Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #12

Many Bothans have died to bring us this post.

Speaking of which...

111. Bothan. Well, what to say about these guys? They're nearly omnipresent in Expanded Universe fiction, as scheming politicians or even in honorable professions like espionage (rimshot). Actually, the Bothans have become one of the very most important EU alien species (after those pesky, boring humans), and can really be seen in most walks of life, including in conventional military roles.

Rating: 5/5. I was waffling between 4 and 5, to be honest, but ultimately, all that stuff about them being schemers strikes me as being as much of a negative in-universe stereotype others mostly impose on them. Granted, one of the most commonly seen Bothans in the EU was Borsk Fey'lya, an utterly unrepentant schemer who caused a lot of trouble, but he also died an honorable death in the end (in one of the better character deaths in the overblown Yuuzhan Vong storyline), and he was depicted as having good reasons for most of what he did, even if he occasionally went too far.

112. Bouncer. Bouncers are weird floating critters that are apparently sensitive to the Force. They apparently play moderately important parts in a number of storylines connected to the planet Ruusan, where a great battle which the Jedi believed had wiped out the Sith (this misunderstanding being orchestrated by Darth Bane) had been fought, and numerous Jedi and Sith had been killed. Most Bouncers were driven insane by the Sith weapon that caused most of the casualties, and their insanity was contagious to Jedi, causing other soldiers to seek them out and kill them. This resulted in a young Jedi recruit touching the Dark Side and later joining Darth Bane as apprentice.

Rating: 4/5. Bouncers have a longer fictional history than I had realized. They're more of an interesting fixture than important to the plot, I think, but their nature is such that non-Jedi don't usually realize they are sapient beings. They're probably borderline in that regard, at any rate.

113. Bovorian. Bovorians... are kinda ugly.

Rating: 2/5. At least it's a (mostly) good kind of ugly.

114. Bpfasshi. The Bppfff... Bpfasss... Bpfasshi are a race of "near-humans" that spawned a few Dark Jedi, one of whom was killed by Yoda. This made the Bpfasshi hate Jedi, presumably including Yoda.

Rating: 2/5. Y'know, that seems kind of an odd stance to take. But the article mentioned Yoda, so they got a point.

115. Brebishem. Brebishem had a tendency to huddle together, which somehow made them look more like a larger creature. Other than that, not much.

Rating: 1/5. I'd rather write about Waru's species, from the same book, but that's neither here nor there.

116. Bri'ahl. The Bri'ahl appeared as incidental characters in a comedy story called Another Fine Mess.

Rating: 1/5. They're not even the good kind of ugly.

117. Brigian. Brigians... are from Brigia. They were enslaved by the Yuuzhan Vong. Their physical description makes them sound rather like Sesame Street muppets.

Rating: 3/5, if only because I'm now imagining them as oversized muppets running around in the Star Wars galaxy.

118. Brizzit. Brizzit are cool-looking bug-headed aliens.

Rating: 3/5. If I'm understanding correctly, a Brizzit was a cantina alien.

119. Brogune. Brogune are apparently considered attractive by some Hutts, who may take them as concu-TMI! TMI!

Rating: 2/5, mostly because it lets me type "TMI!" twice (well, three times).

120. Brolf. We don't know much about them except for mostly extraneous descriptive details. (They come from a Zahn book.)

Rating: 2/5. Those extraneous descriptive details are still intriguing.

Eh, a reasonably amusing interesting batch this time.

-Signing off.

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