Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#105)

The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)

1041. Stenax. The Stenax are huge ol' demonic-looking gargoyle people. Their considerable size and presumable physical strength makes me think of the Disney Gargoyles cartoon, although the resemblance basically ends at the fact that they're big, modestly demonic-looking winged people.

The Stenax have the power of natural flight, and traditionally built their cities in a way that only flying people could properly use them. In the time of Xim the Despot's empire, 25,000 years before the era of the films, they were among the races Xim enslaved. More recently (mere hundreds of years ago), a special idol of immense religious significance to the Stenax was buried in an earthquake. This idol's value to the Stenax was such that the whole of them refused to fly as long as it remained buried. In recent times, their homeworld Stenos would become a center for various forms of criminal activity, apparently because the Stenax preferred to ignore offworlders.

When a scoundrel uncovered their idol and sold it to the Imperial governor of Stenos, the Stenax immediately took to the skies, killing the governor and his guards. Not long after the Battle of Endor, the Stenax would wipe out the Imperial garrison on Stenos and then started massacring non-Stenax inhabitants of many other nearby planets. Eventually, the New Republic contained the Stenax and put a permanent blockade around Stenos. The Stenax Massacres would become known as one of the nastier events in recent history.

The Stenax are also known to have lifespans in the neighborhood of two hundred and fifty years. It is noted that "few winged species" possess such long lifespans, but that strikes me as pretty silly (off the top of my head I can think of the Duinuogwuin and Galidyn, species who qualify as winged whose lifespans make the Stenax look like mayflies).

Rating: 3/5. Part of the reason I'm rating them relatively low is because it's just too typical that a big, powerful, and intimidating species would cause such trouble.

1042. Stennes and Stennes Shifters. While these have two different entries and are counted as separate species, I'm inclined to stick them together because they're very closely intertwined, and because the Stennes article is only about a paragraph.

The Stennes and Stennes Shifters developed on the planet Stennaros. The Stennes Shifters are a genetic offshoot of the Stennes that all have Force powers, namely a telepathic ability to cause people to not notice them and the ability to feed on the lifeforces of those around them. While few Stennes Shifters used these talents to cause trouble, in the wider galaxy they swiftly picked up a reputation as predators, and thus all Stennes Shifters were soon hunted. Even the mainline Stennes would turn on them, making even Stennaros an unpleasant place for them to live.

Finally, about five thousand years before the movies, there was a large-scale conflict involving the Jedi Order and the Old Republic. Stennaros was devastated by warfare, and the mainline Stennes became violently xenophobic, while the Shifter population dwindled to a few million (keep in mind that there are millions of sapient species in the galaxy, and that number becomes a lot smaller) and largely faded into legend, letting the Shifters pretend to be mainline Stennes (from whom they are indistinguishable in appearance) and blend into society. Many Stennes Shifters now live on the margins of society and rather seem to be doing all right, all things considered.

Rating: 4/5. There's a lot of layered history here, and I like that.

1043. Stereb. The Stereb are large and look a lot like humans to me, although the writer who co-created them told the artist to draw them as "big hairless Wookiee guys," which I have to admit is a kind of great description.

They aren't very advanced, and built stone cities which are described in the following likewise amazing dialogue:

What--Oh, you mean the Stereb cities?
The stone things.
They belong to the Stereb. They're those tall guys. This is their planet.

That we all should have the opportunity to write such incredible dialogue.

Rating: 2/5. They get an extra point because they're those tall guys and this is their planet.

1044. Stictex. The Stictex sound like they're eight-legged winged insects of large size, except for an odd piece of description that indicates they have twelve "optic nerves" on stalks. I'm not quite sure what that's supposed to mean, although I must admit I think it sounds visually interesting.

Rating: 3/5, because their description sounds interesting.

1045. Stokhli. The Stokhli are known as the creators of the Stokhli stun stick, a weapon designed to subdue living beings without harming them.

It should be noted that a Stokhli stun stick apparently goes for 14,000 credits, which is relatively comparable to the price of a used landspeeder on Tatooine and the amount of money that Han Solo owed Jabba the Hutt. Also, a Stokhli stun stick is actually essentially a cross between a real world stun gun and one of Spider-Man's web shooters, which arguably puts it among the greatest personal weapons in all of fiction.

Rating: 2/5 for their association with an interesting weapon. Interestingly enough, the stun stick was originally developed for hunting.

1046. Strathen. The first contact the Strathen had with another species was with the Duros (see the Duinuogwuin link earlier).

Rating: 2/5. Mainly because it reinforces the idea that Duros are one of the species who have been spacefaring the longest.

1047. Stribers. The Stribers are among the rarest members of the Iskalonian School, a group I've mentioned a bunch of times and ought to work on making a special index for or something. Their rarity is such that it is thought that they will be extinct within a few generations of the Battle of Endor.

They are telepathic and naturally diplomatic. They also look a little bit like grey aliens.

Rating: 3/5. As I've noted most of the times I've mentioned them, I like the Iskalonian School as a concept-a multiracial society of peoples who all happen to be primarily aquatic.

1048. Stromma. The Stromma of Oristrom (which is a great nonstandard name link) were defeated at some point by the Quesoth, and would become their allies. Later, they would be conquered by an alien warlord, then liberated from that warlord by Grand Admiral Thrawn and his Empire of the Hand, an organization dedicated to keeping warlords and empires and things in the Unknown Regions from leaving the Unknown Regions. They would then ally with the Empire of the Hand, and then would withdraw from services in Thrawn's forces because they believed that he would be defeated when he went to battle with the warlord, who was on the Quesoth homeworld and had the Quesoth as his main allies.

That's an awful lot of political hopping around.

Rating: 3/5. I'm giving them a point extra because I just learned that Nuso Esva, the warlord mentioned above, was created by Timothy Zahn as Thrawn's Moriarty.

1049. Strutters. Strutters are cartoonish ostrich/roadrunner people from Endor, known for their vanity and generally thought by the Ewoks and other inhabitants of Endor to be frivolous and silly. Considering that they apparently carried modern-looking hand mirrors on the primitive world of Endor, I'd have to agree.

Rating: 2/5, if only because that's kind of funny.

1050. Suiraons. Suiraons resemble lizards and enjoy basking in the sun.

Sheesh, I'm sick of stereotypical reptilian characterization.

Rating: 1/5.

-Signing off.

The Video Title Strikes Me As Perhaps Slightly Unfortunate

Apropos of essentially nothing (other than the fact that this happened to be sitting in my favorites), here's a music video somebody did compiling footage of the amazing Sammo Hung.



I don't think I've ever seen anybody perform a jump kick with real physical consequences before. It's kind of amazing.

-Signing off.

Synapses Firing Randomly (#1)

So you know those car commercials where they depict the car evading something ridiculous, like an avalanche or a monster.

And somebody in Japan clearly thought this was a neat idea, and did this with the series Shingeki no Kyojin/Attack on Titan.



And I thought "Eh, cool enough, that's a neat series and the titans make as much sense as anything... [synapses fire randomly] Okay why did I think of this?"



"Sure your SUV is cool guys, but look what this guy did in a West Coaster!"

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#104)

The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)

1031. "Squidges." The "squidges" are an ambiguously canonical race that somewhat resemble grey-style aliens, though they also have some sort of skin patterns rather prominently on their heads, necks, and a few other places.

"Squidge" is possibly a degrading epithet applied to them by another race, and as with the Skrillings, is all we know to call them by. However, we don't have any indication it's what they're stuck calling themselves.

The (ambiguously canonical) story in which they appear features a pair of youths somehow finding C-3PO long after the movie era, implicitly many centuries or longer, hearing the barely functional droid tell stories of Luke Skywalker, and, after the droid and one of the youths are killed, the other finds a lightsaber in the droid's remains and claims there is still hope.

I hope that kid had some majorly awesome combat potential, because otherwise that's a real tragedy waiting to happen. (The reason most people don't use lightsabers? Because they're dangerous as heck just to hold.)

Rating: 3/5. This is mostly based on appearance.

1032. Sronk. The main known feature of the Sronk is that they use some rather idiosyncratic hand-based metaphors in their speech, such as "seeing things full-left-handed," which apparently just means seeing something personally. (Confusingly, Wookieepedia gives the example "seeing things first-hand" as a translation.)

We know little else, except that Grand Admiral Thrawn stomped all over their planet once, and thus they, like many others, were very worried by rumors of him returning in the buildup to the Caamas document crisis.

Rating: 2/5. Y'know, more science fiction writers need to consider what parts of their native languages are idiosyncratic and then break the languages down and build brand new idiosyncratic metaphors for aliens. (Even closely related languages on Earth can have very different choice for simple things-in German, you "make" a picture rather than "take" a picture.)

1033. Srrors'toks. Srrors'toks are rather ugly cat aliens.

They have short fur, usually golden/yellow or grey and black tabby-striped, and this fur doesn't provide much insulation; some also have differently-colored manes. Some develop the skill of ventriloquism, with the apparent intent of confusing enemies by making themselves sound like they're more than one individual or coming from different directions.

Also notable is that they have a big dumb rigid honor code, like way too many Star Wars aliens, which involves the life debt.

Now, I've never really talked much about the life debt, but here's the thing: It's kind of problematic, at least as far as I'm concerned. Always serving someone who saved you once forever, until one or the other dies? Man, why would anyone do that? It's in complete defiance of societal sense, and the fact that this is at least the third species I know of (the others being Gungans and Wookiees) that does something like it is painful. I can't complain as much about the one that started it, Chewbacca's life debt to Han Solo, because unlike many cases of this sort of thing, 1) Han got in a lot of trouble helping Chewbacca out and Chewbacca knew this, 2) they actually became great friends, and 3) never once did Han actually take advantage of Chewie. And Srrors'toks definitely follow those they owe life debts to regardless of how horrible their debt-holders are to them. I'm seriously inclined to think that any sensible society that followed a "life debt" honor code would at the very least not acknowledge debts to those who don't follow their own honor, because frankly that's a few metric tons of bull.

Now, there is a thing in this case that interests me: Apparently, if a Srrors'tok incurs a life debt to two different people who are sufficiently violent enemies, the Srrors'tok can cancel the older life debt, or ignore both of them. They aren't supposed to incur a second one on purpose, but if they do I imagine it's a very pleasant experience for the Srrors'tok and not so much for the former debt holder.

Rating: 3/5. Mainly because of the interesting detail on how the life debt thing can end.

1034. Ssamb. Ssamb are superficially spider-like creatures created by the DarkStryder, the formidable organic supercomputer thingy created by the Kathol, to guard itself against intrusion. I say "superficially spider-like" because they have six legs, no proper heads or segments, vertebrate jaws (which essentially just emerge directly from their bodies), and little stinger-like tails of some sort, and other than their legs, don't even vaguely look like arthropods. About fifteen hundred of them are known to guard the DarkStryder, and because it created them apparently from scratch, it seems dubious there are any more of them than that.

Rating: 3/5. I generally don't necessarily have anything wrong with aliens that don't resemble arthropods except superficially, but I wish people would choose their descriptions of such more carefully than they do.

1035. Ssi-ruuk. The Ssi-ruuk (singular Ssi-ruu, possessive Ssi-ruuvi) are among the most xenophobic, racist, and generally nasty species in the entirety of the Star Wars galaxy (I'd have to do a careful tally to be sure, but out of the ones I can remember offhand, they're probably in the top five and definitely the top ten), coming from the Unknown Regions, a peripheral area that has never been under the dominion of the larger galactic society. (Other prominent inhabitants of the area are the Killiks, who moved there after their seeming extinction in the central parts of the galaxy, and the Chiss.) They have a strict caste system built entirely around scale color, with intermarriage forbidden and the brown-scaled results of mating between different castes often put to death out of hand. They also kept the P'w'ecks, probably a Ssi-ruuk subspecies, as slaves, and are happy to enslave anyone else they meet.

And we're not talking the kind of slave that has at least some hope of humane treatment, either, because one of the reasons they like slaves so much is because they created a form of technology based around a process they call entechment. The crux of entechment is that it sucks the Force-based lifeforce out of a living creature and infuses it into a droid, providing the droid with a long-term power source and also enslaving the victim's mind as the droid's intelligence. (It was also shown that an enteched intelligence could be permitted to act under its own volition, and there was a Ssi-ruuvi ally who had willingly been enteched for the sake of immortality.) Enteched beings provide a ridiculous amount of energy, and so the Ssi-ruuk used enteched slaves to power their starfighters, tiny autonomous droids that required only two souls to compete with the power sources of the rest of the galaxy (I'll point out that an X-Wing has been calculated to have power output on the scale of the entire North American power grid).

It gets better. While traditionally the Ssi-ruuk used their P'w'eck slaves to power things, they discovered that humans provided even better power sources, ones that might well never run out (P'w'ecks only actually last for months, apparently), and were eager to invade the galaxy at large to harvest the entire civilization. They even discovered the connection between the Force and entechment (they are among the species that lack Force sensitives) and figured out how to use a powerful Jedi to entech people remotely.

You might be wondering, with all of this horrific stuff, just how anyone could stand against them. The answer is simple: They're dirty cowards.

Specifically, Ssi-ruuvi religion states that a Ssi-ruuvi soul can only reach the afterlife if the Ssi-ruu dies on a consecrated homeworld. (The consecration can apparently only come once they've taken a place over, although the ceremony takes only an hour.) This is very important to the Ssi-ruuk, who believe they're in for a good afterlife and that failing to reach it means an eternity of loneliness, and so they work really hard not to die off their homeworlds and use very conservative, defensive tactics. Their cowardice thus takes the teeth out of any serious attempts by the Ssi-ruuk to expand out of their home territory, and compared to many other self-important races, they're not very successful.

Hm, I've gotten this far and haven't even mentioned that the Ssi-ruuk are usually depicted as large (about seven to eight hundred pounds) carnivorous dinosaurs, who have tongue-like smelling feelers in their noses and speak in a musical, whistling language.

The Ssi-ruuk invaded the periphery of the wider Galactic society after the Emperor found out about them and suggested an alliance; their incursion came roughly simultaneously with the events of Return of the Jedi. Their attack was driven back by a Rebel task force that intercepted a message that had been intended for the Emperor, and the Ssi-ruuk sat on their duffs for a while after that.

Then there was a Keeramak, a messianic figure, born among the Ssi-ruuk, and they believed it was time to conquer the galaxy. They started a plot involving faking an uprising by the P'w'ecks and brown-scaled Ssi-ruuk, but this didn't work out for them, and the Keeramak was killed. This happened more or less simultaneously with the Yuuzhan Vong showing up and attacking the Ssi-ruuvi homeworlds, and the Ssi-ruuvi Imperium was forced to flee under military dictatorship to some other territory. As far as is known, they're still basically homeless.

Rating: 5/5. I rather like the combination of features here-strange technology, a distinctive design, and certain powerful capabilities being offset by culturally ingrained cowardice.

1036. Ssither. Ssither look rather like cobras with arms, although the face of the illustration on the page looks rather like it's a very different animal than an actual cobra.

They're quite large, able to rear up to a height comparable to a human's while still having quite a bit of their length on the ground to use as support, and are apparently collectively telepathic, though also capable of speech.

Their culture was quite primitive, but then they were enslaved by somebody or another. Then their star exploded, but fortunately for them immediately beforehand there was a group of Rebels in the area and they rescued as many as they could, dropping them off on another planet somewhere.

Rating: 4/5. They're pretty cool-looking.

1037. Ssty. Ssty are apparently furry, have little claws that they use as fingers, and have a reputation as cheaters.

Rating: 1/5. Eh.

1038. Stacchati. Apparently, the appearance of their eyes were the basis for a certain kind of droid's eyes. Considering what the droids in question look like, Stacchati probably look kind of... derpy.

Rating: 1/5.

1039. Stassians. They presumably exist.

Rating: 1/5.

1040. Stellan. The Stellan apparently lead a peaceful life, and do so by getting rid of anyone that they regard as a potential problem at an early age, putting them in spacecraft and setting them adrift in space.

What nice people.

This means that most Stellan in the wider galaxy were originally brought there by the slavers and pirates who snatch these people up, since the Stellan society doesn't do anything to protect these people.

Rating: 3/5. They're awful but plausible, and I could totally buy this being a thing that happens.

-Signing off.

Warning: The Tags (and Comment After the Video) Are Spoilers For the Clip

I've watched a few of these "How It Should Have Ended" things, and this one is far and away the best (yes, even better than the one with Darth Vader), or at least the one most suited to my particular tastes:



Sooner or later, there will be an actual Power Vacuum Megazord (I'm pretty sure there isn't one just yet), and I'll look back at this and laugh. (Not that I wasn't going to look back at this and laugh anyway.)

(Also, there was some dope commenting on the video who was wondering why it "took people so long" to chuck nukes in the wormhole. I'm sorry, but that was addressed in the frikkin' movie and you need to work on your listening/comprehension skills. (They did think of it, and it didn't work when they tried it.)

-Signing off.

We Dig Giant Robots

Since I've been relying awfully heavily on silly Chinese tokusatsu for content lately, have a Pacific Rim music video to the Megas XLR theme.



I'm having a hard time imagining how this could be more perfect.

-Signing off.

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#103)

The Massive Index (Posts #1-#100)

1021. Sock-headed Worm People. The Sock-headed Worm People (this seems like a conjectural title, don't you think?) are from a cut story, and thus ambiguously canonical.

They look only sorta wormlike, in that they have annelid-style (i.e. earthworm style) body segments and their body shapes are kinda similar, but otherwise they're stocky-bodied little lumps with tentacles. They supposedly come from a desert planet.

Rating: 3/5. I like how they look, even with the apparent cartoon mouth.

1022. Soomans. They're some kind of cartoon bug people.

They were once threatened by invasion, but nothing much came of it because it was a Droids cartoon tie-in comic. Then some other guys came and massacred millions of them for jollies, possibly disgusted at their survival.

Rating: 3/5. There's a pity point in there.

1023. Soothsisters of Pelgrin. Xim the Despot killed all the Soothsisters of Pelgrin for them predicting that his empire would fall.

Later, his empire fell.

Rating: 2/5. It can't be said for sure that they're actually an alien species as such, but if they were, I'd probably bump them up another point if they went in the directions I'd tend to think they ought to go.

1024. Sorkis. The Sorkis (singular Sorki) are ambiguously canonical, amphibious and preferentially aquatic humanoids. They so strongly prefer underwater lifestyles that only one percent of the populace of their own capital city, which is above water for convenience of administration and junk, is actually made up of their own species. They can't speak Basic (English), instead speaking a dolphin chatter-inspired tongue.

They apparently invented a virtual reality-like form of psychotherapy, which like all fictional forms of magically entering people's heads is stupid dangerous to a degree that makes you wonder why people think it's a good idea.

Rating: 3/5. The main thing I like is the description of the capital city.

1025. Sorrusians. The Sorrusians are near-humans with hyper-flexible bone structures that apparently let them squeeze through much tighter places than humans.

Rating: 2/5. Eh, if you're going to make near-humans with one anatomical difference, it might as well be something interesting instead of something worn out and overdone.

1026. Souma. The Souma are ambiguously canonical cat people. There are five times as many female Souma as male Souma, and the male Souma are apparently stupid and "relegated to menial tasks." I... kinda doubt that's how that'd work, exactly; if you've got stupid, rare males, then you'd be using them as studs, not menial laborers.

As for appearance, their main notable features are thick coats of fur and "frank, gentle eyes." ...That sounds a lot like my new cat.

Rating: 2/5. Hum, very average so far today.

1027. Spider People. The Spider People are/were spider people (SHOCKING) who live(d) on a planet of insect people. This naturally made them enemies of the insectoid natives (which is silly, but meh), but they were seemingly exterminated after retreating to the planet's implausible cave complexes.

The reason for the tense ambiguity is because they're implicitly extinct, except their last known environment is filled with "cave spiders," which appear to be related to them and which seem to be intelligent, possibly sapient.

They're said to have been quick to jump to conclusions. Sounds to me like that's a trait of those who think they're extinct.

Rating: 3/5. The implicit fact that they're still around, letting outsiders believe they're extinct, is interesting.

1028. Spiners. The Spiners' homeworld of Worxer was destroyed by a supernova, and the fact that they could no longer acquire certain vital nutrients from their home meant that they were becoming sterile and gradually going extinct. (I have doubts that a civilization in the Star Wars galaxy couldn't come up with nutritional supplements for that sort of thing, but whatever.)

Anyway, the Spiners' claim to fame is that they have porcupine-like quills (SHOCK) that they can shoot as projectiles with enough force and accuracy to kill. Not only can they do this, but they can fire them really fast, and then regrow them at probably impossible rates, thus being able to fire hundreds of projectiles in the span of a few minutes.

Sounds exhausting, especially since their projectile firing is explicitly powered by muscular action.

Rating: 3/5. If they'd had a more interesting name, perhaps.

1029. Squalrises. I'll get this out of the way: Every time I read "Squalris" I hear "walrus" and then I'm disappointed that they aren't some kind of walrus things.

Anyway, Squalrises are some kind of yellow-skinned humanoids whose homeworld is fortunate enough to sit along one of the biggest, wealthiest trade routes in the galaxy, and has been an immensely wealthy planet since the modern hyperdrive was invented and proliferated 25,000 years before the movie era. Probably as an acquired trait, Squalrises have a particular reputation as hard bargainers. In an RPG, Squalris players would have less agility, but starting bonuses to durability (attributed to a thick hide) as well as to detecting hidden agendas and to initial wealth.

Rating: 3/5. Eh, somebody has to be the well-heeled and well-established guys.

1030. Squibs. The Squibs are diminutive, rodent-like nomadic Jawa types, i.e. technology scavengers, and seedy merchants (the two occupations are, of course, related). They have a frikkafrakkin' ton of history and material.

One of the most notable things about the Squibs is that the first character in Star Wars fiction to go by the name Mace Windu was actually a Squib. It would later be explained that the Squibs see the Jedi Mace Windu as Big Time Hero of Beyond-Squib Eliteness (an actual title given as an honor for great heroes by the Squibs) for saving their planet once during the Clone Wars.

Rating: 4/5. They're not my favorite space scavs. They're also not my favorite rodent people, because saber-toothed rat people. But they do possess quite a bit of cultural material and are clearly popular to use... though they're also inconsistently portrayed by different authors, e.g. some of them speak in weird pidgin dialects while some don't.

-Signing off.