Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#56)

551. Ketes. Every time I read "Kete," I think "keet." You're welcome/I'm sorry.

Anyway, the Ketes are among the many, many sapient inhabitants of Endor. Many. They're some form of social insect.

Wookieepedia speculates them to be "related" to the ruby-throated kete, but this is rather unlikely, as the ruby-throated kete is a bird, as the phrase "ruby-throated" suggests.

Rating: 3/5, merely because they're fairly charming cartoon bugs.

552. Ketton. The Ketton are describes as having a "more mammalian" biology, even though they're covered in tough exoskeletons. These exoskeletons are presumably an adaptation to the desert conditions they apparently traditionally live in. They look pretty bug-like, with rather nasty-looking fangs. Apparently, they're among the standard "looks fierce but they're pretty nice for the most part" races, and it's also noted that they prefer "not to soil their fangs in combat," which I suppose really just means they're not into biting folks.

Rating: 3/5. I'm not sure what the heck they're trying to say with "more mammalian" biology there. Are they trying to indicate endothermy? Because insects (and other arthropods) in the real world don't practice endothermy generally because they're so small they'd die if they tried, not because they're insects. Endothermy is something suited to a specific lifestyle and a specific size, and it most certainly isn't a sign of superiority. (If it was, cats would be higher on the food chain than humans because their average natural body temperatures are higher; for that matter, there are probably plenty of rodents who have even higher average natural body temperatures, though I don't know any specifics.)

553. Khil. The Khil are a rather cosmopolitan race of Cthulhu-faced guys. They consider themselves "citizens of the galaxy" and are generally very nice to members of all other races... Wait, this sounds very familiar. Cthulhu-faced guys who are friendly with everybody? I know I covered this somewhere.

...

Ah-ha, here we are! The Ebruchi! The Ebruchi are basically a viking-esque version of this.

They probably don't have bikini babes, though.

...Did I not mention that? Khil women look suspiciously like human women below the neck, or rather below the base of the skull. (And Khil men look suspiciously like human men over the same area, so at least they aren't being sexist in the "hot women ugly men" way.)

They apparently have musical voices because of their mouth structure.

Rating: 4/5. They're less awesome than Viking Cthulhu-faces, but you can never really have too many Cthulhu-faces, and very cultured Cthulhu-faces are probably the next-best thing. Cthulhu-faces.

554. Khoan. Khoan are shorter than humans and significantly heavier than Wookiees ("twice as heavy"). It's hard to say, but they might achieve this through denser tissue, because they don't look that heavy. They have "collars" of spikes growing from around their throats (which rather suggests that this might have conferred some kind of advantage to them in their primitive days) and fins on their heads.

One gambled with Han Solo once.

Also, their name makes me think of koans, which is frankly a little annoying.

Rating: 3/5. There's pretty minimal information, all things considered, but they're still potentially interesting, if only in appearance.

555. Khommites. Khommies (what is it with names that make me think of other things today?) Khommites tried to eliminate all mutations and variations within their own society; to this end, they started a really big cloning program, and made it so that their society wouldn't change for about a thousand years through the stability that each clone raising its own clone granted. (They claim genderlessness, but they're sexist so they're all called "he." Kind of like the Transformers as Simon Furman writes them.) Then an Imperial remnant bombarded their world halfway back to the stone age, and they realized this wasn't a good survival strategy. (You'd think that they'd have figured that out if they were halfway decent geneticists [y'know, master cloners and all], since homogenous populations suffer from worse disease outbreaks, but whatever...)

They really disliked Force sensitivity, as it was partly a sign that their cloning program wasn't working as they intended.

Rating: 3/5. They produced exactly one interesting character and story. They're pretty terrible beyond that, but credit goes where credit is due.

556. Khormai. The Khormai are walrus people.

You can never have too many walrus people. These are considerably better drawn and more proportionate walrus people, so they're even better. They also have cool-looking (ha, ha) cold weather environmental suits.

Rating: 4/5. Walrus people are fun.

557. Khotta. The Khotta are well-known as the inventors of Khottage cheese, which they built a Khottage industry around. They live in Khottages.

(Hopefully you realized I was making that up even if you couldn't see the strikethrough formatting.)

The Khotta, of Kho Nai, can "alter their perspective of the world around them." Whatever the heck that means.

Does it mean they can move around (thus changing the "perspective" of how they can see things)? Because if they can, big whoop.

Rating: 1/5, and I'm that generous because I got to make the "Khottage" jokes.

558. Khramboans. Khramboans are amusing-looking guys. They have eyes on stalks and rather aggressive mustache-like/tusk-like facial tentacles.

One of them ran a rather shady fruit stand.

Rating: 3/5. As long as they don't flanderize all Khramboans as shady fruit salespeople, I'm quite happy with their appearance.

559. Kian'thar. The Kian'thar are the third group I've talked about today that have facial tentacles (theirs emerge from beneath a rather distractingly human-like nose). They apparently are known for being able to sense others' emotions, and many feel less than comfortable with Kian'thar as a result, for while they're good at mediating conflict and such, they're also good at using their ability for deception.

Most Kian'thar remain in a primitive lifestyle; some, the Iith'lon, don't want to improve their tech base at all from where it is, while others, the Lllun, want to add at least some innovations. However, while they're at odds, their debates are never more passionate than conversations over coffee (they themselves discuss the subject over "oceanroot," a presumably somewhat similar beverage).

They were discovered by Shistavanen, who are basically wolfmen. Just thought I'd mention that.

Rating: 4/5. A pretty well-developed concept here.

560. Kibnon. Kibnon are rather interesting-looking insectoids. Most known Kibnon seem to be involved in the underworld, as spice merchants (drug dealers) and other such occupations. Some were the victims of mad science experiments by Doctor Evazan, that ugly guy who says "I don't like you either" during the cantina scene.

(He wanted to become immortal by building a mind transfer machine, so that he could swap into young new bodies forever; apparently, mutilating various aliens [note that Evazan, despite general ugliness, is supposed to be human] helped with that somehow. Note that despite my disparaging commentary, his machine was functional.)

Rating: 3/5. I like their appearance rather a lot.

-Signing off.