Inter species "Relations" how much is too much to take seriously?

Correct.

But for some nonsensical reason, they decided to have them half-humans regardless, with the original father a human.

The clone was just the stepfather for what were already half-human kids. Go figure.

OMG... SWAMP Wookiees?!

WHY HAS THIS NEVER BEEN DONE?!?!

 

I always felt it was the Celestials' doing; they've done some incredible things in shaping the galaxy, so I doubt influencing the evolution of life is too much. Perhaps some of these races share common ancestry?

 

while they certainly did a lot to shape geography and more in the galaxy influencing many preexisting cultures, the Celestials are as far as we know not Gods but to me mere mortals which seemed godlike. Be they ascended beings or something else, they had an impact, but all those species existed already and evolved long before the Celestials big time in the GFFA. See the Gree, Kwa, Sharu superempires that spanned the galaxy and only shrunk AFTER the rise of the Celestials and their Killik workers and maybe Rakatan warriors.


so the evolution process starts long before them. They certainly might have influenced younger species but many old ones they couldn't. And before their ascension, the Celestials had a mortal life long before the Sharu, Gree, Kwa etc. had their superempires and wars in a very different GFFA.


so like Celesials, Arkanians, Sith Alchemists, etc. had many species shaping impacts, but they arn't the beginning of this trend. just one accelerator of it.

 

I took that as they were meant to be his biological kids, but realized it wouldn't make sense and didn't have time to remake the models.

 

What about a Life span diffrence?

 

Vampires dating mortal women. Lifespan difference isn't anything we don't already deal with in fiction. Real life, too. Imagine marrying significantly older.

 

Human/Twi'lek hybrids shouldn't really allowed in my own opinion. Ok, making Twi'leks Near-Humans instead of humanoids makes sense because they look so much like Humans without the tails and ear cones, but considering the differences between the species, their unions should still be barren because any pregnancy - even if possible - would be likely to end up producing something that wouldn't long survive in the womb. Perhaps advanced medical technology or Sith alchemy could produce a viable hybrid, but that's not the case here.

 

Maybe the biological father was Palpatine.

 

or another clone that escaped Kamino pre-AOTC Spar anyone?

 

I'd say it would be the Celestials. They may not be gods, but whatever makes one ascend to eldritch status, rearranging biochemistry so that different life forms can interbreed or eat the same food is probably on the same level (though a far different specialization) than rearranging the stars themselves.

 

I wrote some "University of Sanbra" articles back in the day. The definition is unclear since intelligence is a sliding scale, but I used self-awareness/sentience as the dividing line between animals and creatures, with the understanding that it's a pretty arbitrary distinction and that things like the hivemind clams of Mon Calamari could go either way. Is a chimpanzee intelligent? Is a dolphin sentient? This is stuff that's been argued for decades.

Here's a bit I dug up off my hard drive that I wrote for The Essential Guide to Episode I, which was never published (but which I may have cannibalized for parts while working on other projects):

Any analysis of ?aliens? and ?creatures? begs the obvious question ? what is the nature of intelligence? The only thing separating the dewback from the Tchuukthai is their degree of acumen. Both species are heavy quadrupeds with no true manipulative appendages, but the Tchuukthai have authored celebrated volumes of poetry and philosophy while dewbacks are content to munch moss.

Intelligence is not an instantaneous evolutionary breakthrough, but rather a sliding scale from pre-awareness to supra-intellect. Gamorreans, for example, score lower than most species on standardized knowledge tests. On the other hand, Columi represent an advanced intellectual plateau that humans may never reach.

In general, however, there are many creatures (animals without discernible self-awareness) in the galaxy and comparatively few intelligent alien species. Presented here is a sampling from both categories, all of which played some role in the events surrounding the Battle of Naboo.

 

Another good question. Of course we all know it's a combination of masks/costumes and the fact that the human audience of Star Wars is more likely to empathize with aliens that look like them, but that leaves the in-universe reason unaddressed. And frankly I'd prefer that it stay a mystery, rather than establish the Celestials or the Rakata as "genetic seeders" or something. That seems too Star Trekky.

It's something else I was going to mention in The Essential Guide to Episode I:

Millions of life-bearing planets have been scouted and catalogued, and more are added to the atlases each day. While some of the galaxy?s lifeforms are so fantastic they challenge the very foundations of biology, others are remarkably similar to those found on like planets.

The reason for the parallel lifeforms is a subject of some debate, but the evidence is irrefutable. The sheer number of ?human-like? species illustrates the point nicely. Humans, Devaronians, Twi?leks, and Chagrians are all quite similar in appearance yet few biologists theorize they share a common ancestor. And it?s a virtual certainty that, despite the resemblance, humans and Falleen spring from two very different origin points ? one is mammalian and the other reptilian.

Species that look similar to humans should not be confused with ?near-humans,? who are true offshoots from the human genetic line. Humans have spread from world to world with the speed and tenacity of stiem-weed. Consequently, many human colony planets over the past 25,000 years have given rise to singular strains of humanity, either from naturally-occurring mutations or from genetic engineering.

Although the human-like form is common among the galaxy?s intelligent species, it is not the only repeating phenotype. Variations on the fur-covered bipedal feline include Togorians, Trianii, Catumans, and Cathar, none of whom are believed to share a common ancestor. And an alternative example of the ?near-human? principle has occurred with the ancient Duros species, who colonized the planet Neimoidia tens of thousands of years ago and gave rise to a ?near-Duros? race with superficial physical variations. Though Duros and Neimoidians are genetically identical they are still referred to by their distinct names, in the same way that two groups of humans might be referred to as Corellians or Alderaanians.

 

awesome quotes, Dan! thx for sharing them here with us.

I agree that we do need no galactic seeders, which we already had with several minor genetic engineers active in the galaxy ranging from Arkanians to Sith.


And given that the Aqualish feature 2 very similiar species with only minor differences on one world, it is interesting to note that some species offshoots evolved paralell to their origin to the modern gffa day. Kinda like what if neandertals would have evolved on paralell to the other human line and still exist today.


And given your sentence:
"Humans have spread from world to world with the speed and tenacity of stiem-weed. Consequently, many human colony planets over the past 25,000 years have given rise to singular strains of humanity, either from naturally-occurring mutations or from genetic engineering."

I wonder how the GFFA views the human races in relation to subspecies or nearhumans (these are not synonymous after all!). Black or asian people exist and are not nearhumans but humans. But what is then the distinction between a different race and a different subspecies or offshoot?

Arkanian offshoots feature different ears.
Aqualish subspecies features different hands.
Twilek races feature different colors much like human ones.
Chiss are a human offshoot because of eyes and skincolor.
Hapans are sometimes considered nearhuman because of their genetic beauty and lack of good vision in dark spaces (which I personally do think is stupid, they are human!).

It is not just color that is the difference between human races. Other genetic treats are involved too like the different look of asian eyes and other body features, health issues concerning f.e. milk, etc.

To return to my earlier question: Did black, asian etc. humans evolve on same world as white humans or on different worlds, considering the mono-environmental depiction of worlds in the movies (which the EU continued but not exclusively as we know). And I may add that without orbital mirrors, the human homeworld Notron aka Coruscant was a much colder planet than it is today in the gffa potentially supporting the white/nordic humanity instead of helping to evolve some into darker skinned variants.

That said, are Chiss really nearhumans/offshoots or just a different race?

In Star Wars nearhuman/near-"?" is a term used mostly when a species looks like another species but has minor physical differences that can be seen or experienced (Zeltrons with their pheromones and skincolor). The term race is used mostly in relation to skincolor (see twileks, humans) while the term offshoot is used for both.

Might Zeltrons be a human race too? Hapans bred for beauty, Zeltrons might have adapted with hair/skincolor to their world only (like Chiss did!) and pheromones might be another natural mutation of the human baseline.

Not all need to be humanbased, and as Dan pointed out with the feline species, many only look human(oid) on the outside

Discuss

 

Interesting thoughts...

Looking at the "What makes a species a species?" question in the same way as Dan's extract about "What makes a sentient species sentient?", it suddenly puts a lot of subjectivity into it, doesn't it?

This is especially true if the Celestials (or whoever) genuinely were the force that dispersed life throughout the stars, spreading the same original lifeforms from their birth world to other planets - as could well be the case with these many humanoid species, yeah. Interesting. Where, then, does one draw the line between human and near-human? Human and alien?

Obviously, a Celegia comes from a totally different evolutionary branch, but - as you mention - Zeltrons? Heck, even something like Falleen, yes, they're presumably from a different biological class, but phylum? Maybe they have a common ancestor farther back? Maybe everything evolved from the same blob of gelly somewhere on Planet Celestial.

 

On human "race" differentiations: remember that Inuit are fairly dark skinned, so the idea that a cold climate favors a "Nordic" look isn't necessarily valid. As I understand it, that "race" differentiation has more to do with climate than with simple sexual selection is a point of view losing traction - after all, while some phenotypes have some positive, adaptive effects, for the most part they have negligible ones. It's also probably not totally helpful to classify humans in Star Wars by Earth geography, since disparate groups on Earth share the same phenotypes - take Shyamalan's The Last Airbender's Fire Nation, made up of people that credibly appear to be from the same country but made up of actors from all sorts of backgrounds; Caprica's Taurons are similar. It seems to be, well, too much to consider that humans with different appearances evolved on separate worlds. After all, that wasn't necessary right here on Earth, so minute are our genetic differences from one another, and what's more, for humans to be, well, exactly human, then it means that their evolution - assuming they were not seeded from Earth or, well, that we were not seeded from the GFFA - was identical to ours. As unlikely as that is, it's even more improbably to think different humans arose independently on varied planets. It's unlikely, even, that there are human planets - hell, even nonhuman planets - where only one look is predominant the world over.

The apparent exception is when there is a very, very small population seeded from an even smaller one - the Korunnai, for example. Even if all the original Jedi involved in the crash were not what we'd call "Black," they are now because the "Nordic" look is, basically, a collection of recessive genes.

I have a lot of fun thinking about this stuff. Can you tell?

The other benefit that comes from thinking in these terms is that it makes Near-Human races less difficult to swallow, and actually makes you wonder why they're not just called human. Just because humans on Earth never developed, say, green skin doesn't mean that it's necessarily out of the realm of possibility for humans from Mirial to have anywhere from our general understanding of "olive skin" to, well, actually olive green skeen.

 

I suppose the question is at what point mutation crosses over into an entirely new species?

To have green skin would presumably require not simply a difference in melanin levels, but some sort of random mutation on a much more fundamental level - the colour of fruits and vegetables, for instance, is not only to attract animals to eat them and disperse their seeds, but the pigment also is usually a sign of what kind of minerals and such you actually will get out of them, making eating different coloured foods good for you. With the food analogy in mind, that's going to mean that "green skin" is going to include some new element that's lacking in any homosapien.

Isn't there a species that's also green - not Mirilians - but because it's half-plant with chlorophyll in their skin or something? How realistic that is biologically I have no clue... and presumably it's unlikely to evolve in real life because once you're able to hunt and gather food, life doesn't need to rely on the sun anymore, but... hypothetically, if we say it could arise from a random mutation, with some human being ending up with chlorophyll in their skin, does that make them a new species overnight? "How green" do you have to get first?

 

You might be referring to Zelosians: green eyes and chlorophyll blood.

 

Well, when reproduction becomes impossible.

To an extent that's true, but I suspect with enough interesting sexual selection anything is possible.

So...they're humans, with chlorophyll? Or they're plants that look like people?

EDIT: The problem with having chlorophyll for blood is that your blood - if you're doing things correctly - never comes in sufficient contact with the sun.

 

Ah, Zelosians! Yes!

Good question. If we go by Wookieepedia, then:

So... sentient half-human plants?

 

good valid points yub!

Especially the Mirial one I like, thx for reminding me of them! Since the EU has them as humans and Mirialans both!

About the Korrunnai example: I agree that recessive and dominant genes play interesting roles in all this, though I tend to oppose the statistics that predict this or that future outcome like scientists belief that redheads will die out sooner or later within few hundreds of years. (being one, I doubt it of course ) especially since nature has often found ways to defy predictions and statistics as every weather forcast proofs!

and last my comment on the Inuit: thx for notifying me of this. had nearly forgotten that fact. I agree with you there that color does not necessarily have to do with climate only. And I of course prefer to have all "races" develop on one diverse planet like on Earth. Though, I have to add another debatable yet interesting theory to the discussion.


Though it comes from esoteric realms in real life discussion and less scientific ones, the theory I will add also has prominent scientists supporting it despite it not being one of the main accepted theories:

If accepting the existance of life in space beyond earth, and maybe even human life on other worlds, tied to a very distant past before Earths written down history, one can argue that different races on earth did not evolve on Earth. Rather they are colonists that forgot their origin. Let me elaborate please: Imagine some world as the origin of humanity. This humanity settles space and has colonies. Like on their homeworld in the colonies this humanity evolves further genetically and diversifies into several races. Some of them then settle earth because they crashed there, or their planet got destroyed by natural disaster, etc. leading to them

 

Well Neti can look humanoid because of shapeshifting abilities... but Zelosians as human plants... nice one!

Comparing them to the Dagobath spider tree, I guess they evolved to move around for better survival reasons and over time lost the phase of being rooted to the ground, which Neti and Dagobah spider tree still have as part of their life cycles.

But they are an interesting species yet a still possible one, compared to some weird Earth species that are indeed half plant half animal!!!


lets cross fingers LFL never accidently has a Zelosian interbreed with a human and have offspring

 

Actually, it's interesting you bring up redheads - one of the Korunnai is described as having red hair. In fact, Malcolm X had red hair. Redheadedness appears to be a really hardy trait that can disappear for a while and reappear unexpectedly.

Battlestar Galactica!

"Subspecies" usually refers to an individual that is of the same species, and can usually interbreed with the main strain, but have defining characteristics and don't interbreed, because of geography or some other inhibiting factor. "Subspecies" in animals is very similar to what what we've come to refer to as race in humans.

I think what we're looking at is sexual selection, so probably. I'm not certain the Chiss are easily classifiable as near humans. Then again, Neanderthals were humans, just a separate species, so it's possible we share an ancestor? I don't know: two hearts is a pretty massive morphological difference.

I think that the frequency of Force sensitives born to Force sensitives seems to be much higher, insofar as it seems unusual for Force users to not have Force sensitive children.

 

This is just a guess, but I think some writers have been confused on the difference between "near-human" and "humanoid." I think this is the trigger behind weird things like the Chiss becoming human offshoots.

I also think the Epicanthrix are the worst classification ever.

 

How that slipped past Leland Chee I'll never know.