Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Ahsoka Episode 6.
The Big Picture
- Ahsoka Episode 6 introduces the Noti, a new alien species that resembles bipedal hermit crabs and adds to the diverse cast of creatures in the Star Wars universe.
- The Noti become important allies for Sabine and Ezra as they help Sabine find Ezra and navigate their way through the unfamiliar territory of Peridea.
- While the Noti might not play a major role in future episodes, they contribute to the world-building of Star Wars and make the galaxy feel more cohesive and familiar.
Star Wars has tons of inventive alien species, with more being introduced in each project. It’s only reasonable that a massive galaxy-spanning series would have a colorful cast to fill it out. While most of the creatures we tend to see characters interact with skew toward humanoid in appearance, the franchise’s 50-year tenure has offered plenty of opportunities to see a whole host of unique alien designs from the sentient to the wildlife — and Ahsoka Episode 6 has just given us our newest alien species.
Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson) herself is noticeably absent from this episode after a brief intro sequence, still en route to catch up with Sabine. Instead, we spend most of the episode on a distant planet. Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) has taken the leap across galaxies with Baylan Skoll (Ray Stevenson), his apprentice Shin Hati (Ivanna Sakhno), and the Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth (Diana Lee Inosanto), who are on a mission to track down Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen). They arrive at the distant, unfamiliar planet of Peridea, a place the Purrgil use as a burial ground. Here, Thrawn has been building his forces and preparing for a chance to return to his home galaxy, but Sabine doesn’t really care about that. She’s here for Ezra (Eman Esfandi) so she takes off riding another species native to the planet, a sort of dog/horse hybrid called a howler, in order to find her long-lost friend — but what she finds first is even more adorable: the Noti.
Who Are the Noti in ‘Ahsoka’?
Sabine is in completely unfamiliar territory, alone and out of her depth, so it’s great she has a companion who can help her out. Right as Sabine is starting to lose faith in her ability to find Ezra, she and the howler find themselves at a riverbed. At first, it seems barren, but then the howler approaches a strange rock and the rock jumps up! It’s no rock at all, but a Noti. The appearance of these species is like a bipedal hermit crab. They stand to just over knee-height and the majority of their appearance is dominated by the large rock-like shell on its back. They’re small, cute, and, most importantly, friendly.
The Noti notices the Rebel symbol on Sabine’s Mandalorian armor and calls out to its friends. They recognize it and when Sabine asks if they know Ezra Bridger, they begin to lead her to their village, made of a bunch of small encampments. Their homes are shell-shaped as well and, though cautious, the Noti are accepting of the outsider in their midst. There’s quite a number of Noti in this community; we even see one rocking a baby with giant bug-eyes. Despite the language barrier, they help Sabine and reunite her with Ezra, who tells her a little more about them, as he’s been living with them for a while. The Noti are pretty low on the food chain here; Sabine’s howler would’ve eaten them if she hadn’t stopped it. They’re also nomadic, moving their small village from place to place for safety. The Noti are definitely unique creatures, and they help to flesh out this world far, far away from what we know, but they still feel quintessentially Star Wars.
The Noti Are Classic Dave Filoni Star Wars Creatures
This franchise is no stranger to weird alien designs. We’ve been seeing aliens like the Twi’lek or Mon Calamari in recent episodes of Ahsoka, but the animated shows naturally pushed this emphasis on neat creature design even further. As episodic shows, both The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels featured a number of one-off plots about the main characters helping out a specific planet or community and this almost always came with a unique alien design we haven’t seen before.
Some become mainstays in the series, like the Togruta that Ahsoka hails from, or the Weequay, who look mostly humanoid but with a bark-like texture to their skin and spikes on their jaws. But there are a lot more minor species that look stranger and help to make these stories feel like they’re existing on a massive scope, with all kinds of creatures populating this universe. Take, for instance, the Lurmen, a pacifistic species of sentient aliens that look like Lemurs, or the Geonosians, a caste-based society of winged insect people who live underground. They only show up for short stints, yet they still have distinct appearances and cultures that make them feel more developed even as background characters.
A lot of the aliens in the animated shows from Ahsoka creator Dave Filoni have a visual basis in animals from our own planet, so the Noti with their distinct resemblance to hermit crabs, feel right at home with the kinds of creatures we’ve come to expect from these stories. It’s nice to see Ahsoka populated not just with familiar faces but a bunch of smaller, world-building similarities that lend to a sense of cohesion even across mediums.
There’s a chance that the Noti will get a chance to play a role in the coming episodes. As one of the few allies Sabine and Ezra have found out here, they’re a valuable asset even if they can’t fight. Brief stints in welcoming villages are a staple of Star Wars at this point, especially the more recent live-action shows, so we might get to explore a bit more of the Noti culture now that we have Ezra to aid in translating their language. But there’s also the chance it will lead to nothing. A lot of the aliens we see exist more as set dressing than actual characters, and that’s okay. Sometimes creatures exist to contribute to the world more than to stand as individuals. Still, the Noti are a fun and refreshing addition to Ahsoka that, more than anything, help this distant galaxy feel just a little more familiar.
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Khushi Patel is a science fiction author who lives in Austin, Texas. She has published three novels, and her work has been praised for its originality and imagination. Khushi is a graduate of Rice University, and she has worked as a software engineer. She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and her books have been nominated for several awards.
