The New Essential Guide to Alien Species

um, Outbound Flight happened before the CW, and Sidious and Thrawn were already in contact then. I don't see an error

 

Anything new about Koorivars & Geonosians?

 

well, as for new info on Koorivar, we find out they are part of the New Republic and the GFFA, although regarded with suspicion by the Galactic Allaince Committee on Corporate Oversight. Also, skin colors (yellow, purple, etc.) are individual, not due to sexual dimorphism as some previous sources seemed to hint.

 

Flipped through it today at B&N. Great, one skeezy Balosar and the entire species is a race of drug pushers. And all of the Fosh are now haughty manipulators, because Veregere, a solitary individual who had little contact with her species, was quite the meddler. Shouldn't humans all be manipulators then, because of Palpatine? Or all sleazy space pilots, like Han Solo? Like how all Irish are potato-munching drunkies and all Asians are good at math?

I've decided this book sucks. Heck, I've decided all previous species guides suck, since they also made every species into a one dimensional charicature of humanity. Hire some people who posess creativity, LFL.

 

well, thats where I have to agree with Rogue, species need their own culture and history, not just stereotyped psycho studies

 

A new timeline issue that I found in the Falleen was that Xizor joined black sun because of vader killing his parents but then says he became leader of black sun because darth maul killed the former leaders.

 

But... Xizor was part of Black Sun during the Clone Wars. Heck, even by the Evasive Action series he was well known.

 

Xizor can be part of Black Sun at that time, just not one of the top tier.
Famous? He's head of XTS. Course he's famous.
Once Maul killed all the head honchos of Black Sun, Xizor had the resources and position to take over.

 

But there's a pretty big timeframe between the death of the Black Sun leaders by Maul, and Xizor taking over. At least 14, 15 years or so, IIRC.

Can someone post the exact quote used to describe Sevrenace Tann and her relationship to Thrawn?

 

It's not too bad. At least compared to the paragraph or so before it, which is an utter logical headache.

"We can surmise because Thrawn had contact with the Galaxy outside the Unknown Regions prior to the Clone Wars, it was he who brought Tann, and her lover Vandalor, to the attention of Darth Sidious. Whether this was an attempt to remove Tann from a difficult and dangerous situation on Csilla, or simply provide Sidious with a soldier and tactician he could rely on, we'll never know."

 

So it's speculation, and we can ignore it. Whew.

Who wrote this one? Hoole?

 

Even if it's true, it's not an error. Thrawn brings her to the attention of Sidious after Outbound Flight, still a good five years before the Clone Wars.

Having flipped through this in the book store, I think that since this is presented as an in-universe document, the simplest conclusion is that the in-universe author is a massive racist. How else do you explain things like the Neimoidian section, which feels like with a simple word replace that it could have come from a number of, shall we say, certain political groups in our own planet's history? Paraphrasing one part: "The Duros let the Neimoidians join their society after the Galactic Civil War, and let them manage finances because they were so good with money."

And I won't even get into the Balosar issue. Honestly, some of the personality stereotypes I can let slide, because I can believe that a species could have a tendency to be secretive, or curious, or peaceful (although even those tend to be taken to extremes, and we get just about every single member anywhere acting like that; even if only 1% of a species wasn't a stereotype, that would still be several hundred million individuals). But an entire species having their economy centered around death sticks because the one guy we saw, clearly a criminal in a seedy area, was selling them? Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. Like, Odds-level dumb. Well, maybe that's a bit too harsh, but still pretty bad.

My other main complaint is this weird taking to extremes of any trait, although that may largely stem from other sources. Like the Ortolans: "Ortolans love to eat food. They have organs built for sniffing out food. Their economy is centered around food. They barter with food. They kick people out if they don't have enough food for everyone." Enough!

There is some nice new info, though, and not every species is a stereotype. The art and page design are very nice. It's not up to the quality of the Wallace ones, and I haven't read the other three, so I don't know how they compare. I'm probably not going to buy it, but it's not worthless either.

It mentions Nem Bees, though, so that alone makes me happy.

And regarding midi-chlorians, because I was curious and someone else asked: half of it's old info, and there's a new bit about how the Empire did midi testing, and Jedi in hiding and people who thought they or their children might be Force-sensitive were worried. A black market of ineffective drugs and blood treatments rose up in response, plus a good deal of bribery. Those who did have high midi counts and couldn't shell out a bribe had a tendency to disappear.

 

Thracken Sal-Solo must've had some input.

 

The characterization of alien species in Star Wars is full-on pathetic.

 

Every Human has an inability to characterize other species. The Human religion is built around mischaracterization, and Human economies are based on trading works with poor characterization.

 

Horribly lame book. Spent way too much time on obscure, background, non-sentient aliens from the SEs and the prequels, and not nearly enough on some of the coolest EU races (the Nagai deserve a full two pages).

It also sucks that apparently they confirmed the Yevetha are extinct and not just endangered...though I hold out hope they missed an enclave or two...

 

RogueWompRat, because your actor played the Mouth of Sauron, I shall forgive this tergiversation.
[image=http://www.elvish.org/gwaith/movie/mouth_of_sauron2.jpg]
He was sort of shabby as the Matrix Trainman, but NEGTC was a ruby.

 

It's not too hard. Authors just need to use their brains and think things through. How about instead of yet another Rodian bounty hunter, can we have one who works in a record store? Or an Aqualish Basic professor? Or a Bothan fisherman?

He was in all three major scifi/fantasy trilogies of his time! How cool is that? IIRC, young Mon Mothma was a crewmember aboard one of the Zion ships, as was Elan Sleazebaggano, before he became a deathstick dealer. Because you know, according to this book all Balosars are that way. No individual determination at all.

 

WHOA! Nem Bees got a nod? Congrats Lord Hydro. VERY nice, indeed.

In keeping with the current discussion, I, too, hate the generalization that is made about a species based on the one member we see. I think that's what prompted me to make a Pa'lowick who built an entire ship and was a smuggler in my Dusty Duck entry, just because it was a far cry from the "musical primitive" Snootles from ROTJ. There's a fine line between keeping a species "familiar" and just being outright "lazy". Unfortunately, sometimes that's a line easily crossed.

A whole species of death stick dealers, huh? Sheesh.

 

Again, what did we get on the midi-freakin'-chlorians?

 

Emo, much?

Personally, I haven't had time to go through the book that much, but from what I can see, it's substantially better than the original one. As for why it focuses a bit more on the new guys than the others, well, it's my understanding that there was either enough about them covered in the original or nothing of note to add in this one that makes it really worth it to cover them in full detail.

And overall, I like the book.

 

I thought the actress playing Mon Mothma was the woman at the control center who helped Morpheus' ship dock at Zion in the beginning of the second movie? Didn't know that about the dealer guy, though.

 

Hydronium AND FTeik have changed icons. I don't recognize ANYONE anymore.

 

Elan had a pretty big role in the first Matrix movie... played the comic relief. Giddeon Danu was a major character in the other two, as well.


Eh.... back on topic... didn't Elan Sleazy reform by Evasive Action? And while we're at it, he was a medical student to begin with, which is the rason he got hooked on drugs!

If this book is by that blasphemous Hoole, I bet he found all of his "anthropological" data just by taking notes of his observations of species as he hung out in dives like the Outlander or the Mos Eisley Cantina.

The Besilisk is serving food... that means they must be excellent chefs. The Koorivar is holding his drink too tightly... that means they must all be greedy.