Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Invid's Guide to the Star Wars Universe: Alien Species (#54)

531. Karfs. Apparently, the Karfs are sapient tree-dwellers that live on the same planet as the Brolfs. They are small and delicate and are treated as a minority, probably.

Rating: 2/5. Minor but relatively useful details.

532. Kari. I'm unclear on how large the Kari are supposed to be, but the picture makes the individual shown look like a hulking giant. (They are described as "small," but that's vague as all heck.)

Apparently, the Kari have such rapid population growth that they scared the Empire, which banned them from space travel. Their home planet had a population of at least 100 billion. This becomes a bit less staggering when you consider that the galaxy is supposed to have 180 billion potentially habitable planets (I used to cite a much smaller number from the old Star Wars novelization, but apparently there's been some retconning going on), and thus that's kind of a drop in the bucket by comparison.

The Kari live in twenty-to-thirty member families called hatches. They apparently specialize in manufacturing little kitschy gadgets and selling them for food, as they need lots of that. They also, despite a relative lack of individuality (to the point where the hatch families were said to be sapient, but not the individuals), have a strong bardic tradition. They apparently largely live underground and few ever see their sun.

Rating: 4/5. I've kind of indicated repeatedly in the past that I don't really care for characterizing an alien species based solely on stereotypes about animals they resemble. That's the main reason I give the Kari less than a 5/5 (the whole hive-minded thing), because if they'd been given some other more unique psychological characteristic they'd have been really interesting.

533. Karkarodons. They're shark people. Incidentally, "Karkarodon" is a corruption of "Carcharodon," which is an animal you may have heard of. Apparently, at least one could keep pace with a small submarine and sympathized with the Separatists during the Clone Wars.

Rating: 3/5. Shark aliens are surprisingly rare...

534. Karnak Alphans. Karnak Alphans are basically all Cousin Itts.

Rating: 4/5. Taking them down a notch is a weird custom about basically forcing people to bring their kids along to diplomatic stuff and having them serve food to them as some kind of gesture of respect. ...What?

535. Karrans. The Karrans are "large and lumbering insectivores," which is an... interesting combination. Apparently, they are very close to being hive-minded.

They are also ugly giant rat-things.

Rating: 2/5, mainly for the weird irony of a hive-minded insectivore.

536. Kashoonara. The Kashoonara are humanoids who believe creatures called humbabas are sacred. "Humbaba" was a figure in Akkadian/Sumerian/Babylonian/Assyrian mythology who was some kind of ugly giant (he had visible intestines and stuff). (Personally, I can't help but think of one of the elemental summons from the game Septerra Core, which had the same name.) Fittingly, at least one depiction of the humbabas is freaky as all heck.

The Kashoonara hated the Empire because they killed a lot of humbabas, apparently for the heck of it.

Rating: 2/5. They're very modestly interesting. They're also pretty one-dimensional.

537. Kath. The Kath apparently disliked the Empire for subjugating them, and one was a Rebel operative. They're reptilian.

Rating: 1/5. A little too little to go on.

538. Kathol. Oh hey it's the Kathol!

Believed to be descendants of the Old Ones, the Kathol made a determined effort to bring every H.P. Lovecraft reference they possibly could into the Star Wars galaxy. In the process, they created several other species (notably the Charr Ontee), an awesome giant magical monster/computer thing (which itself created a number of new species), and (apparently unintentionally) caused others (the Aing-Tii) to start religions.

After some Dark Jedi put them on the brink of extinction, they used the aforementioned DarkStryder to preserve their souls for later physical resurrection, but the DarkStryder didn't like that plan, they fought about it, and the Kathol's souls were then the power source for a special form of Force powers.

Eventually, stuff happened and the Kathol's souls were freed, but they either decided to finally let go or became very cranky and contentious ghosts.

Rating: 5/5. I loves me some Lovecraftian silliness, and the Kathol represent the lion's share of it in Star Wars.

539. Kaump heavyworlders. Ambiguously canonical... well, heavyworlders... the Kaump apparently are short, "dense" (you might want to reconsider the phrasing there), and flat-faced.

Rating: 2/5. Mainly because of the chuckle I got from the use of the word "dense."

540. Kauronians. Kauronians were once seen by Greedo entering the infamous cantina. However, when he got there, there weren't any, because there weren't any there in the movie.

Less offensively to continuity, the Kauronians apparently had a pirate fleet hiding out in their home system at some point, which means entry #540 wasn't completely stupid, anyway.

Rating: 1/5. There just isn't enough to even think about giving them more.

-Signing off.

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