Lit Are Zabrak's near-humans or aliens?

I was looking on the near-human page on the wookipedia, and in the Behind the scenes part, it explains that though many fans assume Zabrak's are near-human, there has been no source to confirm this.

However on the Zabrak page on the same site, it states that the Zabrak's are near-humans.

So which one is right?

 

It's canon that Zabraks can mate with humans (this is where the Dathomirian species came from), so they're either human or near-human by definition.

 

Yep. If they can mate with humans and produce viable offspring, then they are usually considered near human.

 

Not necessarily. The original Sith species wasn't near-human (but humanoid aliens), but they were later able to reproduce with the human dark jedi, because of some sith/dark side techniques, in other words, it wasn't natural.

So perhaps, some similar technique was used by the Nightsisters to create Zabrak-Human hybrids.

And by the way, what about Twileks? There is enough evidence to support that Twileks are humanoid aliens (they evolved on Ryloth, which im sure isn't Man's original homeworld), not near-humans.

However in a TCW episode, we see a human-twilek hybrid. Though that is the case, that doesn't mean Twileks are near-humans. Besides it never made much sense with that being the 1st time in seeing human-twilek hybrids, because they have never appeared elsewhere in the GFFA. And you would think with the amount of twilek women used for......things, and Man being the biggest species, that if they could easily reproduce with each other, we would see a lot more of these hybrids.

Though maybe an explanation for that is hybrids for humans and twileks are possible, but very rare, that there differences make it almost impossible for a hybrid to happen.

 

That's why I said usually.
Those weren't Cut's natural children. He's just the stepfather .

 

I am aware of that. The kids father is just a man who we never saw. Still think its stupid.

Would have been better if the kids were full alien, and Cut was simply there adopted father. No reason to make the kids hybrids, when hybrid or not, they couldn't be biologically connected to Cut.

Besides them being hybrids, and not showing or mentioning the real father, probably confused some children viewers of TCW into thinking Cut was the kids real father.

 

Leeland Chee said Twileks and Humans could reproduce well before TCW in the Star Wars Insider.

TCW characer encyclopedia also gives the impression that Cut is Jek's father, while speciifying that he is not the female child's father.

Is there a source that says Jek is not Cut's biological son?

 

If you take the revelation from TOR into account that Zabraks and Twi'leks are created races by a Rakatan computer thing hybrids become easier to swallow. They could have been designed to be compatible

It seems silly, but I'd rather there be an explanation for cross-species breeding than it being "they just can, deal with it".

 

the episode guide said it clearly. Sadly it got taken down.

Of course, even ignoring genetic compatibility, it is still impossible for Cut to be the father of either child: the war only lasts three years, and both children are older than that.

I am kind of hoping that humans were made by that machine too. It would explain a lot.

In any case - Zabraks are pretty much identical to humans - the primary difference is the horns, but because a lot of horns in nature are made out of the same material as human hair, it isn't impossible to imagine a human branch developing that trait.

 

Jek could have been two, inherited the growth exceleration from his father, and looked more like a genetically enhanced four year old. The clones themselves were pretty aware and intelligent at four years of age due to the genetic tampering. I don't think its easy to dismiss.

Anyway, I'm sticking with the Character Encyclopedia, Jason Fry and Leeland Chee on this one.

 

As far as I knew, both kids were full blooded twilek.

 

I don't that trait is passed on - at least, no other children of Clone troopers have demonstrated that trait as far as I am aware of.

Besides, sometimes you just have to go with Occum's razor: we can come up with all kinds of out there theories for how he managed to have the children despite the multiple physical impossibilities, or we can go with the simple answer and say that he adopted them. It works better that way to me anyway.

Anyway, I am going to go with the people who actually made the show....plus, I am not sure what you are referring to, since the character encyclopedia also mentions that he adopted the children, and I remember Leeland Chee clarifying that Cut adopted the children.

 

The problem with this sort of discussion is that the term 'Near-human' is often thrown about very loosely within the EU (Darth Plagueis, notably, treats that term as a purely political construct, one that does not reflect biological realities at all). The best approximation for what Near-human actually would mean, in any legitimate taxonomic sense, is all species that share a most recent common ancestor with modern humans, or alternatively have modern humans as their common ancestor. In a Linnean approximation that would roughly translate into everything in the genus 'Homo' (which, even on Earth, already contains somewhere between oh 3 and 12 species depending on which splitter/lumper arguments you want to buy into).

Now, this definition is imperfect within Star Wars because some (many) sentient species, including some humanoids, are not the result of purely natural evolution but have been either artificially breed, directly engineered, or otherwise subjected to horizontal gene transfers. As a result it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to define species using the phylogenetic species concept (which is the method that dominates our current cladistics-based taxonomic science).

With regards to hybrids - it is very, very important to note that the ability to hybridize does not mean individuals are members of the same species or even the same genus. Even with regard to the biological species concept hybridization is simply a step on the path to establishing reproductive integration between populations, you have to also look at whether or not said hybrids are fertile and whether the F2 hybrid offspring are actually viable to start demonstrating that two species don't have reproductive isolation. You also have to construct back-crosses to supoprt that your hybrids are part of one greater population rather than a case of speciation through hybridization (which is what the Dathomirians appear to be, a completely new species reproductively isolated from their Zabrak and human parents respectively).

All examples of hybridization among sentient species in Star Wars really tells us is that this big association of humanoid species is playing around in the same evolutionary tree, ie. there was probably only one single event that produced the most recent common ancestor of all mammalian humanoid sentients in the Star Wars galaxy. We can, and probably have to, insert a whole bunch of Celstial/Rakata/Gree/insert-elder-species-here meddling into the mix to account for the startling diversity of Near-Humans and related humanoids (Wookieepedia currently lists 1787 species in Star Wars, of which 155 have the words 'Near-human' attached, or 8.7% of the total).

 

The Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia is very specific and says nothing I can see about the children being adopted. It mentions specifically that Cut is Shaeeah's stepdad, but also mentions that Cut is Jek's father, and that Jek is a human/twilek cross right in his article on page 88.

In fact it also mentions that Shaeeah is a human/twilek cross as well on page 167, though its clear he is not her father.

I'm certainly willing to consider what you are telling me if you have quotes and sources I can look at. It wouldn't be the first time we have contradictory sources.

 

TOR says their near Humans

 

That doesn't make much sense, at least for the Twileks.

*from the wookipedia*

"According to Ashaa, the Mother Machine, the Twi'leks originated as a synthetic lifeform she created under orders from the Rakata, as part of experimentation they hoped would give them insight into the loss of their connection to the Force. [21] This would place the origins of the species c. 25,200 BBY.[18] However, despite the fact that it is known that the Mother Machine's creation of her "children" on the planet Belsavis postdates the fall of the Infinite Empire,[22] an advanced Twi'lek civilization was already present on Ryloth in the year 36,453 BBY, when a visiting Tho Yor starship took a group of Force-studying mystics to Tython."

I hope there is a way to fix this contradiction.

Maybe they misused the term.

 

As I said earlier, the episode guide specifically said adopted, but it is unfortunately gone.

The same answer is repeated in this interview as well:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/01/28/star-wars-are-you-ready-for-the-mandalorians?page=3

I think there is some more, but it is hard to track down things from so long ago .

You are right about them being hybrids - I forgot about that. About the father/stepfather thing, I am less convinced - it wouldn't be the first time I have seen the words used interchangeably. Or it might have been a production error.

 

I kinda knew about the Filoni statement, I should have mentioned. I'm just not sure how canonical it is. Behind the scenes type stuff often has to appear in some other form before it is accepted. For instance Conan Motti didn't officially have his name until it appeared in print, even though Lucas willed it so on The Late Show.

I wonder on the question that Merc Ace brought up, of the other clone children we have seen, do any of them show signs of accelerated aging. Kad could be explained away due to the Skirata Clan finding a way to removed the rapid aging process.

Connor Freeman didn't appear to have any advanced aging issue as his appearances are around 21 years apart and he still looks like a young man.

It could be that Jek isn't Cut's biological son. Maybe, eventually another source will add to the discussion.

 

The simplest method probably involves back-dating the founding the Inifinite Empire somewhat, probably to 40,000 BBY or even earlier, the Mother Machine can have been in operation then, creating species for whatever reason, and then used later in attempts to restore the Rakata connection to the Force.

Alternatively the Tho Yor migration to Tython really could be front-dated to a much later point, like 26,000 BBY, since as far as I can tell there's really nothing in DotJ that really requires the civilization on Tython to have existed uncontacted for thousands of years.

 

That's "Wookieepedia."

 

They must have had bloody black magic to make that work... oh wait...

 

Blame Havac

 

Except the fact that the series makes a plot point of all the sleeper ships they've sent out into the wider galaxy over the past millennia that have never returned to them. They don't know anything about the Infinite Empire and their inability to understand them or the threat they pose is kind of a key part of the dramatic threat present in the primary storyline. If all the Twi'leks came only a few hundred years ago, in a civilisation that prizes knowledge and is technologically advanced enough to record it, and those same Twi'leks were made by the Infinite Empire - unless they were deliberately isolated as a control experiment - I don't know. It seems odd they'd have no knowledge of them.

I suppose you could suggest that EVERYTHING in the Tython system has only been there for 500 years, but that seems a little short for them to colonise the entire solar system, slowly moving out from Tython when it became too dangerous for the non-Force-sensitives, then moving to the moons, then out to different planets, with the sleeper ships sent off some time after that and enough time for the sleeper ships - travelling a far less than hyperspace speeds - to realistically return... I don't know, I think that timeline begins to look awfully crowded.

On the other hand, I can buy a lot of detailed recording being lost over a 10,000 year period in a way I can't for a 500 year one. So I'd rather backdate the infinite Empire to 40,000 BBY.

To hypothesise wildly, the Infinite Empire Rakatans were a pretty arrogant, violent, conquering bunch - I haven't played TOR, so I'm just going on the Wook entry - but do we have a reliable source saying the Empire built, rather than found, Mother Machine? If she was a relic of an even older time - made by whoever made the Tho Yor - perhaps even as part of the same plan (perhaps Mother Machine had a hand in creating ALL the races collected by the Tho Yor?) - later found by the Rakata. Claims that they built her could be either outright propaganda or slow evolution of revisionist history; in any event, we can look at her ability to create Force-sensitive species as a reason the Rakata would put her to use working out why they were losing their connection to the Force, rather than reading that ability as something she was programmed to do in order to solve the Rakatan Force problem? She may even have spit out a fresh batch of Twi'leks at this point, leading to the records that she "created" them (if the original batch were planet-bound, rare, or had ALL gone to Tython).[/quote]

 

They didn't.

 

It's only one solar system, you don't need very long to colonize it, you don't even need sleeper ships. Even at ridiculously slow current human speeds it's only take Voyager I a couple decades to you know, leave the solar system, and we're really only talking about the Tython system's habitable zone, which extends maybe to outer system gas giant moons, maybe a few dozen AU at most. Rapid colonization is quite feasible even with propulsion technology that would be shockingly primitive by Star Wars standards.

Yes it does mean that any sleeper ships they sent out haven't exactly gone very far before failing to return, but that's part of the issue no matter what you do. Even with the ten thousand years, a ship traveling at light speed would make it across a mere one square of the galactic grid and back in that time.