Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

They at least have pink eyes and chalk white skin, so it could be far worse.

 

Near Human tells us very little in Star Wars it is so overused. I mean lets say the Chiss, Near Human absolutely. Blue Skin and Red Eyes are not natural for humans.

But yeah offensive.

 

That just compounds a poor stereotypical Asian caricature with additional albino features. Which is still problematic due to the unfair characterization albinos often get in media―freaks, outcasts, or evil―being mixed with something that is either borderline or outright racist. No good all around.

 

Even the name - "Ropagu" - sounds like a terrible reference to a stereotypically thick accent.

 

I’ll just go with reading to much into it with this one, as the species description and history really doesn’t support anything in that direction.

 

Dude--I'll grant that we can occasionally be quick to pick things apart in here, but that image is pretty bad. Their story IU could be Citizen Kane and it wouldn't excuse it.

 

Their story isn't actually all that great, if we go by Alien Encounters.

 

Of course the image is unfortunate but I would find it way more insulting if the species is meant to fulfill the stereotypes associated with it, which they really don’t. So all the image really is to me is one guy in a billion or so of them having an exotic taste in clothing and beards.

They fought regular battles in the past, just droped the idea over time and good at warfare is relativ. After some 4000 years of having stoped taking part in battles they really are likely not to be great at it compared to lets say Trandoshans, who physically stronger than humans, have spurious senses to humans, can regenerate wounds and many of which spent their whole lives honing hunting and fighting skills.

 

We had a rather prolonged conversation about this earlier--it's a fairly common, and lazy at best, trope to translate a caricature of a foreign culture into an alien one, and just change a superficial detail or two (or worse, mix in a stereotype of another culture) to make their derivation seem less blatant.

Put another way--if Chalctans had four arms or carried battle axes, they'd still be a sloppy Hindu pastiche.

 

It just strikes me as odd to take the dress style of one or two members of a society and try to conclude something about the society as a whole from it. Sure it is sometimes done on purpose (Babylon 5 for example is pretty open about the Centauri being old style European Imperialists) but it needs more than just for one of them to just dress a certain way to make it so. The Centauri have pretty much the whole package, dressing like it, having a society with clear similarities and even a building and art style to match.
The Ropagu are democratic, deeply peaceful, technology minded philosophers who live in symbiotic relationship with floating telepathic jellyfish, so I am somewhat hard pressed to find something they are meant to be a cliché of.

 

That would be worse, actually.

 

Yeah... I try to forget the existence of the albino Fu Manchu there. But, every now and then, he has a way of reminding me. And then I cringe.

 

If they wanted cowardly pacifists, maybe they shouldn't have made them humanoid.

...They could have made sheep-people or something. Or people with a resemblance to cows. There you go, now the cowardly pacifism thing is a reference to the passivity of a grazing animal, instead of an insult to a human group.

And that's me coming up with those solutions in under a minute. The people who write for Star Wars should be creative enough, and have minutes enough, to think of at least what I thought of, or more likely something better. Not this... current example.

 

They aren’t cowards, they just figured if it has to happen it is better for them to pay someone else to fight for them, since they have been pacifists for 4000 years and are physically relatively fragile (they used to wage extremely bloody wars in the past).

 

Probably still would have been best if they weren't Human-looking.

 

You could even go all-out on the 'fragile' thing. Make them long-limbed and skinny - sapient stick insects or something. Anthropomorphise them a little if you really must, but generally make them look as though they'd snap in half if something hit them.

Either way, my point stands; there are about a billion better ways to convey that kind of species-personality than the one they chose.

 

You can never have too many insectoids. With the diverse range of insect species we have, I wouldn't expect anything less from the GFFA. And, I simply have a soft spot for our hard-shelled friends.

 

Hmm which just got me wondering if we ever got any Arthropods as sentient species… *tries to think of any*

 

Verpine, Vratix, Gand, Colicoid, Brizzit, Kibnon, Killiks, Kamarian, Hiromi (YAAAAAAAAAY!), Flakax, Tritonite, Titterbugs, Yam'rii, Geonosian, whatever Skeeter is...

 

I was just being stupid sorry I meant Arachnids specifly, of course we have seen tons of Arthropoda.

 

Harch, Charon, Assembler, Sic-Six, Lucents from the Polyhedron magazine, Spider People, Charr Ontee, Rakaan...

 

Assemblers and Harch, just off the top of my head.

Edit: Trak, please tell me you're an entomologist in real life.

 

Technically a naturalist with a love for bugs. I have a ton of research and reference material at my disposal and practically memorized my field guides as a kid, but I don't have a degree. I've toyed with the idea of going into forensic entomology, though.

 

Or, while still going insectoid, butterfly people!

Big fragile-looking but pretty wings say 'we have a good reason not to want to fight' far more than dubious caricatures of humans...