My favourite SWTOR aliens

Today's Fandom Friday* was all about aliens: name your five favourite ones. Enough contenders, for a sci-fi fan such as I. I could easily do a Star Trek special for this one: a favourite today named by both How to Fangirl for Adults and dePepi is Spock (but what's with the second spot; surely that should've been the first!), another is the pair of Odo and Quark, also mentioned by dePepi (just thinking of them makes me want to re-watch Deep Space 9 again!). If I would look at movies, I'd definitely include Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy**, mentioned by My Open Sketchbook (I adore him so, he made that movie work for me!). Also, I can't believe nobody featured Yoda (edit: Bad Wolf Brunch did, just now)! If we're looking at games, I'd totally include Mission and Zaalbaar from KOTOR I and Liara and Wrex (!!!) from Mass Effect. Too much inspiration: perhaps I'm a nerd after all?

Okay, keep calm, disengage fangirl mode... I gotta stay on-topic here: favourite aliens from Star Wars: The Old Republic. Seeing as the Star Wars universe is thriving with aliens, this should be an easy one... right? Check out my picks below and find out how aliens are portrayed in my favourite Star Wars MMO.

1) Vette

Race: twi'lek
Type: companion (sith warrior)

I mentioned Mission and Zaalbaar from KOTOR I earlier in this article. You could call Vette the "Mission of Star Wars: The Old Republic", because the two characters have a lot in common: both female twi'leks with a blue skin colour, both orphans, and both choosing to fight with two guns (scoundrel, smuggler, gunslinger... it's called differently in each game, but it boils down to the same, really).

Vette has amazing humour. Seriously, I could fill a whole post with her witty commentary wherever you go and whatever you say. I mean, even my evil warrior Waseme couldn't resist taking off her slave collar!

2) Bowdaar

Race: wookiee
Type: companion (smuggler)

Bowdaar is the second companion you get as a smuggler. I was so excited when I found out! I also thought it was great that my gunslinger was a twi'lek, just like Mission was. Don't they make the perfect pair?

3) Dr. Lokin

Race: half human, half rakghoul
Type: companion (agent)

I had a discussion with Conrad about whether dr. Lokin can be considered to be an alien or not. Technically, he is human, but he has infected himself with a genetically enhanced version of the rakghoul virus, so he can turn into a rakghoul any time he likes to (if you use him as your companion, he is in human form when in his healing stance and in rakghoul form when in DPS stance).

Ever since I played KOTOR I, rakghouls give me the shivers. Dr. Lokin is an awesome character, though, an eccentric doctor that found a way to turn into a rakghoul without losing his mind.

I haven't gotten much affection with dr. Lokin yet, so I'm really looking forward to how that will evolve (no pun intended!).

4) Blizz

Race: jawa
Type: companion (bounty hunter)

I don't know what to add here. Doesn't "jawa" say enough?

Poor Kephess, I never took the effort to take a picture of him. 

He'll have to do with some post mortum trophy pictures.

5) Kephess

Race: trandoshan
Type: raid boss

Kephess was introduced to SWTOR as the first boss of Explosive Conflict. The running joke is: "Who'll be the villain in the upcoming raid cluster?" "Kephess!", because he was resurrected in the next raid released after Explosive Conflict, the Terror from Beyond, where he was the fourth boss. It gave us a good laugh back in the day to find that he even was in the Dread operations as clones made by the Dread Masters. Although Kephess is being beaten in three raids, the current endgame raids are an exception because he's not in there. But you never know, we'll get new raids at some point after the next expansion... and otherwise I vote for a Kephess bonus boss!

So about that companion fetish...

Yes, I know, a lot of companions again. I tried to think of fun alien NPCs and could think of a few, but none of them amazing enough to make the list. I guess it makes sense, though: you spend a lot of time with your companion and they all have their own story to discover as you gain affection with them. I generally like characters with depth, so it's not strange that companions score that high.

Aliens in the Old Republic

As always, Bioware has taken great care to make the characters in their game as diverse as can be. Just like there are a lot of women holding high positions, aliens seem to be generally doing well, at least in the Republic. However, there are some getto-like areas on Coruscant where they are doing worse. Aliens are worse off in the Empire. There are some storylines about aliens being treated as inferiors in the Empire, especially when playing an agent or an inquisitor. If you play an Imperial alien character yourself, you'll get commented on that at times. I really like how the developers handle the topic of racism this way, making you choose how to handle it in the decisions you make; even though those decisions currently don't make much of a difference apart from in your 'head canon', they're there.

Any awesome aliens I missed?

*5 Fandom Friday is a weekly event organized by the Female Geek Bloggers group on Google+.
** Remind me to write a post about watching that for my Rakuno Challenge!