S. Lukae

There are three basic subspecies of the common S. Lukae. While they do share certain characteristics, they are without a doubt three distinctly different animals. Prof. Xxxffffseeeezzz of Hasdrubal IV maintains that there is only one S. Lukae, and that the three observed types are in fact only developmental phases, much like the caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly metamorphosis. However, Dr Gimmea Beernau argues that the complete lack of evidence (e.g., cast off skins, DNA testing, and the very different mating habits) must make this hypothesis extremely unlikely at best.

S. Lukae Discontentus
Habitat:
The discontentus is most frequently found in a desert habitat living in small underground caverns. It lives on blue milk and unidentified shapeless mush (perhaps explaining its instinctive eagerness to leave home). It appears to require lots of movement in small speedy vehicles to mature properly. This appears to provide the necessary stimulus to develop the rudimentary psychic abilities that are observable near the end of its life span.

Appearance:
L. discontentus is generally clothed in exceedingly baggy, brownish-white material, no doubt as a camouflage. This serves the discontentus well during the first part of its life, but during the latter phase (spent largely in space) the light-colored attire against the blackness of space would make the discontentus an easy target¹. This explains the molting of the desert-camouflage attire, but fails to explain the day-glo orange clothing often selected as a replacement. This would seem to be counter-productive.

During the middle of its life cycle between the brown/gray, or "desert camo," stage and the final, or "neon orange," phase, the outer coverings become pure white, hard and shell-like. This eventually flakes off to reveal the bright plumage of the mature discontentus. It is at this point that Prof. Xxxffffseeeezzz maintains that it has actually metamorphosed into the S. lukae polotropicus However, as Dr Beernau points out, not all discontentus go through this phase. The hard, white carapace appears to be a reaction to being placed in a highly specific type of danger (i.e., the Common Stormtrooper), rather than a natural progression.

Life Cycle:
The discontentus is a cross-breed of the Common Darksider and Vaguely-Chinese-Looking Princess Chick. There is usually only one offspring although on rare occasions twins have been observed, one male and one female. Like the Terran cuckoo, the birth parents leave the discontentus almost immediately after birth, depositing the young in the nest of a relative, called the "babysitter", who takes over the caregiver role. In late adolescence, the discontentus is booted out of the nest by the ritual suicide of the caregivers, who usually stage their death to look like an Imperial-attack-cleverly-disguised-as-Sandpeople-attack; this apparently is intended to cause the young to become angry and vengeful, thus distracting them from sadness and depression usually attendant on loss of a parental figure. NOTE: Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that, once given into custody of the new caregivers, reintroducing either or both birth parents at a later stage can cause great stress to the discontentus, causing its hand to spontaneously fall off.

Identifying Characteristics:
The discontentus has very high innate piloting ability, despite the fact that his astrological knowledge is quite poor, as he often mistakes large ominous Death Stars for small moons. He has been known to attempt to mate with siblings, although this is mostly commonly seen in the sub-species redneckus². He apparently buys his toys from the same store as Batman (witness the clever thingy with which he swings across bottomless chasms to escape from the Common Stormtrooper). Its favorite hobby is blowing things up.

L. discontentus can be identified by its whiny attitude, shown in vocalizations about such things as "power converters", "bad motivators", and "the harvest"³, and the common "It's not fair!". The L. discontentus may also be identified by its tendency to exhibit signs of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder when exposed to poor-quality holograms of the common O leias newhopus. No convincing explanation for this reaction towards another apparently unrelated species has been discovered as yet. Sir Hocis de Livre theorizes that the O leias newhopus may closely resemble the female discontentus. The large round hair growths of the newhopus do indeed resemble the Aunt Annie's Cinnamon Bun commonly used as bait by the female discontentus to attract a mate.

The above are good indicators, but by far the most infallible sign that you have indeed spotted a discontentus are the fact that he doesn't have to show his identification and he's never with the droids you're looking for.

Natural Enemies:
Tusken Raiders/Sand People
Random Wanted Men in Bars
Wretched Hives of Scum and Villainy
The Thing in the Garbage
Common Darksider

Prey:
Common Womp Rat
Boyhood friends (the discontentus does not kill them directly, but continued close proximity to him often proves fatal)

S. Lukae Polotropicus
Habitat:
The polotropicus gets its unusual name from its rather singular habit of beginning life in the midst of cold icy wastes (pol from polar), but almost immediately upon hatching it migrates to the nearest moist, swampy, tropical area (tropicus from the Klingon word for "it's a fucking swamp and boy does it suck"). Like its cousin the discontentus, the polotropicus dwells in small caves in both the polar and tropical phases of its existence. This is odd because it frequently bangs its head on the roofs of these small living spaces and seems to dislike mud.

If the polotropicus lives long enough, it reaches a final stage where it sprouts wings and lives for a time in the clouds. This is rare, and even when the polotropicus reaches this stage, it is often hunted by the Cloud-dwelling Darksider, and so is often forced off-planet and into space.

Appearance:
At birth, the L. polotropicus is clothed almost entirely in white or gray; this is clearly polar camouflage, similar to the brownish tan of the desert-dwelling discontentus. This camouflage helps to protect the young from its natural enemies, most notable the male parent who often sends hordes of attacking creatures to find and kill the young.

When the polotropicus migrates to the more marshy and warm areas, the heavy white baby coat is shed and replaced with mostly naked skin on the torso and filthy breeches on the lower body. This shedding of the outer coat performs the dual purpose of cooling the creature as well as giving its Jedi pheromones the widest possible disperal in hopes of attracting a mate. The polotropicus does not seem to have much luck in this area; despite sex play (primarily kissing) between siblings during the first few weeks of life, the polotropicus is pretty much shit out of luck unless he has deviant interests in small frog-like creatures with poor sentence structure. Often at this phase the polotropicus will acquire an odd growth on its back and run round and round the marsh until tired.

Ritual scarring is frequently seen on the face of the polotropicus and he is often remarked by observers to be the most unattractive of his family. The purpose of this scarring is unknown; some researchers maintain that it indicates the polotropicus has reached manhood, while others scoff at that and claim that it just proves the polotropicus can't drive a landspeeder worth a damn.

Life Cycle:
During its polar phase, the polotropicus has a disturbing tendency to go face down into snowbank with little or no warning. To prevent this, it usually spends some part of its first few days completely submerged in warm water. This is believed to be a soothing mechanism, as the polotropicus is impatient and highly distractible; the immersion in warm water is obviously an attempt to recreate the womb environment and pacify the creature's impatience and recklessness. The infant polotropicus is on very rare occasions found existing in a parasitic relationship inside a Tauntaun. Once departed from its polar spawning grounds, the polotropicus becomes progressively more arrogant, impatient, and its attention span decreases as it begins to feel cravings for adventure and excitement. As Professor John J. Yodabon has so astutely put it, "Never his mind on where he was! What he was doing!" During this stage, he often forms a strong attachment to a smaller being or thing - this may be a teddy bear, a blankie, or other indigenous life forms with bad grammar.

Oddly, although one would expect this relationship to be one wherein the polotropicus protects and instructs its smaller partner, this is not the case. Usually it is the other way around, and the polotropicus attempts to be subservient to and learn from the smaller being. (When the smaller being is an inanimate object such as a blankie, the consequences can be unfortunate. Mr Hip Hopper of Little Ballpinscher, Yorkshire, once observed a polotropicus who had learned nothing more than lying in a heap on the ground, and being dragged around and chewed on by small children. This polotropicus exhibited a disturbing tendency to leap into the clothes washer on occasion, saying it made him feel "sunshine fresh and soft.")

Under ideal circumstances, however, the polotropicus can be taught to perform several amusing tricks, such as one-handed handstands, levitating droids, and nearly raising sunken ships.

Identifying Characteristics:
The polotropicus usually sheds one hand during the middle part of its life. Like the discontentus, it has been known to attempt to mate with siblings, although this is usually confined to the very early adult phase and rarely continues past a kiss or two. L. polotropicus can be identified by its mud-caked clothing and semi-bare upper body in the middle phases, and by its artificial hand, black clothing, and awkward attitude towards women in the later phases. Its favorite hobby is blowing things up.

Natural Enemies:
The Thing in the Snow
Himself (usually confined to small glade on Dagobah and thus easily avoided)
Cloud-Dwelling Darksider
Common Darksider

Prey:
Mosquitoes
Very small rocks
small animals called Clyde

S. Lukae Arboreas
Habitat:
The arboreas is thus called for the fact that its life is spent almost entirely in the forests of its planet(s). Unlike the discontentus and the polotropicus, the arboreas does not live in caves or caverns, but rather is a free-roaming and nomadic species, found in forests from Dagobah to that other planet with the teddy bear things. It is also a favorite pet of the Wicked Darksider (not to be confused with the Common Darksider), and while it does not exactly flourish in captivity, those naughty Wicked Darksiders will keep on catching them and attempting to tame them. This proves the Wicked Darksider as a species to be singularly lacking in intelligence, as the arboreas frequently kills its captor(s) and escapes⁴.

Appearance:
The L. arboreas is clothed almost entirely in black, which is odd since this doesn't do much to camouflage him from anything. He will on occasion adopt a green/brown/tan spotted sort of coat, but generally sheds this as soon as possible to return to his sombre black. Many psychobiologists have theorized that the black attire signifies an internal struggle, and this seems to be indicated by the constant mantra that the mature arboreas is heard to chant: "You'll never turn me to the Dark Side."

Life Cycle:
The arboreas spends the early part of its life with a caregiver of an entirely different species; this sort of interspecies cooperation, while uncommon, is certainly not unheard of. Witness the symbiotic relationship between the yellow-bellied threepio and the rotund artoo. This caregiver, like that of the discontentus, usually dies off while the arboreas is still quite young. However, this has a markedly different effect on the arboreas - while the discontentus is made angry, vengeful, rash, and hasty, the arboreas is by contrast made wiser, sadder, more self-contained and much less interesting.

Soon after this, still during the early part of its life, the arboreas must make a ritual pilgrimage to the desert⁵. This pilgrimage exposes it to grave danger but is required, since without it many of his friends will be eaten by Saarlacs. This pilgrimage also allows the arboreas to showcase its not inconsiderable mental powers; these powers place it far above both the discontentus and the polotropicus in telepathic, telekinetic, and televoric⁶ powers.

It is believed that an additional purpose for the arboreas returning to the desert to spawn but this has not been either observed or proven.

Identifying Characteristics:
The arboreas has very strong family loyalty, enjoys family reunions and will fight to the death to protect other members of its family. (At least the male will. The female arboreas is pretty lame, all in all, and doesn't do much.) The arboreas also tends to hallucinate and talk to ghosts. The arboreas is by far the most calm, cool, and rational of the three lukae subspecies; this may be due to its advanced intelligence or to the fact that it has a worse haircut than the other two and is thus less distracted by the opposite sex. It is more studious and much more powerful, as well, as is shown by the fact that most of its enemies soon end up being its prey (see below).

Be that as it may, the arboreas can be identified as easily by his ability to effortlessly summon the Force as by its sombre black coloring, but the most unmistakable indicator is that a twin arboreas suddenly appears beside it during a severe midlife crisis. The research team led by Dr's Yadda, D'dadda, and Sh'boom believe that the twin is spontaneously generated from the sudden excess of midichlorions that occurs due to stress when the arboreas turns thirty, in much the same way that Athena was said to have sprung full-blown from the mind of Zeus⁷. However, Micro Belaw, Regrel of Ortho, proposes a counter-opinion that the twin is in fact present since birth, it's just that she's generally off following the much more handsome H. Solo species and so is never around until then.

Natural Enemies:
The Thing in the Sand
Larger Hutt
Spacefaring Darksider
Tree-dwelling Darksider
Small Airborne Motorcycles
Evil Emperors

Prey:
The Thing in the Black Mask
Larger Hutt
Spacefaring Darksider
Tree-dwelling Darksider
Small Airborne Motorcycles
Evil Emporers

¹ For everyone except Imperial Stormtroopers, of course, who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a big stick at two paces.

²...and we all know what THEY're like...

³ This vocalization remains a mystery to researchers; since nothing can actually be grown in a desert, what "harvest" could they be referring to? Rev. Essej Nokcsaj postulates that it is a reference to "a long time ago in a galaxy far far away" when the lukae had a civilization on an alternate planet, but this planet has not been identified and Rev. Nokcsaj is not taken seriously by any credible scientists.

⁴ Evil beings have never been noted for either their aim or their intelligence. Which is fortunate for the Good Guys.

⁵ Prof. Xxxffffseeeezzz holds that this is a migration back to the spawning grounds of the discontentus, and that this proves the discontents, polotropicus, and arboreas are actually a single species. Dr. Beernau's response is a resounding "Ha ha!" and a rousing chorus of raspberries.

⁶ Televoric, lit. "distance eating", from the Latin "tele" or distant and "voros", devour. The arboreas is believe to be televoric since it is never actually seen to eat. Obviously this can't be proven, but given the limited range of comestibles available in its native habitat (drinks and canapes on the odd pleasure barge, leaves and twigs most other places) it's not surprising that the arboreas prefers to send its mind off virtual dining at, say, Big Jim's Diner on Rigel IV.

⁷ Acetaminophen had not yet been discovered, which might explain why Zeus spent a lot of time gnawing on willow trees, but makes you wonder why it's always women that say "Not tonight, I have a headache."

END