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Friday 3 July 2015

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!

15 comments :

  1. Completely off-topic but since you watched Guardians of the Galaxy does that mean you have finished the movie challenge?

    Just asking because I have a gold medal here burning a hole in my HD. :p

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    1. I did! A few months ago, actually. I was planning to write a post about it and surprise you! But I totally forgot. *hides behind rock*

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  2. I could have done one about SW:TOR as well, and Star Wars, and Star Trek! 100% agree. For my list, I had the Doctor (especially 11), Thor from Stargate SG-1, E.T., Do Min-joon, and Yoda!!!

    I agree with a lot of what you said about Vette, but Jaesa is my fav companion. ♥

    I l-o-v-e that you're an MMO fan! Do you also happen to be a role-player?

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    1. Ohhhhh, so cool to read you're playing MMO's as well, I had no idea! I still need to watch Doctor Who; everyone says it's so good (and most of those people are people who have the same taste for series as I). I'm out of series to watch, so I'm hoping to start with it next week. I understand the series was started in the '60's and that it's better to start with watching some of the newer ones. Any recommendations?

      I love Jaesa too! Although I must say I need to play my sith warriors more to find out more about her. For this list she had to be passed since she isn't an alien.

      I don't consider myself to be a role-player: I don't play on a role-play server and I like getting to know the 'real people behind the keyboards' in the guilds I'm a part of, which probably also is because I like to raid and hang out on voice chat - that said, I'm known to randomly respond in-character at times, so I guess I do like role-playing (even though I'm usually not consciously aware of that I'm doing it!).

      Do you role-play in SWTOR? That's something I'd love to hear about.

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  3. Thanks for the mention! Love your post!

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  4. I personally love the Inquisitor's favorite Dashade, Khem. I don't keep him around as often I should, since I tend to play light side characters and he's anything but a light side kind of guy (er, it), but he definitely brings out the terror in Sith who recognize him for what he is.

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    1. I'm a fan of Khem, too: whoever came up with that character is a genius. I made a shortlist of 10 aliens for this post when I was meeting the hard task of mowing them down to 5. Khem was on nr. 6!

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  5. So I watched guardians of the galaxy (now I was curious) and I disagree. Rocky is nice and all but Groot is way much cooler. Okey I have to agree that his pick-up line is not great, but he can do al these amazing things (like grow your own arms back etc) and he is almost indestructible. And he can also be really sweet.

    For swtor i am not sure about Lokin (and he is not a alien, he is a werewolf kind of guy). And if he is an alien then vector is for sure, who I migth like better than Lokin (I know you disagree), but I am not that far yet in the story of Lokin so that might change. Although I can't think about more aliens that I really like (we need more aliens!, however I also have not played the whole game yet).

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    1. Hmm, I know you're into plants and all, but surely Rocket wins that contest! I thought Groot was a bit of a stereotype somehow and his OP save-everyone skill was an anti-climax at the end. Maybe I would've appreciated it more if I had more of an idea where he came from. Now it was just a big thing without character depth walking after the other characters. From the ways movies work, I already had a feeling he would have some hidden superpower, so it didn't really surprise me. It was so cute when Rocket picked a branch up and grew a mini reincarnated Groot! And when he was crying and the big brute guy went caressing him... I melted, really!

      That said, I know that I'm probably in the minority preferring Rocket Raccoon over Groot. A lot of the Female Geek Blogger fangirls mentioned Groot in their alien list, but not Rocket. *sobs*

      And freaky Vector winning over Lokin? *shivers* Really, if there's one companion I'd like to throw out of the airlock... :P

      P.S. There's a lot more Marvel movies you can watch. The part about the infinity stone makes more sense then all of a sudden, because it has to do with an over-arching story. There's a post incoming with a review of all of them in the correct order, so if you liked Guardians of the Galaxy, you might like the others as well. :)

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  6. I love your list!! (And before I forget: thank you for mentioning me!) I think you're convincing me more and more to try games xDDD I don't play much but at this ratio of reading you I might it soon. <3

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    1. That's so cool! If you ever decide to give it a go, I would *love* to meet you in-game and show you around. Especially MMOs are a huge world to get into, but they're a ton of fun and I think they provide a great opportunity for anthropology with all the social interaction! Which is a pretty cool topic on its own. :)

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  7. This one humbly submits that you left off any Gand in your list. The Gand are glorious and this one beseeches you to re-examine the lowly Yuun.

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    1. Somehow I heard that voiced by a hanar in my head at first (wrong game, I know!). I haven't gotten to know Yuun that well yet. I'm not really enthralled with what I've seen from him (I think the Gand look weird with those fly-eyes - that's probably racist, though, sorry), but one never knows. I should really put more effort in maxing companion affection!

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  8. I LOVE SWTOR!! Fav game

    xx mal @ www.badwolfbrunch.com

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    1. I had no idea you're playing SWTOR. That's so cool! :)

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