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The Star Wars Expanded Universe has been home to a great many aliens. Some have been interesting and engaging, some have been flawed but nifty, and some have been little more than two-sentence descriptions. This thread is for none of them. This is for the dumbest creations of the EU, those aliens that offend the very mind when seen. Firstly, an anti-favorite of mine.


Remember this guy? You probably don't, seeing as he was really only visible in the initial pan of the Cantina in A New Hope, but maybe you recognized the hookah. Hookah Man here is, according to the EU, not a mere human, but an Anzati named Dannik Jerriko. But what is an Anzati?

The Anzati, and their fundamental problem, can be summed up shortly. They are space vampires. Fooking space vampires, to wax a la District 9.

Of course, rather than feed on blood, they variously feed on brains, luck, or the "Force within each person". The original pair of short stories that unleashed these ignoble spawn upon unsuspecting Star Wars fans and a battered Star Wars universe only mention brains, so I will go with those and preserve the tiny, tiny dignity of the Anzati. They call brains "soup" and each soup has flavors that they can detect from a distance. The short stories feature a subplot about Hookah Man wanting to feast upon Han Solo's soup suck his brains out, because his brains are special brains that would taste extra-delicious. He then throws a murderous fit when Solo escapes with Luke and company. The author was dedicated enough to incorporate the vampire cliche of poorly-veiled homoeroticism, of all things.

"But how do these magnificent additions to Star Wars feed upon the brains?", I can hear you thinking. The answer is simple. They have a tentacle concealed in each cheek, and when they feed, the tentacles come out, and they shove them up their victim's nose to suck the brains out. Envision the geometry of a tentacle running from a human cheek to a nostril, and consider the sounds that must be made in the process, and retch or giggle according to your disposition.

Now that we're talking about the biology of these critters, they also have no biometric readings. This is taken as no pulse or heartbeat (apparently they don't breathe either despite being able to smoke), but I like to think that it applies to DNA/genetic coding in general, fingerprints, or retinae too. They're supposedly billions of years old and view the Force as a quaint superstition. They can hypnotize victims. Their first representative, Hookah Man, is an assassin. At least they can't turn anybody else into vampires Anzati by bloodsucking brainsucking (I like to think this was to forestall the inevitable jokes), nor do they lack reflections. The jury is still out on whether they have weaknesses to space garlic or transdimensional omnisilver. Finally, apparently if a Force-sensitive Anzati brainsucks another Force-sensitive, he gets the power of that Force-sensitive. Ripping off White Wolf, eh? Stay classy, EU. Stay classy.

The Anzati also hold the dubious distinction of being the third-laziest alien to cast in a film. You just cast a regular guy and make a pair of prosthetic tentacles if he ever has to bite brainsuck anybody (or you could even use shadows). By all rights they should be second, but that is another story (and another stupid alien species).

Overall, the Anzati are dumb, unimaginative, and contribute little to Star Wars. However, until recently, nobody remembered them. They had an appearance (from the same guy) in two short stories, a kid's book, and a misspelled mention in a novel. Now, they appear in comic books more frequently, but still, they're not particularly prevalent. Most of the dumber aliens aren't, because most EU authors managed to realize how bad they are.

Feel free to add your own!

EDIT: Added a little more material.

I'm just gonna say it; The Yuzzhan Vong.

1)They were a horrible combination of the Borg, Aztecs, biowank, and damn near anything any hack author could think of to throw together. And somehow they were never detected during tons of espionage missions, and every single soldier was a 'leet warrior that could kill a jedi and were invisible in the force oh noes!

In my opinion, the NJO, (which introduced the YV) was the death knell of the last few good star wars books written. The characters had just triumphed and ended a galaxy-spanning war against tyrrany to install a fractitious and politically corrupt gov't which was subsequently invaded by an even worse power.

I think they just wanted to keep it interesting or something. They went for this sort of story with the same characters and a poorly thought-out, new, unstoppable foe, using the same characters again and again. The books were bad and the Yuzzhan Vong were worse. Every aspect of their society and culture of sadomasochism felt stupid and tacked-on, from the Embrace of pain to the Living Spaceships and Evulz of technology.

2) Waru From The Crystal Star

3) I think there was some kind of Jedi hutt in planet of Twilight. That was bad.

that's all I got for now.

And now you made me remember him/her/it. You bastard.

DrMckay wrote:I'm just gonna say it; The Yuzzhan Vong.

I thought of them as well.

3) I think there was some kind of Jedi hutt in planet of Twilight. That was bad.

Why can't there be a Hutt Jedi?

The Romulan Republic wrote: Why can't there be a Hutt Jedi?

If I remember correctly, the Hutts have some sort of resistance to Jedi mental techniques, which might indicate some sort of generalized resistance to the Force.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Why can't there be a Hutt Jedi?

Your wish is my command.

Leia Versus Dark Jedi Beldorian.

Why doesn't she just chop his tail off?

To me, the Codru-Ji are unquestionably among the most ridiculous beings in Star Wars, easily outdoing the Toydarians in terms of being implausible and farcical.

In short, the Codru-Ji are a species of beings who are, usually, depicted as looking just like humans, except they have four arms (the lower pair mounted at the armpit or something). Their children are werewolves... sorry, "whyrwolves". They're not fully sentient, and eventually go into a cocoon where they transform into mature adults and gain sapience. Ninety-five times out of a hundred, Codru-Ji will talk to each other about kidnapping, because that's all there is to their culture.

Thanks, Vonda McIntyre. This sure is one fascinating species you've created.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Why doesn't she just chop his tail off?

Yeah. I always wondered that too. Hutts move like snakes, so by cutting off his tail she'd reduce his mobility considerably.


Oh well. IIRC at this point in the timeline, Leia isn't that skilled in the Jedi Arts.

Your wish is my command.

So that's what a fit Hutt looks like.

Did you actually draw that Schats? It's pretty good.

Stofsk wrote:Did you actually draw that Schats? It's pretty good.

No, I just retain weird information, I got that from Wookieepedia.

Eleas wrote:Thanks, Vonda McIntyre. This sure is one fascinating species you've created.

Werewolves? This is the book that has centaurs, ghosts, incubi and flipping Waru. That book's issues had issues.

Old Plympto wrote:

Eleas wrote:Thanks, Vonda McIntyre. This sure is one fascinating species you've created.

Werewolves? This is the book that has centaurs, ghosts, incubi and flipping Waru. That book's issues had issues.

Yes, it did, but those motherfuckers weren't reused later on. The Codru-ji were, and they got even dumber.

The centaurs (Chiron) were! Raynar Thul (a human) had the hots for one in the YJK books. Then the same centaur girl was mentioned to have been run down and eaten on her homeworld by a pack of Voxyn in the NJO.

Crazedwraith wrote:The centaurs (Chiron) were! Raynar Thul (a human) had the hots for one in the YJK books. Then the same centaur girl was mentioned to have been run down and eaten on her homeworld by a pack of Voxyn in the NJO.

Reading between the lines, that sounds awfully like somebody else didn't like McIntyre's creations either. That's literally a case of having a character you dislike run down and eaten by dogs - mutated ones, at that.

For runners-up, another classic gift from KJA and company. The Melodies. They're functionally mermaids, except they picked an even stupider name for them.

Admittedly, the Yuuzhan Vong were thought up because of a lack of previously inventive story-telling. How many "Hidden Wonder-Weapons of the Emperor" can there really be, after all? The Yuuzhan Vong suck because it is a veiled attempt to reboot Star Wars without openly declaring a reboot of Star Wars, and had they just written like/for adults in the first place the Vong would be un-necessary.

The aliens I think are dumb (besides the one mentioned, and Vonda MacIntyre herself should be run down and eaten by dogs) are the aliens that are essentially humans but with some "tweak" that makes no sense. Technically, that means I dislike the Chiss, too, which I will admit in the same breath I admit I like Thrawn as a character.

But where the fuck is a human-in-all-but-name going to come from that has blue skin and glowing red eyes? How is that going to evolve? Or any of the others? Jesus, that's not even a Star Trek "forehead alien". In Trek, they have the excuse of a special effects budget; in writing, WTF, are they charged more for the ink to write alien descriptions?

That and the big fluffy pink bunny men race.

Bah, how can anything be worse than that green rabbit-thing from the Marvel comics..... Jaxxon was it? Those comics were quite bizarre on the whole.....

Bellosh101 wrote:Bah, how can anything be worse than that green rabbit-thing from the Marvel comics..... Jaxxon was it? Those comics were quite bizarre on the whole.....

Jaxxon wasn't that bad. I thought he got the brunt of "Star Wars is hard sci-fi and not cheesy" meme that came out of the 90s. I always thought we needed more fun pulp sci-fi cheesiness rather than the mostly-grimdark emo spiel we've gotten the last 20 years. Though this last 5 years or so, Dark Horse Comics - Cade Skywalker part of SW Legacy notwithstanding - seemed to have put fun back into Star Wars.

killik's. Joiner king is the only book i abandoned in disgust

If the Falleen are reptilian, then why do their females have breasts? Why do they have pheremones that affect a number of other sentient species, including humans? And they only work on members of the opposite gender?

I didn't like the aliens with the bio-wank starship that Lando was stuck aboard that was trying to restart a world suffering an ice age. I can't even remember what book that was from; maybe the ones with the Yevetha. Who also drove me nuts, with the whole "our babies grow in sacks stuck to the wall and obtain their nutrients from the blood of slaughtered people" thing. I may be remembering it wrong, I haven't read those books in probably ten years.

Also, fucking Waru.

I vote for the Ssi'ruuk. Stupid aliens. Stupid ships. Stupid soul sucking tech or whatever it was, I thankfulyl have forgotten most of it.
Oh and a small fleet of these losers was somehow a threat to the entire galaxy. Yeah right.

Swindle1984 wrote:If the Falleen are reptilian, then why do their females have breasts?

They also fall into the human-alien category like the Chiss for no reason. It's not like you have to hire a guy with forehead makeup.
Oh yeah they wanted him to be attractive to humans... so make him an attractive human! Duh?

Maybe the falleen are a geneered subspecies? Humans who have been modified to be alien? Near-humans are fairly common in SW, I mean shit Twi-leks are basically humans with weird head tails.

The best explanation for Falleen that I recall was them seeing that humans were going to dominate the galaxy, and the whole species going about a massive genetic engineering campaign to look more human like. Thus after however many generations, we have the Falleen as we know them today. Really its seems that no matter who is in chargethe galaxy seems to be predominantly human,at least the Core (possibly a fair bit of the mid rim as well) where all the power lies, and thus the more humanlike aliens may have some social advantages.

Source for that explanation?

Darth Fanboy wrote:Source for that explanation?

The only time I've seen it stated before is on Saxton's page. He mentions no source, and since he tends to be scrupulous about such things, I'm pretty sure it's his own observation.

Curtis Saxton wrote:It is therefore clear that the Falleen have evolved to become sapient sexual parasites upon humans. They resemble humans in erotic ways that are far from the normal function of reptiles. They prey upon reproductive instincts, and they become powerful in a way that is not unlike the non-sapient tactics of cuckoo chicks in the nest of another bird family, or flowers that are shaped to confuse and entice mating insects. The Falleen adaptations may have taken hundreds of thousands of years to develop, so we can predict that they have been visited by humans for at least that span of prehistory.