Hey? Rancors are sentient, can speak & make tools. So says Jedi vs. Sith: TEGthF

How come this has never been explored in the EU before? In chapter 5 on Other Force Using Organizations in the Force Witches section, there's a quote from a Rancor named Tosh talking about how it's wrong to be with Nightsisters & how a Jedi taught them to use spears, nets & armor. In reading the Courtship of Princess Leia The Rancor Keepers Tale it was never shown that rancors were anything more than wild beasts.

So, no rancors hanging around the Dathomir spaceport using a protocal droid to ask spacers to take them to Dxun? No rancors offering their services as thugs & mercenaries to various Hutt lords? No red & black tattooed up rancors within the ranks of the One Sith?

It seems that alot of the things mentioned in the Jedi vs. Sith: TEGthF is not getting picked up & expanded on in the current EU books, comics or TV series.

 

According to Cracken's Threat Dossier, Rancors aren't sentient, but the Rancors ON DANTHOMIR are.

I'm not sure how that works.

I blame the weird Force Technology on the planet from the Quinlan Vos comics.

 

I predict a lot of RPers making Rancor Jedi characters in the near future...

 

Nonsense. They'll be making rancor Sith. With double-bladed lightsabers. And StealthXes.

 

Wow, that is strange. I guess the J vs. Sith: TEHthf doesn't get to supercede Craken's Threat Dossiers since nothing is contradicted between the articles, but it still blows my mind that I've had the Jedi vs. Sith thingy for months now & never noticed this rancor sentience business or that I haven't seen anyone bring it up on the forums before. What is this weird force technology on Danthomir from the Vos comics all about, C19?

 

The Blue Desert People weird Herd creatures on Danthomir are actually formerly this Rakata-style Star Empire that was transformed into a bunch of semi-mindless sentients. Their temples can open up hyperspace gates.

Quinlan Vos is sent to investigate something, I never actually read the whole comic.

I just enjoyed the fact Quinlan uses the word "Witch" when he really means another five letter word.

 

Chimps are tool users, but they're not sentient. And COPL has Luke talking with animals that probably have the intelligence of cows (the animals he and Isolder ride through the desert).

I'd say rancors are intelligent, but not sentient.

 

No, those were the Blue Desert People.

They retconned all of them into intelligent sentients.

 

The lightsabers will, of course, have black blades.

 

And they will be Mandalorians.

 

Actually it was TCOPL that established this. They used tools and supposedly could relate oral histories amongst each other.

Charles is on the mark when he makes the distinction between the ones on Dathomir (where they were native) and the presumably devolved ones on other planets. For example, there's no evidence that Jabba's rancor was anything more than a mute beast.

And anyway, I always figured we were talking about sentient on the level of apes or maybe dolphins. I mean, elephants mourn their young, and as mentioned, chimps use tools, but you don't see either of those species popping up in the burbs or the airport. This, in addition to a rancor's immense size and unrepentantly carnivorous nature, would preclude them from showing up in the Mos Eisley cantina and those sorts of things you envisioned.

 

with cortosis woven armor plates...for added resilience

 

It's worth noting that according to the ROTJ novel, that rancor may have been mutated in some way as well.

TC

 

They're listed as non-sentient in the Star Wars guide to Alien Creatures.

 

Cracken's Threat Dossier had the Rancors not native to Danthomir and they're the mutants.

 

I remember that part in COPL, where the first mages taught rancor rudimentary instruments.

What of it? You can teach a dog to tractor beam your morning newspaper, can't you? Why not big ugly brute things?

 

And are related to Kyle Katarn and managed to battle Palpatine to a standstill.

 

I remember when KOTOR came out everyone thought Lehon/Rakata Prime was the Rancor homeworld until the dialogue popped up saying they had been brought by one of the many crashed ships scattering the planet.

Forget the Whills, forget Yoda and Palpatine's origins, the true origins of the Rancor is the real mystery of Star Wars!

 

Talking... sentient... rancors?

 

Reminds me of the Deathclaws in Fallout 2.

Which was equally silly.

 

Not out of the realm of possiblity for the Galaxy far far away, we have had less believeable things like the sentient mynock things from Niaruan the wookie calls the Qom Jha and Qom Qae.

 

I get that rancors can talk to each other, say like chimps or dogs do, but in this guide, it's a rancor narrative that's been passed down the generations & is quite eloquently understood by a human, that is then being transcribed by Tionne.

These rancors not only use, but they were taught to build their spears, weave their nets & make their armor. They express love for their friends even tho sometimes they're annoyed with their demands. And on top of that, they speak like educated scholars of Alderaan University! Those are all signs of sentience to me, more sentient than any of our dogs or monkeys have ever become. Rancor Sith with a black lightsaber singlehandedly destroying the praxeum on Ossus doesn't seem that far fatched after all, no?

 

Maybe it was just recorded by a Nightsister who had extremely advanced control of Beast Language or something, thereby allowing them to transcribe what the rancor was saying?

Which would be more like her "speaking dog" than the rancor itself literally speaking Basic.

 

Wasn't it supposedly "a one of a kind genetically manipulated freak" as well, and no one really knew what it was? Well whatever. Thanks to what I call "EU creep" now there's rancors (and Mandos) everywhere. I'm reeeeally wishing that EU authors/game designers could come up with new creatures and planets.