Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#75)

741. Mykes. The Mykes... is that name pronounced "Mike?" Because if it is, that's hilarious.

Ahem. Anyway, the Mykes have fleshy chin... things... and this plus their written language are suspected to connect them to the Sith (there's a species called the Sith as well as a group, and the two aren't exactly the same). Implicitly, they're somehow descended from Sith/human interbreeding.

Rating: 2/5. Does the Star Wars galaxy have proper monkeys? This makes me ask that question.

742. Myneyrshi. The Myneyrshi are four-armed blue guys with sort of anteater snouts. They're really stealthy and perceptive. They don't get along with their neighbors on their homeworld of Wayland, heavily armored beings called Psadans (who will receive their own entry in due time) until the Empire invaded and conquered both groups, at which point they decided to work together (it didn't help much).

Apparently, their lives are dominated by ritual-a Myneyrsh will go through some form of ritual just to walk. Their technology level is quite low, and they spurn off-world technology unless they live off-world, presumably out of necessity.

Wayland was invaded by the Yuuzhan Vong and brutally terraformed; the Myrneyrshi resisted until parasites designed to kill them were introduced into the ecosystem, and even then a few apparently persisted. The rest would flee offworld. Eventually, there was an effort to use adapted Yuuzhan Vong techniques to repair the world, but some jerks sabotaged the effort, causing Myreyrshi who had returned to the world to mutate into spiky things, and they understandably got really mad about this.

There apparently was some success in healing them from this, but how much is unclear.

Rating: 3/5. They're modestly interesting.

743. Nagai. The Nagai are pale and dark-haired virtually human beings. They are described as "looking dead," which I find hilarious and improbable. They apparently like knives a lot, to the point where one of their early "reporting names" when first encountered was "Knives." This is also hilarious.

The Nagai were in the early stages of faster-than-light space exploration when they encountered the Tof, a much more advanced and powerful race. The Tofs followed their explorers back to their homeworld and eventually conquered it, but a great number of Nagai escaped. The Nagai made several allies, such as the Maccabree and the Faruun, but were still on the run.

So they left their home galaxy of Firefist and came to the Star Wars galaxy, eventually getting pursued by the Tof.

Their invasion was a big plotline in the old Marvel Star Wars comics, and generally was supposed to be a big deal even though these guys took knife fighting seriously. This is, once again, hilarious.

Rating: 3/5. I find the Nagai funny for reasons unrelated to the super robot creator Go Nagai; that bit is kind of a freebie of amusement, if you will.

744. Najib. The Najib are diminutive but physically powerful, to the point where one illustration of one basically depicts him as the Najibian Hulk, complete with absurd veining and skin stretched so tightly it ought to burst. Otherwise, they're relatively typical roughly humanoid sorta-primate guys.

Rating: 3/5, at least a little bit because of the amusement value of that one stupid picture.

745. Nalrithians. Nalrithians appear to be ugly four-eyed guys. I'd have judged them to be reptilian, but their entry calls them insectoid. Apparently, they're hatched from eggs in largish clutches, and eggmates (those from the same clutches) have some kind of telepathic thing which causes them to share memories (i.e. each member of the clutch will have all its eggmates' memories as well as its own).

One was a bounty hunter who bothered Han Solo on Ord Mantell.

Rating: 3/5. Despite the discrepancies in their appearance and traits and the fact that technically, information on them is pretty sparse, they're somewhat interesting.

746. Nalroni. The Nalroni are doggish people who use hunting instincts in their trading and negotiations, which sounds distinctly unnerving. They apparently are suspicious of outsiders, but are still willing to purchase prefab housing and droids, because hey, prefab housing and droids.

Their homeworld sits on an important trade route. They apparently very vehemently contain outsiders in the city set up to facilitate this trade in order to minimize contact between their culture and outsiders, and only carefully selected individuals of their own are allowed in.

Sounds fairly reasonable of them, actually.

Rating: 3/5. It's interesting to see a group who is neither too xenophobic nor too happily accepting of outsiders.

747. Nami. All we know for sure is that they could pilot human-built starfighters, which puts some constraints on their size and body types. In other words, they're probably essentially human.

They caused a mess by stealing some TIE/D Defenders, the overwhelmingly powerful starfighters used by the Empire in the TIE Fighter games, and then tried to sell them to the Rebel Alliance. (Overwhelmingly powerful as in "they're so strong in these games that one questions how the Rebels survived their invention.")

Rating: 1/5. Meh.

748. Naplousean. They're described as "tangles of flesh," have "many" glittering eyes," and apparently emit some odd smell when they're angry, causing speculation that they may have emotional pheromones.

Rating: 2/5. They sound vaguely interesting in appearance, but the description's also darned vague.

749. Nartians. Nartians are 1) a little smaller than humans on average and have four arms, and 2) should not be mistaken for Martians, no matter how funny that might be.

Rating: 1/5. There's only one known Nartian character.

750. Narvath. They're long-limbed and humanoid.

Rating: 1/5. I'm long-limbed and humanoid; does that make me a Narvath?

-Signing off.

Super Robot Profiles: Grendizer

One of the later robot series created by Go Nagai back in the late '70s, Grendizer had a lot going for him. There was a supporting cast member taken from an earlier series that was extremely popular (in fact, Kouji Kabuto had been the main character of Mazinger Z, a series which not only reinvented the robot-based genre but probably to some extent anime itself, and which commanded something like seventy percent of all television viewers in Japan within its time slot), the fact that it was created by Go Nagai, one of the hot commodities of the time period and the genre, and the fact that the robot was, by the standards of the time, pretty well designed and fairly original.



Not to mention, in the mini-mini-mini-series that was a nice little extra on a DVD set based on all of Go Nagai's robots teaming up and fighting for the thinnest of all possible excu-er, reasons, Grendizer teamed up with a robot fifteen to twenty years his junior to kick giant freaky Japanese mutant samurai demon booty but good.



(Yes, that was the entire series I was talking about.)

So why is Grendizer so bloody obscure by even the standards of the genre?

Here's a hint.



ARGH THE PAIN. While Grendizer's French, Arabic (!), and Italian dubs were very popular, the English dubs were close to as bad as dubs get.



PLEASE HAVE MERCY.

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 wild orgies 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.

Super Robot Profiles: Gaiking

Gaiking was one of the first generation of super robots.



Its notability derives from two main factors: It's one of the first transforming/combining robots with a transformation that is based on physical reality, and it's terrifying.

Seriously, he just straight up uses that giant mouth in his stomach to bite things and those horns on his head to impale things. When I first realized that, I was pretty amazed that something quite that freaky was part of the old guard. (Granted, it's a slightly tame freaky, since, you know, robot-on-robot bloodless violence, but still.)

It actually got dubbed and put in that old standby of super robot lineups that very few people in the US other than hardcore super robot fans remember, Force Five. (It was also a part of Shogun Warriors, although it didn't appear in the Marvel comic.)



Since I don't hear anything about this dub, I'm going to assume it was pretty forgettable (instead of rampantly bad like the Grendizer dub).

I might not even bring Gaiking up at all, except...



...yeah, it had a popular remake/not truly a sequel. And having watched, oh, six or seven episodes or so of its official Hulu subtitled release, I can verify that it's pretty awesome.

For one, they take many super robot ideas and many "real robot" (i.e. what an English speaker would call a "Japanese mecha" series) ideas and blend them together in seamless and logical fashion. Sure, the robot's a super-awesome gigantic thing powered by its pilot's magic fire-generating abilities, but it also needs to have its forearms replaced after it launches off its rocket punches.

Another thing is that the protagonist, Daiya, is perhaps the best iteration of the overused and often poorly utilized "kid pilot" trope found in this kind of series I've ever seen. Seriously, he's just an awesome kid. He's believably a child, yet he's also surprisingly mature, serious, and tough. And willing to take on giant monsters armed only with a probably homemade harpoon.

The series is 39 episodes, and I'm looking forward to all the ones I haven't watched.

Oh, yeah, and there's apparently going to be a movie?

(A little note on Gaiking: Go Nagai has taken credit for creating Gaiking, but he waited to do so publicly until after the popular recent series. I find this just a bit suspicious, especially since Go Nagai seems to kind of just let people assume he created Getter Robo when he really only gave the actual creator a suggestion to go on. Not to call him on it or anything, it's just a bit peculiar that he'd wait until it was clear the property was viable.)

-Signing off.

Super Robot Profiles: Getter Robo

Today's entry is Getter Robo.

Getter Robo is one of the most successful super robots, having appeared in more series than I'm even going to bother mentioning. The etymology of its name is pretty obscure; my best guess is that "get" is a corruption of "gate" (i.e. Gater Robo), as the formation of the robots sort of involves the "opening" and "closing" of "gates" (or at least, that's what the guys shout when the robots separate). Like its predecessor, Mazinger Z, Getter Robo was created by Go Nagai, although unlike most of Go Nagai's series, a co-author is credited as well.

What sets Getter Robo apart from its contemporaries is immediately obvious.



Getter Robo was the first "team" super robot. It had three pilots, and each of those pilots had their own version of the robot that they controlled, and each had their own specialties and strengths (as well as weaknesses) that made the combining mechanic important, indeed, central, to the series.

Another thing that set Getter Robo apart is that one of the robot pilots died at the end of the series. This is notable for two reasons: first, he's still dead. Second, his death has been depicted so inconsistently that it's sometimes seen as a running gag, although it's nearly always a very heroic sort of thing.

In subsequent series, he was replaced by a taller, less fat guy. (No, I can't bring myself to care much about their names at the moment.) Generally, they seem to be almost the same character except for the (relatively minor) differences in appearance-that is, the fat comic relief.



Getter robot G (intro above) was the last Getter Robo for a long time, with the exception of a rather poorly received sorta-not-quite-a-sequel in the early '90s.

However, during the relatively recent revival of popularity of the super robot series as a genre, Getter Robo led the charge of returning older series with Change/Shin Getter Robo-The Last Day/Armageddon.



In the current anime climate in Japan, super robots are as hot as they've been since the late eighties, and Getter Robo's continuing popularity even today reflects that. Like Mazinger Z before it, Getter Robo was a trendsetter.

On a side note, I've frequently seen mention of the dub of Getter Robo, Starvengers. When I was first investigating super robots on the internets some years ago, I recognized Getter Robo as being excessively similar to a set of videos I had watched as a kid called Starformers. (Later research made it clear that these videos had been a dub of Getter Robo G.) The peculiar thing is that I've never found any information on this version. Anywhere. I have no way of knowing if it was related to the Starvengers dub, if perhaps it was dubbed for another country, or what. It's almost as if they never existed.

-Signing off in mild confusion.

Super Robot Profiles: Steel Jeeg

Steel Jeeg, also known as Kotetsu Jeeg (which means the same thing), is kind of an odd duck as super robots go.



First off, this fellow is a particularly ugly duckling, if you catch my drift.

Second, the robot is formed of a number of independent, magnetically connected segments which are controlled by the pilot, who is the head.

Yes, the pilot is the head.

Apparently, Jeeg's pilot, Go Nagai Motorcycle-riding Protagonist #8, noted for having a fashion sense literally directly inspired by Elvis, had a magic bell surgically placed in his chest to save his life. This gave him the amazing power to morph into a big, ugly, flying robot head. A fully combat capable ugly flying robot head.



And, as the first part of this Super Robot Wars video demonstrates, he's apparently quite a nasty little head.

Jeeg might have descended into relative total obscurity, were it not for the current wave of super robot nostalgia leading to something pretty awesome:




The newer version of Jeeg, Kotetsushin Jeeg, is awesome partly because it is a really awesome-looking redesign of an older robot that is clearly actually based on the older one (there have been some redesigns in recent years that fail here, which I will cover at some vague, undefined point in the future). They even came up with a way for the protagonist to not have ridiculous powers and still ride a motorcycle in one fell swoop.

Disappointingly, I can't find the really awesome video of Shin Jeeg using his ridiculously oversized cannon, so I'll direct you here and suggest you imagine it: Scroll down a ways and look at how freaking big the cannon that replaces the toy's arm here is. Then, imagine that the cannon is actually at least twice that big, and it's firing and destroying things before it actually fires.

Finally, The Jeeg Bazooka

At some point in the past (within a couple weeks of exactly three years ago, actually-wait, what?), I did a little article about Kotetsu/Steel Jeeg, one of Go Nagai's later super robot creations, and mentioned the newer sequel series that was based on it.

I tried to describe the newer series version of the Jeeg Bazooka, a weapon that, shall we say, was a bit oversized, but words were inadequate and the original YouTube video I'd found was gone at that point. So recently, I looked again, and decided to grab pictures this time.

So here we have the Jeeg Bazooka getting ready to fire.

See that mostly obscured green and yellow figure back there? That's Jeeg.

Of course, that visual effect is created by foreshortening, right? The gun can't be nearly that proportionately big, can it?

It's still goshdarned huge.

Note additionally that Jeeg isn't very big compared to most super robots, or even most "real robots." He's "only" ten meters (32.5 feet) tall, compared to Mazinger Z's still "puny" eighteen meters (58.5 feet). Most super robots start in the neighborhood of thirty meters (100 feet, give or take).

So that gun's big, but only for Jeeg or by any sane standard. For a super robot, it's tiny.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#114)

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

1131. Tof. Okay, this is pretty hilarious.

The Tof are invaders from the Firefist/Companion Besh galaxy, the Star Wars galaxy's neighbor whose inhabitants have had the most interaction with the galaxy itself. (They're also the only Firefist inhabitants I haven't covered yet.) With me so far?

They're enemies to the Nagai, the Faruun, and the Maccabree, who are basically all the other Firefistians; they apparently rule an old empire known as the Tof Kingdom which has ruled over most of Firefist for a very long time, taking the other species as slaves and whatnot.

Now, you might be speculating that they must be pretty tough customers, and in one sense, at least, they sort of are.

On the other hand, they're actually medieval lifestyle fetishists, because they're huge hairy almost-human beings who refuse to bathe and use perfume to cover their stenches. (They're also sexist dudebros at best and an army of rapists at worst.)

I find myself wondering, especially since they apparently wield clubs as their weapon of choice (check out the page quote on them), just how they managed to contain a race whose entire known membership wears flying artillery-equipped exosuits? (The Maccabree, in case you didn't follow the links.)

Rating: 3/5 for amusement factor. Ah, Marvel Star Wars, why must you do such things?

1132. Togorians. Togorians are cat aliens.

Male Togorians can be about nine feet tall while female Togorians range to nearly seven feet. Their bone structures are denser and more durable than most species, meaning they can withstand a lot more punishment than one might expect. Considering they're giant cat aliens, that must be pretty considerable.

Anyway, the Togorians once universally lived in a nomadic lifestyle that involved a symbiotic relationship with awesome-looking giant flying reptiles called mosgoths where the mosgoths serve as mounts in exchange for the Togorians protecting the mosgoths' eggs, which were preyed on by another flying animal called a liphon that was also a threat to the Togorians. Apparently, having adult mosgoths to ride gave the Togorians the resources they needed to fight off this threat, and in more recent times the liphons' main relationship with the Togorians was that the Togorians would tie up trespassing outsiders on a second transgression to expose them to liphon attack as punishment.

The Togorian men still follow their nomadic traditions, but the women came to prefer a sedentary lifestyle with more advanced technology, forming settlements where they would raise their children; male Togorian children would remain there until adolescence, and then join the men's tribes. The divide between the male and female Togorians was quite wide during the time of the Galactic Empire; male Togorians wouldn't tolerate outsiders or especially stormtroopers or droids in their vicinity, while female Togorians were technologically sophisticated enough that they were on the cusp of independent starship production. Despite this deep-running separation, Togorians practice monogamy.

The Togorians are also apparently among the earliest species to associate strongly with the Mandalorians, possibly the first after the Taung and humans. This association came because the Togorians are not only monster-huge cat dudes but because they had effective enough tactics and strategy to stand against the Mandalorians; the Mandalorians essentially responded to this with "you guys are cool, wanna join our club?" Thus, Togorian mercenaries, bounty hunters, and pirates aren't terribly unusual because many former Mandalorians took up such professions.

Rating: 4/5. There's something distinctly lovable about the Togorians. I should mention that the main Togorian I'm familiar with, Muuurgh, is essentially a loose Chewbacca substitute that an author used for a story because it was too early for Han to have met Chewbacca just yet, and even though Muuurgh (what a cat alien name) was actually a minder that a sinister t'landa Til employer had put on Han, there was something rather adorable about him.

1133. Togruta. The Togruta are fairly human-looking beings who have big horns and also a set of head-tails (which is a common word for the tentacular growths that come from the heads of many hairless human-like Star Wars aliens). Their horns are actually hollow and used for passive echolocation. They also apparently have retractable fangs that they use to kill prey; the prey they kill this way spasms violently, and they allow people to incorrectly believe that they are venomous because of these spasms, apparently because they like intimidating people.

Supposedly, most Togruta are not very individualistic, and considering that nine out of ten Togruta characters look basically identical, I can sort of see why. They also don't like shoes.

There are a disproportionate number of Togruta Jedi (and it's noted further that most of them are women), as far as I can tell, and Anakin Skywalker's apprentice Ahsoka Tano from the recently ended Clone Wars TV series is one of them.

Rating: 3/5. I kind of like how the Togruta look, and aspects of their cultural personality amuse me, but... boy there's not a lot of visual variety, and there really should be.

1134. Tolanese. The only known Tolanese is an always robed and masked bounty hunter, who had some slaves that had outwitted him and cornered him in his own ship; they forced him into an escape pod. He crashed and burned, and was left hideously scarred; this is presumably why he covered up so thoroughly.

He would then go on to hunt down the escaped slaves with a gang of mercenaries and kill them. I presume he was so determined to do so because not only did he want revenge, he probably didn't want it getting out that he'd been outwitted by a pair of Gamorreans, who are stereotyped as among the very dumbest of the dumb.

Anyway, apparently the main other thing we know about these Tolanese guy is that before he got messed up, he was one of those guys who wandered around using his good looks to seduce rich old ladies and take their stuff. ...Nice.

Rating: 1/5.

1135. Tolos. The Tolos come from Toloran, the second planet of the Panto system, home to the Lomins of Pantolomin. As such, their planet was the winter resort portion of the system's tourist industry.

Rating: 3/5. Hum, I'd probably rate the Lomins higher now.

1136. Toma. The Toma look like people wearing low-rent wolfman costumes, except that their hair and skin are bright green.

Rating: 2/5. That's good for a chuckle.

1137. Toong. Hilariously, the Toong are noted as not to be confused with the Taung, the Mandalorian founders mentioned earlier in this article. Considering that the Toong are short guys with huge cartoonish faces, I don't think confusing the two would actually be a problem.

The Toong seem to be rather neurotic as a group, such that first contact threw their homeworld into a violent civil war even though they'd been notably peaceful beforehand.

Later, a poisonous comet (?!?!) would threaten to collide with their homeworld, and so they were relocated to Tund, the adopted homeworld of a sect of pureblooded Sith known as the Sorcerers of Tund. If this sounds like it couldn't have ended well, presumably it didn't: Rokur Gepta (main villain of the Lando Calrissian Adventures) leveled the planet with a weapon that would leave it uninhabitable for at least billions of years. In effect, it would be uninhabitable for possibly longer than the star it was orbiting was going to live.

We don't really know what this means for the Toong, however.

Rating: 3/5. I think more than one of those might be pity points.

1138. Torine. Near-humans determined to protect their homeworld's environment. D'aw, how cute.

Rating: 1/5.

1139. Toydarians. Toydarians are vaguely pig-faced hummingbird/fly-inspired people. They appear rather corpulent, but their guts are apparently actually buoyant, simplifying the fact that they fly constantly in order to survive the dangerous environment they evolved in, marshy areas inhabited by creatures called grabworms. Apparently Toydarians are fully capable of flight from birth, and their constant hovering means that they need a lot of food to sustain their metabolism; most Toydarian wars are fought over food.

Like the Hutts, Toydarians are, as their movie character representative Watto so elegantly demonstrated, immune to mental manipulation through the Force. In a peculiar coincidence, their homeworld was within the bounds of the old Hutt Empire, and they had long been subject to the Hutts. More recently, they were allied to the Old Republic at least briefly during the Clone Wars, oppressed by the Galactic Empire, and briefly (but harmlessly, amazingly enough) conquered by the Yuuzhan Vong.

Rating: 5/5. There's just something very charming about the Toydarians.

1140. Trailians. Not much is known about the Trailians proper, other than a claim that they are/were beautiful humanoids of some manner, and lived some form of primitive lifestyle in a jungle.

At some point, some Sith guy turned at least some of them into some kind of monster-zombie-something-or-other warriors.

Rating: 1/5. We don't know anything about them, and we don't even know that much about the monsters that they (at least partly) were transformed into.

-Signing off.