Glowing Red Eyes: Why do the Chiss have them?

Are they like the eyes of the Drow in the Forgotten Realms series, or are they just for show?

I guess they could filter out reflected light, as they seem to have evolved on an Ice Planet. But I don't see anything mentioned anywhere about what purpose they serve besides making the Chiss look awesome.

Evil.

 

I think it is simply a way to make them feel more "Alien".

After all, most humanoids in the Star Wars Galaxy have plain human eyes. Twi'lek, Gammoreans, Quarren, Calamari, Hutts, Trandoshans, Wookiees...they all more or less have standard eyes. There are exceptions (Rodians for example) but most of those are just black beady eyes. Without the Red Eyes, Chiss are just humans with blue skin. Makes them stand out from the crowd a little.

 

I believe that the canonical explanation is that the Chiss have an extremely high content of Tetrahydrocannabinol in their bloodstream.

 

But still, the eye shouldn't function that same as a normal one, as there are no visible pupils. Unless the whole visible eye acts as a pupil, which would still lead to some dramatic differences in the way that they see the world.

Evil.

 

Is Gannondorf celibate and how would Katarn fare against the Seguleh Third? The world is mysterious and we just don't know.

 

Because they are Chiss.

 

Since Chiss are a near-human species (IIRC), they likely retain most of the evolutionary psychological behaviors and tendencies of humans. And apes like humans frequently use eye contact to communicate, especially in intimate and intimidating ways. Perhaps the redness of the eyes started as a fluke mutation, a product of genetic drift, a novelty (which can sometimes be attractive), that ended up enhancing the ability of certain Chiss to intimidate would-be competitors in the mating game - and so the red eyes would have a better chance of being passed on (assuming they are hereditary, which seems a safe bet).

They could have re-evolved to a situation like that found in non-human apes, where the iris is so large that the sclera is not visible (I am postulating that the Chiss iris is red). The hypothesis I am familiar with as to why humans/hominins evolved visible sclera involves communication at a distance between groups, when they encountered each other between groups of trees on the savanna. Since the proto-Chiss probably had some kind of "modern" era technology, they might not use their eyes in quite this way (then again, remember the command - "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes"). Contemporary humans use their eyes to communicate too, and even though we imagine ourselves to be free of selection pressures, if a person couldn't make effective eye contact, especially with a potential mate, I suspect they would be at a disadvantage (then again, giant-size irises might seem "cute" - think of a gorilla or a cat). If cuteness wasn't enough, then something in Chiss society must have prevented the loss of a visible sclera from becoming a reproductive disadvantage. Perhaps the "intimidation" aspect I mentioned above was enough to do this, or a combination of novelty and cuteness, or perhaps it was something else.

This does not solve the problem of pupils, however, though if the Chiss also re-evolved a tapetum (does Csilla receive much sunlight?), then (1) their eyes might appear to glow (due to reflected light) and (2) the pupil might not be obvious because one could see that light reflected from the back of the eye. This is sort of a variation of the red-eye effect that shows up in flash photographs, where the blood vessels in the eye are visible through the pupil. Actually, that in itself might be enough to explain the "lack" of pupils, given some suspension of disbelief, but I prefer the tapetum idea because it also can explain the "glow," though it too requires some suspension of disbelief.

In addition, if the planet they lived on was very dark all or much of the time (and/or if Chiss are nocturnal), with numerous dangers, then there might be strong selection for those Chiss who had the tapetum. So that at least provides a rationale for the prevalence of that feature, if not for the red irises.

 

Interesting... I think I prefer the tapetum idea too.

But wouldn't this still cause their whole spectrum of sight to be drastically different than that of humans?

Evil.

 

I don't think so - plenty of animals (even some primates) have a tapetum, and as far as I know their vision is relatively similar to ours (I know cats and dogs have some differences to human vision, but IIRC primates have trichromatic color vision whether they have a tapetum or not, and besides, what I mean by "relatively similar" is that none of these animals see in infrared or radio waves or anything).

 

But wouldn't the constant glowing affect their eyesight in some way?

Sorry about all of the questions, I'm just trying to understand this.

Evil.

 

And the next time you want to now how Hobbie survived ESB, Boba Fett escaped the Sarlacc twice and who is the Mayor of Sernpidal.

Nope. Understanding this you can't

 

But I already know all of those other things...

Evil.

 

You know who the Mayor of Sernpidal is? Do tell, please.

 

[image=http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v434/TheCosmicCastaway/ththearthlogic.jpg]

 

No prob. I think it's important to keep in mind that I'm trying to constrain myself to plausible real-world effects to explain Star Wars, a universe that is unrealistic to say the least. So it may or may not line up very well. But let's accept the idea of attempting to do this, for the sake of argument. I guess in my constructed scenario up there, their eyes don't glow all the time, or really glow at all. It would be an illusion created because of a highly reflective layer at the back of the eye that helps them see better in dark conditions (the tapetum lucidum). It's the same thing you see when you look at a cat, deer, raccoon, dog, aye-aye, etc, with a light when they're in the dark. The glow is visible to an observer, depending on lighting conditions and physical placement in relation to the animal.

While I can't know exactly what the experience of seeing is like to any of those animals, their eyes seem to function pretty similarly to ours, but mostly with better night vision (to varying degrees).

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Heterochromic-eyeshine.jpg]

THRAWN CAT SAYS, "IT WAS SO ARTISTICALLY DONE."

I went to the wook and looked at the pictures of Thrawn on his page there - and actually they seem to fit nicely with these ideas. Sometimes he has visible pupils, other times he doesn't. Sometimes the outlines of his irises are obvious, other times they aren't.

[image=http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/6/60/Thrawn-DB.jpg]

This looks very similar to the cat I posted above.

[image=http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/f/f0/Thrawn_TFUCG.jpg]

There is some darkness to the center area of his right eye here, which might suggest that his other pupil is not visible because of a photographic-like red-eye effect.

[image=http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/b/be/Thrawn.JPG]

Thrawn has visible pupils in this one (from an angle we don't usually see him from).

EDIT: Many animals I've seen have a sort of orange-green eyeshine. Some have red. While I think the simplest explanation is that the reflective layers in Chiss eyes are reddish, I thought of another way for the glow to appear red. Modern humans do not have a tapetum. So if something like a tapetum re-evolved, it wouldn't necessarily be like the ones in other animals that never lost it. In fact it couldn't be exactly like it. It would be an analogy, convergent evolution, like how birds, bats, insects, and pterodactyls all independently evolved wings.

So perhaps in Chiss, the tapetum-like reflective layer they developed was behind the blood vessels at the back of the eye - making any reflected light appear red (assuming their blood is red). Now, having the reflective layer behind other anatomical parts seems haphazard and inefficient, but humans (and other organisms) are full of jerry-rigged parts. Humans have a blind spot right in the middle of their vision because of the way the optic nerve attaches to the retina. So you basically hallucinate what's in this hole in your vision. Plus, once the light hits the eye, the information is sent to the back of the brain for processing (instead of the closest possible part, which would allow for faster responses). We are not perfect; things work only so as to be just good enough.

So I don't find the idea of a reflective layer behind the eye's blood vessels too unbelievable. I don't know much about vision, but I suppose that this situation could make their vision different, though, just like you were talking about before. The light that reflects off the tapetum goes back through the eye, which increases the chance of being detected and therefore "seen." But if the light is reflected through a red surface, and becomes reddish, then that "return pass" of light back through the eye after reflecting off the back would also be reddish, whi

 

If the Chiss had something like tapetum, would the glow fade when the Chiss died (as in canon)?

 

Their blood is indeed red.

So is it safe to assume that Chiss have a better night vision than regular humans? Because it seems like they would from what you're saying.

Evil.

 

Yeah if my hypothesis is correct then Chiss would probably have better night vision than regular humans.

Good question. I don't think they would (the chemical composition of the eye wouldn't change immediately upon death). So maybe this is a conflict, or perhaps it is akin to the notion of seeing the life go out of someone's eyes when they die (something I've heard people claim with regular humans).

 

Interesting. The best explanation I can think of for "the life going out of someone's eyes" is the eye unfocusing. Could Chiss eyes focus/unfocus in a way that affects not only the lens but also the tapetum?

Although it would have to be especially unfocused, or unfocused in a different way -- otherwise, Thrawn's eyes would go dark whenever he was deep in thought!

 

Honestly, I have no idea. The tapetum is at the back of the eye whereas the lens is at the front, but I'm sure we can come up with some explanation that makes sense.

[image=http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/RITCHISO//tapetum2.jpg]

(This is one of the better diagrams on the first page of google image search. There are a bunch of really cool photos of dissected eyes showing the iridescence of the tapetum but I don't know how squeamish people are here).

 

But srsly, I think we NEED to solve this before the live-action TV series in order for there to be Chiss characters with credible eyes.

The explanation for photographic red-eye could help but the rest of the eyeball, the 'white', would need to be colored with fx dye drops, or a counter-irritant as kuchipudi South Indian performers use when portraying demons.

 

Worth noting Jawas have glowing eyes as well.

[image=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Heterochromic-eyeshine.jpg]

That could also double as Ysanne Isard cat.

 

ICEHEART CAT SAYS YOU'RE GIVING ME BOOKKEEPING. I WANT BLOOD.

Your Jawa comment interested me - so I consulted the wook again, and found this:

So what we see are not the Jawas' actual eyes? So we don't know if they really glow or not. If they do, however, it would probably have to be a different mechanism than the Chiss, because from the movie sources we see them from a wide range of lighting conditions and angles and they always radiate light. We could ignore this as artistic license and postulate a similar anatomy to the tapetum we have been discussing in the Chiss. This is sort of supported by the quote above, since nocturnal animals might be overstimulated by the bright daylight of a desert planet (though this could cause problems for the Chiss too, given the even higher albedo of ice and snow).

But speculation is fun, so I'll continue with it. If their eyes do in fact glow, their visual system is probably quite different from ours. This poses a slight problem because if I read correctly, the Jawas are descendants of the Kumumgahs, who are hinted to be the original humans. The proto-Jawas and the proto-Tuskens parted ways evolutionarily after Tatooine was razed and turned from a lush world into a glassy desert. No timeline is established for the BDZ of Tatooine by the Rakata, but it must be after 35,000 BBY, since that is the established founding time for the Infinite Empire.

That sounds like a long time, but remember, in real life, modern humans have existed in our present form for around 200,000 years, and we are a very young species. In a species such as ours, with young that take a lot of effort to raise and that has a long time between generations, dramatic evolutionary changes would likely be relatively slow. The Jawas are described as "rodent-like," so perhaps part of their development as a species involved a speeding-up of generations. This might help explain how they could have changed so much (developing very different visual systems) in a relatively short span of time. We still would have to explain the environmental factors that would cause glowing eyes to become adaptive, or at least, not disadvantageous. Or, perhaps the proto-Jawas were the result of Rakatan genetic experiments.

Here's a thought: What if what we see as the "eyes" of the Jawa (because that is where we expect them to be on humans) are actually phosphorescent lures like those used by deep-sea fishes? It'd certainly make them more alien and a hell of a lot creepier.

 

Seeing is believing...

[image=http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/c/c7/Arcona.jpg] If spice-fiend Arcona has glowy eyes in film.

[image=http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/0/0f/ChissFemale.jpg] Then Chiss have glowies in the EU.

Also, it looks too cool! /edit fixer