Monday, October 31, 2011

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species #18

Every now and again, there's a whole bunch of guys with too little information to go on in a row. This post may hold the record for that.

171. Clawdites. The Clawdites are shapeshifters. This is why a hot chick in Episode II turned into a nasty thing when she died-she was a Clawdite.

Most Clawdites, from what I've read, can't change their forms as extensively as a lot of shapeshifters; they essentially can only use it as disguise powers. And that rather makes me wonder what the point to Zam Wesell (the aforementioned Clawdite) shapeshifting really was-she went around "disguised" as the same hot actress all the time.

Rating: 3/5. As shapeshifters go, the Clawdites are fairly boring and mildly plausible. They have kind of a fun name, though. Clawdite Clawdite Clawdite.

172. Codru-Ji. Codru-Ji are four-armed people. Their most amusing feature is that they go through a form of metamorphosis-they start as shaggy six-legged doglike creatures, and then form cocoons and emerge as extremely humanoid (and fairly attractive) beings.

Needless to say, visitors on their homeworld often are embarrassed by social missteps. (And outsiders are rarely aware of the Codru-Ji life cycle because not many of them travel abroad.)

Rating: 4/5. I love the idea of completely vertebrate creatures going through insect metamorphosis.

173. Colicoid. These guys designed the droideka, i.e. the "destroyer droids" that mostly showed up in Episode I. And they modeled them after themselves.

That means that they're big vaguely buglike creatures that can roll up into balls.

They also are cannibalistic (by the science fiction/fantasy definition of "cannibalism," which is "eats things that can talk") and will capture passers-by in and near their solar system and kill and eat them.

Rating: 4/5. I like the Colicoids a fair bit. While I don't care for insectoid/reptilian creatures being typecast as ravening beasts who will kill you and eat your flesh for jollies, the fact that they are murderous creatures who also are smart enough to design and build effective weapons systems gives them a good boost.

174. Columi. Columi are tiny-bodied, huge-headed people who ride around in hoverchairs. In effect, a race of MODOKs.

They also are described as being a "very old" species, which is kind of meaningless as a phrase, but intended to indicate that they are highly advanced.

Rating: 4/5. Only because they're basically MODOKs.

175. Conjeni. [EDIT: Whoops, for a while there the link was to the wrong article.] Conjeni resemble red-furred cartoon starfish.

And that's it.

Rating: 2/5. I'm amused by the description, anyway.

176. Constancians. Short, telepathic, mammalian humanoids.

Four out of five of whom are disturbing as heck. (Look at that picture.)

Rating: 1/5. Aaargh no.

177. Cor. Cor are described as "feline" but look suspiciously like rats (a bit like this guy does). They apparently had some kind of mystic powers that let them contain some sort of giant monster. A big space corporation wanted to utilize the land some of them lived on, and forcibly relocated them, causing the huge, invincible monster to wreck everything they tried to do there. And so the Cor were allowed to move back, yay the end.

Rating: 2/5. All that kind of annoys me. At least they got better information than most of this batch...

178. Corasgh. The Corasgh had a terrible name. I say "had" instead of "have" because the Yevethans, another alien species who, like the later Yuuzhan Vong, slaughtered a bunch of people and caused general havoc and annoyance, and who were almost certainly another of the Yuuzhan Vong's inspirations (alongside the Charon).

Rating: 1/5. I must thank the Yevethans for ensuring that I'll never need to type "Corasgh" ever again.

179. Corragut. The Corragut live in the Corellian Sector and are "treated as a client species" by the Corellians, whatever the heck that means in this context.

Rating: 1/5. Don't be holding out for something better, because...

180. Corthenians. They're from the Corthenia system. That's it. As if we couldn't have guessed that without being told.

Rating: 1/5. ...

Half of these guys had practically no information in their articles. That's astonishing in one respect, and predictable in another.

-Signing off.

No comments: