Lit The origins and definition of "near humans"

According to Wookiepedia, many near human species are split from the original genetic line due to various environmental factors. However, some like the pau'ans, are either removed from humans by millions upon millions of years, or just aren't related at all. Are all near humans descended from humans in some form or another, or are aesthetics more important?

 

Given that the films themselves don't say anything specific about this, I think Lit would probably be able to help you more. Moving.

 

The line between near-human and "humanoid" has been really (annoyingly) sloppy. Generally speaking, I like to think of "near-humans" as, well, basically just humans with racial/ethnic traits we don't see on Earth, like green skin.

 

Good gravy, Pau'ans are "near-humans" now?

It really is meaningless.

 

I'd go with a simple "near-humans are similar to baseline humans on a genetic level, while humanoids only share physical traits with humans"

 

In its strictest, most formal definition (in Legends anyway), a near-human species is one who descends from baseline humanity but has developed distinctive characteristics. This also implies that humans and near-humans can produce offsprings, while human and humanoids ("vaguely human-like from the inside") can't.* However, the two terms were sometimes used interchangeably, which is a shame.

In New Canon, the term "near-human" hasn't been used often, and has yet to be defined. It apparerntly applies to the Zabrak (per Ultimate Factivity Collection: Star Wars), the Uugteen (per Aftermath), and the Koorivar (per Tarkin).

*This, however, has been challenged at one point: while most pre-TCW sources stated that humans and Twi'leks are not genetically compatible (the latter are merely humanoids, not near-humans), they just had to come up with Cut Lawquane's half-Twi'lek kids...

 

Actually, the weirdest thing about that is that they weren't his (biological) children, but they were half-human anyway.

 

It’s clearly just a silly racist in universe term that makes no sense whatsoever.

 

That seemed to be the way the Darth Plagueis novel portrayed it - as a term "favoured in the Core" which had "raised chauvinism to an art form".

 

Ditto. I wish we could drop the "near-human" thing entirely.

I'm totally cool with having humans with vibrantly purple skin and green hair, or whatever (sorry, Mr. Hedberg) and there being no fanfare or fuss.

Unless they're super strong under a yellow sun, or have two hearts and regenerate, or whatever, there's really no point in the distinction.

 

...what? why?

 

Well, let's just ask Leland Chee on Twit... oh, wait!

 

Even before this debate, I already thought it was likely that some kind of racism like that was going on in-universe. That the Empire wouldn't have simply set up a brick wall of "Humans" and "Aliens;" there'd be varying degrees of alienness, with human-like aliens (whether because they're an offshoot of humanity or because they look like us on the outside) being still "lesser" than humans, but still higher than Toydarians or Verpine or Geonosians or Hutts. I also figured that Thrawn's near-human status would've been part of the reason he went to the top of the Empire - his genius was clearly still the main thing, but being near-human would've helped him at least a little in the integration process, and I don't know if Pellaeon and all these Imperial officers would've been as quick to rally to, say, a Hutt, strategic mastermind or not.

 

Also, there were signs of that kind of hierarchy going on even outside the Empire. The Rebel Alliance looked tolerant, especially compared to the Empire, when you looked at its integration of Sullustans and Bothans and Calamarians and Wookiees and Twi'leks alongside humans... but as Voort discovered in his career, give people a species that's perceived as "low" enough compared to the norm, and it'll attract plenty of bigotry.

 

There may be bigotry involved, but it's not necessarily and inherently racist ; if individuals from a given species evolve to the point they develop significant physiological differences from their baseline, it's perfectly legit to call them a new species--that's why dogs aren't wolves.

 

Though he did mention that a lot of it was due to the many former Imperials that now fought with the Rebellion.

 

I always assumed that "near-human" referred to those races descended from baseline humans who had adapted to a local environment and changed enough that they arguably represented a new species of human, or at least a recognized subspecies. Near-humans would simply be recent evolutionary variants of human; I also suspect the definition would be vague and somewhat lacking even in-universe, with no clear sense of where the lines are drawn. Is this population human or near-human? There might be some interesting stories in that, especially in times when being human would carry a political advantage and being non-human might carry a penalty (Pius Dea era, Galactic Empire of course). "So-and-so race contest "near human" status"; "The inhabitants of such-and-such are called human despite having deviated further from the baseline than we. Yet simply because local produce has over the millennia of our time here led to our skin taking on a green hue, we are called "near humans". This is outrageous".

Amusingly, we did have something like that working the other way (that is, the mainstream contesting a definition): that business with Duros apparently being offended that Neimoidians were lumped in with them by a certain encyclopaedia, wishing to prevent the Neimoidians from, one assumes, polluting their good name. The Duros would evidently have pushed for a "near-Duros" categorization.

A race that evolved in its own biosphere (or any biosphere that isn't the one humans emerged from) but happens to be human-shaped is humanoid. Near-humans are distant branches of the human tree, from racial variants that are judged distinctive enough to make a sub-species to full-on different species within the genus. That's how it should be, anyway.

 

In popular terms, and I believed it also applied in Star wars, didn't know it was a debate, humanoid means that it resembles a a human: i.e two arms, two legs, a head, standing upright, not a blob, etc.

Near-human would mean as evolved from or sideways with humans, genetically compatible, like lions and tigers. Same genus, different species

It's kind of self-explanatory, but if you add it as a basis for discrimination, of course there will be a lot of controversy in order to get into the favorable bracket.

 

Well, yes. In Legends, the formal definitions were just what you said. It doesn't need to be more compolicated than that. The debate stems from the fact that, sometimes, authors would identify as Near-Human certain species that clearly can't be (Sullustans, Pau'auns, and Utai !)

 

Or not, see these plants
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Zelosian

 

I think the actual out-of-universe explanation is that sometimes "near-human" is thought to be the GFFA equivalent of "humanoid" by authors.

 

If an alien came landed on earth and looked just like us would he/she be a human or a humanoid? If the answer is humanoid then there are no humans in the Star Wars universe.

 

Yes, but this is clearly an example of the authors messing up, since it doesn't adhere at all to the definition of Near-Human given in, say, the New Essential Guide to Alien Species: