in the roughly-six-feet-tall range, and suffer from inconsistent description/artwork disparity-they're "slender and quick" yet are drawn like cartoon pro wrestlers. While I can see the appeal of slender reptile people in general, the huge crocodilian head suits a beefy guy better, I think (though there really ought to be variety in any species).
Anyway, they apparently had reasonably advanced tech before coming into contact with the galactic civilization, and several members of the species also were involved in the Kathol Rift stuff.
Rating: 4/5. Aside from being proof that alien species namers are often spectacularly uncreative (consider that, using Earth-language etymology, "Saurton" could be seen to mean "lizard town"), the Saurtons are pretty nice, if admittedly fairly basic. Also, I will go on record as saying there can never be too many crocodile people in a fictional universe.
946. Sauvax. The Sauvax are very cool looking crustacean people. By appearances, they only have huge pinchers, but apparently tucked inside these are small hands with opposable thumbs, which explains how they can make spears and such (which gives them a point in plausibility, anyway). They're supposedly strong swimmers, which seems unlikely, but they definitely look fairly amphibious.
Anyway, whilst primitive and isolated from galactic society (despite there apparently being fairly sparse human settlements on their homeworld), the Sauvax apparently are peaceful and have a complex society that is heavily dependent on diplomatic gestures and such. Central to this is the sharing of food. Rather than take offense at those who have trouble stomaching food that the Sauvax offer (which is very common), the Sauvax will instead mock the victims of their cuisine. ...Wow, what a bunch of trolls.
Their favorite letter is clearly "u," as their personal names have an average of three apiece. Most of these names are five to seven letters long.
Anyway, during the New Sith Empire's time of activity (it comes after the Sith Empire mentioned in the Sarkhai entry above, hence the "new"), some artifacts were stored on the Sauvax homeworld, and then, many years later, a Sith adept showed up (shortly before or around the prequel movies era) and searched for the artifacts in question, enslaving the amphibious Sauvax to do the searching (apparently with help from the human colonists). However, they were stopped, stuff was happy afterwards, blah blah yadda yadda.
Rating: 5/5. Mostly because they look cool, admittedly. Also because they're kind of amusing trolls.
947. Sawal. Sawal apparently are green, scaly humanoids. They are suspected of "cannibalism" (i.e. eating sapients) by settlers on their planet, but it's possible that the disappearances that cause this suspicion were caused by hostile wildlife.
Incidentally, Wookieepedia both infuriated and amused me with this article's use of the word "disparition." Just say "disappearances," guys, the whole five dollar word thing is unnecessary and confusing (even to a word nerd like me sometimes).
Rating: 2/5, mostly for the oddity of the article.
948. Sayormi. The Sayormi appear to essentially be a generic dark elf type fantasy race (albeit with rubber forehead alien features instead of the usually inevitable perfectly smooth skin) that happen to live in a creepy forest on Kashyyyk, the Wookiee homeworld, for some unfathomable reason.
And when I say "generic dark elf type fantasy race," I mean they supposedly use magic (including "voodoo"), all the women are called "witches," all the men are either warriors or "monks," and their most-feared warrior is the hilariously named "Cyrans the Unfeeling." (He's called "the Unfeeling" because he cannot feel. Amazing.)
While all that amuses me to some degree, no. Just no.
Rating: 1/5. Check, please.
949. Schenor. Schenor are apparently universally Force-sensitive felinoids. (Hey, I'd have never guessed "cat alien" from "Schenor!" Extra point!) Apparently, they also may lay eggs (!) and grow to be eight feet tall. They love martial arts and honor (typical cat aliens) and apparently were offhandedly described in RPG material as "eight-foot samurai cat men." (...Okay, another point.)
Rating: 4/5. They got one more point for the sheer weirdness of maybe possibly laying eggs.
950. Schiav. Big ugly cartoon alien humanoids (from the Droids cartoon).
Rating: 1/5. Meh, whatever.
-Signing off.
Anyway, apparently Force sensitive Sarkhai are really rare, like "one or two at a time in the whole population" rare.
Also, during an era about 3500 years before the movies, the Sarkhai homeworld was a hotly contested planet in conflicts between the three powers of the day, the Galactic (AKA Old) Republic, the Sith Empire (no relation to most of the other empires of Star Wars, despite those also usually being ruled by Sith), and a group called the Rift Alliance (imagine if the Confederacy of the US Civil War formed during one of the world wars or something because they didn't approve of how the war was being handled and you have an idea of what these guys are), all wanted its defense technologies.
Rating: 2/5. The whole being fought over for technology bit is interesting, but it's the only actually interesting thing.
942. Sarrish. The Sarrish are ugly rubber-forehead aliens from a planet named Sarrish. Their homeworld had its own defense force before and during the Clone Wars, but despite this was occupied by the Separatists and became the site of one of their greatest victories during the war.
More notably, the Sarrish article is the site of this horrendous sentence:
At the end of the Clone Wars, in 19 BBY, Senator Padmé Amidala was died from childbirth and was sent to her homeworld of Naboo to be buried.
That's right, she was died from childbirth. (If you're wondering what a sentence like this was doing here, the Sarrish senator was at the funeral.)
Rating: 3/5. I like the details of them having their own military and being loyal to the Republic (things from this era that don't often go together), and yet they get stomped on by the Separatists even with help from the Republic. (In fact, multiple important named characters fought on their side in the conflict, and they still lost.)
943. Saurians. Okay, before I get into these guys, let's start a little running count. How many aliens with the combination of letters "s-a-u-r" at the beginning of their names are reptilian?
Saurians are lisping snake-headed reptilians (1 out of 1). Apparently they are widely known to wear drab colors, but at least one wore bright colors.
...That's
Rating: 2/5. Eh, they might have gotten better if they weren't universal lispers because I (slightly disproportionately) like snake people.
944. Saurin. The Saurin are a somewhat distant offshoot of the Trandoshans, reptilian people (2 out of 2-DING!) who are known as hunters. The Saurin apparently follow the same religion as the Trandoshans despite having somehow managed to evolve completely different hand structures from their cousins. (Saurin women also somehow have breasts-thanks, creepy ol' Wookieepedia-despite there being no evidence that Trandoshan women do.) They are apparently humorless, but despite being known for being in toughs-type occupations (i.e. thugs, bodyguards, etc.), their homeworld also was a major participant in the Old Republic's refugee program during the Clone Wars.
Now, that has slightly disturbing potential implications when the Saurin follow a religion that involves hunting, but as far as I can tell there's no evidence of untoward motives at all. The Saurin government of the time was just a bunch of nice guys, apparently (and there's no evidence that the population was upset about it, either).
Rating: 3/5. I've mentioned before that I like good guy reptiles. These guys have made it into my good books, even if there are some weird bits about them that I don't like so much.
945. Saurtons. Saurtons are reptilian beings (3 out of 3! DING DING DING!) with crocodilian features. These crocodilian features include straight up crocodile heads (classic) and the less well known but quite accurate feature of powerful immune systems combined with being hideously filthy (well, I tend to think they borrowed that second bit from monitor lizards, but the immune system thing is definitely true of actual crocodiles) to the point where they can get other beings sick by mere contact, and their cities apparently were not especially sanitary-they don't feel the need to clean it, so why bother? (On the one hand, this is essentially a "what dirty beasts" vaguely racist sentiment; on the other hand, why would they feel the need to clean up germy filth?)
They may have gold skin and apparently usually stand in the roughly-six-feet-tall range, and suffer from inconsistent description/artwork disparity-they're "slender and quick" yet are drawn like cartoon pro wrestlers. While I can see the appeal of slender reptile people in general, the huge crocodilian head suits a beefy guy better, I think (though there really ought to be variety in any species).
Anyway, they apparently had reasonably advanced tech before coming into contact with the galactic civilization, and several members of the species also were involved in the Kathol Rift stuff.
Rating: 4/5. Aside from being proof that alien species namers are often spectacularly uncreative (consider that, using Earth-language etymology, "Saurton" could be seen to mean "lizard town"), the Saurtons are pretty nice, if admittedly fairly basic. Also, I will go on record as saying there can never be too many crocodile people in a fictional universe.
946. Sauvax. The Sauvax are very cool looking crustacean people. By appearances, they only have huge pinchers, but apparently tucked inside these are small hands with opposable thumbs, which explains how they can make spears and such (which gives them a point in plausibility, anyway). They're supposedly strong swimmers, which seems unlikely, but they definitely look fairly amphibious.
Anyway, whilst primitive and isolated from galactic society (despite there apparently being fairly sparse human settlements on their homeworld), the Sauvax apparently are peaceful and have a complex society that is heavily dependent on diplomatic gestures and such. Central to this is the sharing of food. Rather than take offense at those who have trouble stomaching food that the Sauvax offer (which is very common), the Sauvax will instead mock the victims of their cuisine. ...Wow, what a bunch of trolls.
Their favorite letter is clearly "u," as their personal names have an average of three apiece. Most of these names are five to seven letters long.
Anyway, during the New Sith Empire's time of activity (it comes after the Sith Empire mentioned in the Sarkhai entry above, hence the "new"), some artifacts were stored on the Sauvax homeworld, and then, many years later, a Sith adept showed up (shortly before or around the prequel movies era) and searched for the artifacts in question, enslaving the amphibious Sauvax to do the searching (apparently with help from the human colonists). However, they were stopped, stuff was happy afterwards, blah blah yadda yadda.
Rating: 5/5. Mostly because they look cool, admittedly. Also because they're kind of amusing trolls.
947. Sawal. Sawal apparently are green, scaly humanoids. They are suspected of "cannibalism" (i.e. eating sapients) by settlers on their planet, but it's possible that the disappearances that cause this suspicion were caused by hostile wildlife.
Incidentally, Wookieepedia both infuriated and amused me with this article's use of the word "disparition." Just say "disappearances," guys, the whole five dollar word thing is unnecessary and confusing (even to a word nerd like me sometimes).
Rating: 2/5, mostly for the oddity of the article.
948. Sayormi. The Sayormi appear to essentially be a generic dark elf type fantasy race (albeit with rubber forehead alien features instead of the usually inevitable perfectly smooth skin) that happen to live in a creepy forest on Kashyyyk, the Wookiee homeworld, for some unfathomable reason.
And when I say "generic dark elf type fantasy race," I mean they supposedly use magic (including "voodoo"), all the women are called "witches," all the men are either warriors or "monks," and their most-feared warrior is the hilariously named "Cyrans the Unfeeling." (He's called "the Unfeeling" because he cannot feel. Amazing.)
While all that amuses me to some degree, no. Just no.
Rating: 1/5. Check, please.
949. Schenor. Schenor are apparently universally Force-sensitive felinoids. (Hey, I'd have never guessed "cat alien" from "Schenor!" Extra point!) Apparently, they also may lay eggs (!) and grow to be eight feet tall. They love martial arts and honor (typical cat aliens) and apparently were offhandedly described in RPG material as "eight-foot samurai cat men." (...Okay, another point.)
Rating: 4/5. They got one more point for the sheer weirdness of maybe possibly laying eggs.
950. Schiav. Big ugly cartoon alien humanoids (from the Droids cartoon).
Rating: 1/5. Meh, whatever.
-Signing off.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #1
(I decided that, since I enjoy wikiwalking, I might as well try doing some kind of regular feature here that exploits this fact.
When I call it a "guide to the Star Wars universe," I won't be talking about specific characters, at least not usually. Maybe I'll do a piece on the more exotically bizarre and inexplicable Sith Lords, because seriously speaking some of them are insanely weird and awesome and one of them is the hugest Mary Sue character in Star Wars [which deserves some kind of appreciation], or maybe I'll do something on Force powers that mentions them extensively instead. I dunno.)
Everybody remembers Star Wars IV: A New Hope as the film that essentially pioneered using weird aliens to add flavor to cinema. Let's take a look at some Star Wars alien species, and give them some basic ratings on creativity, interest, and coolness. For convenience, I'll be using Wookieepedia's alien category lists to compile these, which will allow me to move in alphabetical order. Oh, yes.
1. Aalagar. The Aalagar are "a subspecies of Bith." What this means is that they're similar to the aliens who were playing jazzy music in the Mos Eisley cantina. Their notable feature is that they tied together strings to communicate. No, seriously, they do that.
Rating: 3/5. The fact that they are a derivative of the Bith who do weird things with string makes me rank them lower than I'd probably rank the Bith.
2. Aar'aa. Large reptilians who "become sluggish in cold temperatures," the Aar'aa's greatest accomplishment seems to be coming up with a name that could be represented almost entirely by the letter A.
Rating: 2/5. For some reason, reading about "cold-blooded reptile" aliens always sets off my fantastic racism radar. Their species name is kind of epic, though.
3. Aaris. The Aaris were the inhabitants of a planet in the Kathol Rift, and were driven insane by a mysterious artifact that fell from the sky and caused them to fight a brutal civil war with each other, resulting in the collapse of their civilization.
Rating: 4/5. While they don't sound that interesting to look at (child-sized reptilians with warty skin) the Lovecraft references won me over.
4. Ab'Ugartte. The only information we have on this species comes from one individual, the unsavory Jak Sazz, who apparently didn't regularly clean himself and had a... suspicious relationship with his wrench. Yes, really.
Rating: 2/5. I can't judge the species properly from one ugly guy, but at least he looks ugly in an interesting way.
5. Abinyshi. These aliens look a bit like velociraptors with heads like the Greys. They were supposedly driven nearly to extinction by the Empire mining their homeworld excessively.
Rating: 4/5. They win points for looking excessively amusing.
6. Abominor. Are you ready for this? The Abominor are a race of sapient droids. They apparently originated outside the Star Wars galaxy. They were capable of consuming material and growing to near-planetary sizes.
All this to explain where the heck the Great Heep came from.
Rating: 5/5. I love the Droids cartoon (well, what little I've seen of it), and the fact that the Abominor graduated from being a crazy, somewhat rundown mining droid that wanted to eat R2-D2 to a species strikes me as the absolute height of incredible awesomeness.
7. Abyssin. The Abyssin are a race of cyclops who regenerate so well and so quickly that it caused diplomatic problems. Those problems relating to the fact that when they beat the living daylights out of visitors from other planets, they don't understand why they die instead of getting back up.
Rating: 4/5. The Abyssin amuse me, and whoever built their backstory gets points for naming their homeworld "Byss" rather than doing a more standard species name derivation, though that creates an issue with Star Wars' other planet named Byss... (More on that later, I'm sure.)
8. Adarian. Adarians are notable for being among those aliens who weren't merely run over roughshod by the Empire, for having some kind of nonsensical advanced technology, and for being stubborn. They're also notable because they have holes in their heads.
Rating: 3/5. They sound like they could be interesting, but the fact that they have the potential for a nickname that makes "Snaggletooth" sound like a polite compliment kinda takes away from them.
9. Adnerem. Adnerem come from the planet Adner. -snrt!- Excuse me. They have triangular heads with horn-like knobs on their foreheads. They don't have thumbs. They also have all sorts of really weird names for their family units and whatnot, and are prone to being criminals because they're not very social.
Rating: 1/5. A species prone to being criminals because they're not very social? FAIL.
10. Advozse. The plural is "Advosec," which is worthy of mention by itself. These guys are ugly dudes with forehead horns, who come from a planet which sounds like a pain to live on because of the constant volcanic eruptions blocking out the sun and the earthquakes everywhere. Also, "As a result, the Advozse people ended up having little attachment to material goods or long-term plans, and developed a pessimistic, selfish, and even paranoid outlook on life. This facet of their culture remained long after contact with the Galactic Republic gave them access to modern construction techniques allowing for more permanent buildings." Yeah, nice, backstory writers, nice.
Rating: 2/5. The odd culture and ugly (in an unappealing way) appearance leave me cold; on the other hand, at least they're different.
Ten down, only about a thousand more to go.
-Signing off.
When I call it a "guide to the Star Wars universe," I won't be talking about specific characters, at least not usually. Maybe I'll do a piece on the more exotically bizarre and inexplicable Sith Lords, because seriously speaking some of them are insanely weird and awesome and one of them is the hugest Mary Sue character in Star Wars [which deserves some kind of appreciation], or maybe I'll do something on Force powers that mentions them extensively instead. I dunno.)
Everybody remembers Star Wars IV: A New Hope as the film that essentially pioneered using weird aliens to add flavor to cinema. Let's take a look at some Star Wars alien species, and give them some basic ratings on creativity, interest, and coolness. For convenience, I'll be using Wookieepedia's alien category lists to compile these, which will allow me to move in alphabetical order. Oh, yes.
1. Aalagar. The Aalagar are "a subspecies of Bith." What this means is that they're similar to the aliens who were playing jazzy music in the Mos Eisley cantina. Their notable feature is that they tied together strings to communicate. No, seriously, they do that.
Rating: 3/5. The fact that they are a derivative of the Bith who do weird things with string makes me rank them lower than I'd probably rank the Bith.
2. Aar'aa. Large reptilians who "become sluggish in cold temperatures," the Aar'aa's greatest accomplishment seems to be coming up with a name that could be represented almost entirely by the letter A.
Rating: 2/5. For some reason, reading about "cold-blooded reptile" aliens always sets off my fantastic racism radar. Their species name is kind of epic, though.
3. Aaris. The Aaris were the inhabitants of a planet in the Kathol Rift, and were driven insane by a mysterious artifact that fell from the sky and caused them to fight a brutal civil war with each other, resulting in the collapse of their civilization.
Rating: 4/5. While they don't sound that interesting to look at (child-sized reptilians with warty skin) the Lovecraft references won me over.
4. Ab'Ugartte. The only information we have on this species comes from one individual, the unsavory Jak Sazz, who apparently didn't regularly clean himself and had a... suspicious relationship with his wrench. Yes, really.
Rating: 2/5. I can't judge the species properly from one ugly guy, but at least he looks ugly in an interesting way.
5. Abinyshi. These aliens look a bit like velociraptors with heads like the Greys. They were supposedly driven nearly to extinction by the Empire mining their homeworld excessively.
Rating: 4/5. They win points for looking excessively amusing.
6. Abominor. Are you ready for this? The Abominor are a race of sapient droids. They apparently originated outside the Star Wars galaxy. They were capable of consuming material and growing to near-planetary sizes.
All this to explain where the heck the Great Heep came from.
Rating: 5/5. I love the Droids cartoon (well, what little I've seen of it), and the fact that the Abominor graduated from being a crazy, somewhat rundown mining droid that wanted to eat R2-D2 to a species strikes me as the absolute height of incredible awesomeness.
7. Abyssin. The Abyssin are a race of cyclops who regenerate so well and so quickly that it caused diplomatic problems. Those problems relating to the fact that when they beat the living daylights out of visitors from other planets, they don't understand why they die instead of getting back up.
Rating: 4/5. The Abyssin amuse me, and whoever built their backstory gets points for naming their homeworld "Byss" rather than doing a more standard species name derivation, though that creates an issue with Star Wars' other planet named Byss... (More on that later, I'm sure.)
8. Adarian. Adarians are notable for being among those aliens who weren't merely run over roughshod by the Empire, for having some kind of nonsensical advanced technology, and for being stubborn. They're also notable because they have holes in their heads.
Rating: 3/5. They sound like they could be interesting, but the fact that they have the potential for a nickname that makes "Snaggletooth" sound like a polite compliment kinda takes away from them.
9. Adnerem. Adnerem come from the planet Adner. -snrt!- Excuse me. They have triangular heads with horn-like knobs on their foreheads. They don't have thumbs. They also have all sorts of really weird names for their family units and whatnot, and are prone to being criminals because they're not very social.
Rating: 1/5. A species prone to being criminals because they're not very social? FAIL.
10. Advozse. The plural is "Advosec," which is worthy of mention by itself. These guys are ugly dudes with forehead horns, who come from a planet which sounds like a pain to live on because of the constant volcanic eruptions blocking out the sun and the earthquakes everywhere. Also, "As a result, the Advozse people ended up having little attachment to material goods or long-term plans, and developed a pessimistic, selfish, and even paranoid outlook on life. This facet of their culture remained long after contact with the Galactic Republic gave them access to modern construction techniques allowing for more permanent buildings." Yeah, nice, backstory writers, nice.
Rating: 2/5. The odd culture and ugly (in an unappealing way) appearance leave me cold; on the other hand, at least they're different.
Ten down, only about a thousand more to go.
-Signing off.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
The Massive Invid's Guide Index Post (#1)
About ten posts ago, I started realizing just how monolithic and intimidating my Star Wars guide series was becoming. It took longer and longer to go back and find things, and I decided that, if only for my own sake, I really ought to get around to creating an index post.
I reckoned it would be good for my readers, too, since not only does it now have a full hundred posts (and hopefully more every week), but I started it over three years ago. I used to do a number of regular features on here, and while I'm hoping to revive at least one of those, this is the only one that's really held on.
(When I finally finish with the Star Wars aliens, I might hunt down some other fictional alien species rather than do other things in Star Wars, mainly because I find myself increasingly fascinated with the mechanics of building fictional races/aliens. I'll probablypick on do Star Trek first.)
Future index posts probably will be individually smaller, and will link to the other index posts.
Because of this post's sheer enormity, I'm going to put a jump here. (Also, it's so large it'll probably take me a week or so to truly finish it; currently, it's still under construction.)
I reckoned it would be good for my readers, too, since not only does it now have a full hundred posts (and hopefully more every week), but I started it over three years ago. I used to do a number of regular features on here, and while I'm hoping to revive at least one of those, this is the only one that's really held on.
(When I finally finish with the Star Wars aliens, I might hunt down some other fictional alien species rather than do other things in Star Wars, mainly because I find myself increasingly fascinated with the mechanics of building fictional races/aliens. I'll probably
Future index posts probably will be individually smaller, and will link to the other index posts.
Because of this post's sheer enormity, I'm going to put a jump here. (Also, it's so large it'll probably take me a week or so to truly finish it; currently, it's still under construction.)
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #2
I enjoyed doing that last one, and I'm sorely tempted to extend the length of this one based on that, but instead, I'm going to try doing lots of them so that I can just throw them out there periodically.
Let's continue to "ae."
11. Aefan. The only appearance of the Aefan was when a hundred or so of them were conned by a pseudoreligious cult into becoming slaves for an illegal drug processing operation.
Rating: N/A. We just don't know anything about these guys, except that they were short and had orange skin. And they weren't necessarily easily duped-a lot of people fell for that scheme (something I'm sure I'll go into later, but it involved using a certain species' natural telepathy to induce ecstasy-quite devious).
12. Affytechan. Affytechans are some sort of plant people who don't have natural symmetry the way animals do (apparently, each one had a unique arrangement of limbs). There is little information on their normal culture and behavior, but I'm inclined to think that they were rather eager and energetic in general.
This is because a bunch of them were unsuccessfully brainwashed into thinking they were Imperial stormtroopers. It didn't take very well, and the majority of them ran around waving brooms and things as if they were weapons.
Rating: 3/5. As actual aliens, they're pretty poorly developed despite interesting descriptions (and the fact that they apparently all stink is kind of bothersome), but the story that they appeared in was quite funny. (You had to be there.)
13. Aganof. The Aganof are a race of blind centipede worm things that live in caves. They apparently have little to no contact with the outside world. Despite this, they are apparently highly intellectual and deeply philosophical.
Rating: 4/5. Aganof have apparently never appeared in any official fiction, but they are among the ranks of aliens mentioned in role-playing source books. As such, they are actually better fleshed out than most aliens who make extremely brief appearances. That, and they are a brilliant concept.
14. Agee. The Agee had wings, but apparently not all of them could fly. They were panicky creatures.
Rating: 3/5. While the Agee were a very simple, basic story device (panicky characters who tried to flee at the first sign of danger), they did fill the role fairly well. It'd be nice to have more on them than that, but we don't, and it could be and probably will be a long time before we do.
15. Aggoron. "Many Aggoron were traders and... formed part of the thousands of non-Gree... [in] the Gree Enclave." Lost? Well, that's okay. I don't know what to say myself.
Rating: N/A. Being a trader does not a species description make.
16. Agorffi. The Agorffi were apparently large and strong, comparably so to Gamorreans and Wookiees. This made them a frequent target for slavers. Nice.
Rating: 1/5. There's the germ of a good backstory for a species there, but just not enough yet. Sometimes source books are fail, too.
17. Ahra Naffi. "The Ahra Naffi were an ancient species that begat the Qonet, who in turn begat the Qella." This is the whole article on Wookieepedia, not counting references. Don't worry, I'll cover that when I hit the Qs, but it really isn't relevant here.
Rating: 1/5. While the whole historical/archaeological angle thing is interesting, I don't know that it's necessary to make up names for each iteration of a species as it develops, since they usually can't interbreed with other species, now can they?
18. Ailon. The Ailon are a warrior race with extremely ancient warrior traditions, and they believe in rule by the strong, which means they're very loyal to the Galactic Empire. As non-humans, they are held in contempt by the Galactic Empire, who likes to hire them and send them on suicide missions, telling them that they were the only ones who could possibly accomplish them.
Rating: 3/5. While it's a rather grim thing, I have to admit the Ailon appeal to the darker side of my sense of humor. I really rather like the idea of seeing these guys, whose elite had a reputation as being roughly as competent as the infamous Mandalorians, having a novel or two about them written.
19. Aing-Tii. At some point in the past, I mentioned the Aing-Tii, who are a reclusive race whose primary form of contact with the rest of the galaxy is through their warrior monks, Force users who can teleport starships and who spend a lot of their time killing slavers. Like the Aaris (which I mentioned in the first Guide post), they are natives of the Kathol Rift. They actually have quite a bit of backstory compared to a lot of the more obscure aliens of Star Wars, especially considering that, as far as I can tell, there have been almost no named Aing-Tii characters.
Rating: 5/5. The Aing-Tii are pure awesomeness. To top it all off, they were created for The DarkStryder Campaign, which was basically "Lovecraft meets Star Wars" and was contributed to by Timothy Zahn, my favorite Star Wars author. What's not to like about them?
20. Akurian. The Akurians were nicknamed "Snow Demons" because their planet was cold. They were apparently primitive aboriginals whose homeworld got invaded at some point; the Rebels helped them reclaim it.
Rating: 3/5. At least there are pictures of them out there, and they look vaguely interesting.
Some interesting ones this time.
-Signing off.
Let's continue to "ae."
11. Aefan. The only appearance of the Aefan was when a hundred or so of them were conned by a pseudoreligious cult into becoming slaves for an illegal drug processing operation.
Rating: N/A. We just don't know anything about these guys, except that they were short and had orange skin. And they weren't necessarily easily duped-a lot of people fell for that scheme (something I'm sure I'll go into later, but it involved using a certain species' natural telepathy to induce ecstasy-quite devious).
12. Affytechan. Affytechans are some sort of plant people who don't have natural symmetry the way animals do (apparently, each one had a unique arrangement of limbs). There is little information on their normal culture and behavior, but I'm inclined to think that they were rather eager and energetic in general.
This is because a bunch of them were unsuccessfully brainwashed into thinking they were Imperial stormtroopers. It didn't take very well, and the majority of them ran around waving brooms and things as if they were weapons.
Rating: 3/5. As actual aliens, they're pretty poorly developed despite interesting descriptions (and the fact that they apparently all stink is kind of bothersome), but the story that they appeared in was quite funny. (You had to be there.)
13. Aganof. The Aganof are a race of blind centipede worm things that live in caves. They apparently have little to no contact with the outside world. Despite this, they are apparently highly intellectual and deeply philosophical.
Rating: 4/5. Aganof have apparently never appeared in any official fiction, but they are among the ranks of aliens mentioned in role-playing source books. As such, they are actually better fleshed out than most aliens who make extremely brief appearances. That, and they are a brilliant concept.
14. Agee. The Agee had wings, but apparently not all of them could fly. They were panicky creatures.
Rating: 3/5. While the Agee were a very simple, basic story device (panicky characters who tried to flee at the first sign of danger), they did fill the role fairly well. It'd be nice to have more on them than that, but we don't, and it could be and probably will be a long time before we do.
15. Aggoron. "Many Aggoron were traders and... formed part of the thousands of non-Gree... [in] the Gree Enclave." Lost? Well, that's okay. I don't know what to say myself.
Rating: N/A. Being a trader does not a species description make.
16. Agorffi. The Agorffi were apparently large and strong, comparably so to Gamorreans and Wookiees. This made them a frequent target for slavers. Nice.
Rating: 1/5. There's the germ of a good backstory for a species there, but just not enough yet. Sometimes source books are fail, too.
17. Ahra Naffi. "The Ahra Naffi were an ancient species that begat the Qonet, who in turn begat the Qella." This is the whole article on Wookieepedia, not counting references. Don't worry, I'll cover that when I hit the Qs, but it really isn't relevant here.
Rating: 1/5. While the whole historical/archaeological angle thing is interesting, I don't know that it's necessary to make up names for each iteration of a species as it develops, since they usually can't interbreed with other species, now can they?
18. Ailon. The Ailon are a warrior race with extremely ancient warrior traditions, and they believe in rule by the strong, which means they're very loyal to the Galactic Empire. As non-humans, they are held in contempt by the Galactic Empire, who likes to hire them and send them on suicide missions, telling them that they were the only ones who could possibly accomplish them.
Rating: 3/5. While it's a rather grim thing, I have to admit the Ailon appeal to the darker side of my sense of humor. I really rather like the idea of seeing these guys, whose elite had a reputation as being roughly as competent as the infamous Mandalorians, having a novel or two about them written.
19. Aing-Tii. At some point in the past, I mentioned the Aing-Tii, who are a reclusive race whose primary form of contact with the rest of the galaxy is through their warrior monks, Force users who can teleport starships and who spend a lot of their time killing slavers. Like the Aaris (which I mentioned in the first Guide post), they are natives of the Kathol Rift. They actually have quite a bit of backstory compared to a lot of the more obscure aliens of Star Wars, especially considering that, as far as I can tell, there have been almost no named Aing-Tii characters.
Rating: 5/5. The Aing-Tii are pure awesomeness. To top it all off, they were created for The DarkStryder Campaign, which was basically "Lovecraft meets Star Wars" and was contributed to by Timothy Zahn, my favorite Star Wars author. What's not to like about them?
20. Akurian. The Akurians were nicknamed "Snow Demons" because their planet was cold. They were apparently primitive aboriginals whose homeworld got invaded at some point; the Rebels helped them reclaim it.
Rating: 3/5. At least there are pictures of them out there, and they look vaguely interesting.
Some interesting ones this time.
-Signing off.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#112)
The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)
The Less Massive Index (Posts #101-#110)
1111. Thennqora. The Thennqora caused an influence on the Saffa that was important to the Saffa paintings, which as I've sarcastically indicated in the past basically means nothing to us even though the Saffa paintings are supposedly culturally important.
Rating: 1/5. I like interconnections, but when we know nothing else about either group... eh.
1112. Theoretical Serias species. All that is known about this species is that they left some things behind; the discoverers of these artifacts presumed them to resemble humans from it.
Their existence is really only a backdrop for a story about archeological exploitation, i.e. there are less than honest people involved in the discoveries here and there, and some other people are trying to keep the discoveries "pristine" or whatever.
Rating: 2/5. Eh, that's reasonably interesting.
1113. Therans. There's a group called the Theran listeners, but it's ambiguous as to whether the Theran listeners are Therans who listen or people who listen to the Therans.
There's decent evidence for both if one examines different articles.
I'd explain who the Therans are listening to (or whatever) and why as well as what this causes them to do, but that's the subject of a more interesting article that will come later, so...
Rating: 1/5. The ambiguity of Theran listening makes it hard to give them a decent rating.
1114. Thisspiasians. Thisspiasians are four-armed omnivorous snake people with epic heads of hair. When I say "epic," incidentally, I mean they have big ol' manes of hair complemented by extremely hairy faces and beards and... basically they look like their heads are actually made of shaggy, woolly hair.
Anyway, most illustrations one sees of Thisspiasians do not indicate that they have four arms, because the upper-class Thisspiasians find their second set of arms unseemly to show in public, and spend much of their time with them hidden, often even tying them in place. This may be linked to the fact that upper-class Thisspiasians have atrophying lower arms, which may or may not be affected by actual evolutionary factors (I'd lean towards the idea that it wasn't, merely cultural, but whatever).
Being basically snakes despite their amazing hair, they like swallowing live animals, but they're aware of how this upsets many other species, and so the majority of them tone it down, even cooking their food even though they like it best very raw. There is apparently a certain movement in their culture that is annoyed about this, complaining that cooked food loses a "certain flavor."
The main known Thisspiasians are Jedi; one of these, Oppo Rancisis, was also the rightful (figurehead) ruler of his people, but abdicated the throne when it was passed to him because of his devotion to the Jedi Order. He still ended up repeatedly being involved in the affairs of the Thisspiasian monarchy even though he'd given up his place in it.
Incidentally, the title the holder of the throne goes by is Blood Monarch. Yes, please. (Yes, please, even if the monarchy always manages to be "behind the times" in a way the Thisspiasian mainstream finds embarrassing. Heck, for me that almost adds points, because it's almost like watching kids and their un-hip parents.)
Rating: 5/5. They're pretty fun.
1115. Thodians. Thodians are from Thodia.
One happened to fish a commlink out of the water for Leia once.
Rating: 1/5. Fishing a commlink out of the water does not a relevant species make... assuming that "Thodian" is a species.
1116. Tholians. The Tholians are apparently named after a species from Star Trek.
We know nothing about them beyond the fact that some in-universe actor felt honored to portray them, and since he was small, at least some of them must thus also be small.
...So are they extinct, or is portrayal of Tholians by non-Tholian actors a racism thing? I'm curious.
Rating: 1/5.
1117. Tholothians. Tholothians are described as a near-human species, but I could easily believe them to be more of an ethnic group, unless they are "ageless" in the sense of not aging-but the source that describes them as ageless seems suspect, being some sort of game thing that is probably just describing characters in fluffy (i.e. meaningless) ways.
All known Tholothians appear to be dark-skinned women wearing headdresses. One of them them had both of her parents born on Corellia.
Rating: 1/5. If we had less of this odd ambiguity here, I'd be willing to consider a better rating, but nah.
1118. Thrakians. The Thrakians are native to the Hapes cluster ruled by the Hapan, a smallish but scrappy star nation whose rulership is matrilineally descended from pirates. (Just throwing that out there, because it deserves to be thrown out there, even if I've nixed the Hapan as an entry once.)
The Thrakians themselves are insectoid beings who once communicated only via pheromones; one day relatively recently (mere hundreds of years ago), they discovered they could communicate by clacking their mandibles, and they found this to be so thrilling even three hundred years later that they took it as a sign that they had been blessed by a higher power.
Rating: 2/5. That's pretty cute, really.
1119. Thranta riders. Thranta riders are a species known for riding thrantas, flying creatures originally found on Alderaan and found on a number of other planets thanks to being exported. They seem to be a bit on the nudist side (probably safe for work), and have brightly colored skin in many colors and like tattoos.
They're known for putting on "aerial rodeos" and for otherwise being secretive.
As with a number of alien species from Star Wars, they're derived from concept art that wasn't used in the movies themselves.
Rating: 2/5. Mostly because they're interesting background texturing.
1120. Thrella. The Thrella are extinct, but they left behind some interesting statuary on their home planet of Mimban. (Modern inhabitants of Mimban include the Coway and the Mimbanites.)
When I say that their statuary is interesting, I mean that from my recollections of the descriptions of it, the statue in question clearly was depicting Cthulhu. That makes this the one Star Wars Lovecraft reference I can think of that predates the entrance of the Kathol Rift into Star Wars fiction.
Rating: 3/5. Alan Dean Foster, you sly dog, you. (The rating goes a little high despite the fact that Splinter of the Mind's Eye is a bit questionable as a piece of Star Wars fiction and the Thrella's role in it is incredibly minor, because the Mimban setting is delightfully well-built for one that plays so minor a role in the mythos as a whole.)
-Signing off.
The Less Massive Index (Posts #101-#110)
1111. Thennqora. The Thennqora caused an influence on the Saffa that was important to the Saffa paintings, which as I've sarcastically indicated in the past basically means nothing to us even though the Saffa paintings are supposedly culturally important.
Rating: 1/5. I like interconnections, but when we know nothing else about either group... eh.
1112. Theoretical Serias species. All that is known about this species is that they left some things behind; the discoverers of these artifacts presumed them to resemble humans from it.
Their existence is really only a backdrop for a story about archeological exploitation, i.e. there are less than honest people involved in the discoveries here and there, and some other people are trying to keep the discoveries "pristine" or whatever.
Rating: 2/5. Eh, that's reasonably interesting.
1113. Therans. There's a group called the Theran listeners, but it's ambiguous as to whether the Theran listeners are Therans who listen or people who listen to the Therans.
There's decent evidence for both if one examines different articles.
I'd explain who the Therans are listening to (or whatever) and why as well as what this causes them to do, but that's the subject of a more interesting article that will come later, so...
Rating: 1/5. The ambiguity of Theran listening makes it hard to give them a decent rating.
1114. Thisspiasians. Thisspiasians are four-armed omnivorous snake people with epic heads of hair. When I say "epic," incidentally, I mean they have big ol' manes of hair complemented by extremely hairy faces and beards and... basically they look like their heads are actually made of shaggy, woolly hair.
Anyway, most illustrations one sees of Thisspiasians do not indicate that they have four arms, because the upper-class Thisspiasians find their second set of arms unseemly to show in public, and spend much of their time with them hidden, often even tying them in place. This may be linked to the fact that upper-class Thisspiasians have atrophying lower arms, which may or may not be affected by actual evolutionary factors (I'd lean towards the idea that it wasn't, merely cultural, but whatever).
Being basically snakes despite their amazing hair, they like swallowing live animals, but they're aware of how this upsets many other species, and so the majority of them tone it down, even cooking their food even though they like it best very raw. There is apparently a certain movement in their culture that is annoyed about this, complaining that cooked food loses a "certain flavor."
The main known Thisspiasians are Jedi; one of these, Oppo Rancisis, was also the rightful (figurehead) ruler of his people, but abdicated the throne when it was passed to him because of his devotion to the Jedi Order. He still ended up repeatedly being involved in the affairs of the Thisspiasian monarchy even though he'd given up his place in it.
Incidentally, the title the holder of the throne goes by is Blood Monarch. Yes, please. (Yes, please, even if the monarchy always manages to be "behind the times" in a way the Thisspiasian mainstream finds embarrassing. Heck, for me that almost adds points, because it's almost like watching kids and their un-hip parents.)
Rating: 5/5. They're pretty fun.
1115. Thodians. Thodians are from Thodia.
One happened to fish a commlink out of the water for Leia once.
Rating: 1/5. Fishing a commlink out of the water does not a relevant species make... assuming that "Thodian" is a species.
1116. Tholians. The Tholians are apparently named after a species from Star Trek.
We know nothing about them beyond the fact that some in-universe actor felt honored to portray them, and since he was small, at least some of them must thus also be small.
...So are they extinct, or is portrayal of Tholians by non-Tholian actors a racism thing? I'm curious.
Rating: 1/5.
1117. Tholothians. Tholothians are described as a near-human species, but I could easily believe them to be more of an ethnic group, unless they are "ageless" in the sense of not aging-but the source that describes them as ageless seems suspect, being some sort of game thing that is probably just describing characters in fluffy (i.e. meaningless) ways.
All known Tholothians appear to be dark-skinned women wearing headdresses. One of them them had both of her parents born on Corellia.
Rating: 1/5. If we had less of this odd ambiguity here, I'd be willing to consider a better rating, but nah.
1118. Thrakians. The Thrakians are native to the Hapes cluster ruled by the Hapan, a smallish but scrappy star nation whose rulership is matrilineally descended from pirates. (Just throwing that out there, because it deserves to be thrown out there, even if I've nixed the Hapan as an entry once.)
The Thrakians themselves are insectoid beings who once communicated only via pheromones; one day relatively recently (mere hundreds of years ago), they discovered they could communicate by clacking their mandibles, and they found this to be so thrilling even three hundred years later that they took it as a sign that they had been blessed by a higher power.
Rating: 2/5. That's pretty cute, really.
1119. Thranta riders. Thranta riders are a species known for riding thrantas, flying creatures originally found on Alderaan and found on a number of other planets thanks to being exported. They seem to be a bit on the nudist side (probably safe for work), and have brightly colored skin in many colors and like tattoos.
They're known for putting on "aerial rodeos" and for otherwise being secretive.
As with a number of alien species from Star Wars, they're derived from concept art that wasn't used in the movies themselves.
Rating: 2/5. Mostly because they're interesting background texturing.
1120. Thrella. The Thrella are extinct, but they left behind some interesting statuary on their home planet of Mimban. (Modern inhabitants of Mimban include the Coway and the Mimbanites.)
When I say that their statuary is interesting, I mean that from my recollections of the descriptions of it, the statue in question clearly was depicting Cthulhu. That makes this the one Star Wars Lovecraft reference I can think of that predates the entrance of the Kathol Rift into Star Wars fiction.
Rating: 3/5. Alan Dean Foster, you sly dog, you. (The rating goes a little high despite the fact that Splinter of the Mind's Eye is a bit questionable as a piece of Star Wars fiction and the Thrella's role in it is incredibly minor, because the Mimban setting is delightfully well-built for one that plays so minor a role in the mythos as a whole.)
-Signing off.
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