Yesterday, the citizens of the Galactic Empire and beyond were shocked by a controversial photo that took the social media by storm. This image depicts a censored female Tynnan wearing nothing but a hat and boots, overlooking one of the many temples located in the Valley of the Dark Lords on Korriban, a cultural heritage site for the Galactic Empire. This act of defiance against one of the most powerful governments of the Galaxy carried out by a single individual has sent a powerful message across the holonet.

The photo in question, with the uncanny censoring.

Tynnans are the newest race to embrace interstellar travel and actively shape their destiny on a galactic scale. As such, they have been exposed to many cultural and technological shocks. One of the most impactful realizations was the fact, that speciesism is still an accepted and valid viewpoint in many parts of the Galaxy, even being ingrained in several galactic societies, with the most prevalent being the Galactic Empire.

The Species Policy (also known as SP-14) divides the citizens into three distinct cadres: Class-A citizens (human races) enjoy the full citizenship rights, Class-B citizens (near-Human races, or, as the Empire puts it, those “sharing a genetically common evolutionary pattern to humans) are treated very similarly to their Class-A counterparts, with the only major difference being their somewhat limited career options. Class-C citizens (whose genetic patterns differ from a human’s) are granted bare-bone rights in addition to the “authority to be enslaved subject to proper Slaver Permit”. In short, those citizens who do not share the vast majority of their genes with the human race can be subjected to slavery based on race alone. The Tynnans are considered Class-C citizens and many have already spoken out against this baseless bias, but none had done so in a manner publicly disrespecting the Empire’s culture, until now.

Having made several protests against speciesism in the past, the charismatic Tynnan Woody Talon Beavus the third has decided to step the game up a notch. ‘Operation: Bareback Mountain’ revolved around hiring a smuggler group to photograph her posing in direct view of one of the most sacred Imperial locations, with the majority of her body censored. Once the images were released on the holonet, the young Tynnan activist was showered in both direct and indirect feedback, ranging from expressions of support to death threats aimed at her and her relatives. KrathNet has invited the courageous sentient into the studio for an interview.

“Let’s get the big question out of the way. Why’d you do it?”

“It all started out as this crazy idea in my head. We’ve organized a few anti-speciesism events in the past, but none of them were as direct and up-front as this one, so it never really felt like we’ve made a change. So I figured I’d attack the root of all evil, which is the culture that actively grows and cultivates violence and mistreatment based on race.”

“Was it difficult to get on Korriban?”

“Very. We had to smuggle ourselves in, make the shots and get out before they realized what we were doing. In hindsight, we were very lucky.”

“How so?”

“We managed to get our hands on some logs detailing the transport of supplies onto Korriban, so we smuggled ourselves in that way. When we were done, we hopped back into the ship and got out of there as fast as possible.”

“There’s a lot of discussion surrounding the arguably pointless censorship used in the picture. Was there any particular reason for that?”

“Definitely. You see, Tynnans, Wookies, Ortolans, and many other races don’t feel the cultural necessity for clothing, since we have fur to keep us warm. It’s fairly common for us to not wear clothes, save for some utility belts and the like. Of course, this just gives another argument to those, who would call those races primitive, sub-par. *Imitating a whiny-high pitched noise* Oh look, they don’t even wear clothes, ewww, they’re so primitive and stoooopid, let’s enslave them… By adding an unneeded censorship layer over what is culturally acceptable, I figured the people of the Galaxy would start questioning their state of minds towards furred non-humanoids.”

“The speciesist aspect aside, how are your people acclimatizing to the Galaxy as a whole? Is the reception similar to what you expected, or…?”

“Oh it’s a lot different. But at the same time, it’s kinda similar. I mean, you have so many different races and cultures to get used to, it can get kinda overwhelming. There’s a lot of positivity and helpful attitudes coming from all over the place, but I would be lying if I said that kindness and politeness has been the only behavior I’ve come across. If I had to recount all the times I have been called a ‘hairy beaver’…”

“Last two questions before we conclude the interview: What is the single biggest surprise you’ve encountered on your travels so far and, apart from the speciesism, what would you change in the Galaxy?”

“Hmmm. My biggest surprise would probably be alcohol. I mean, we have the stuff back on Tynna as well, I just never thought it could be drunk, you know? We just put it in the barrels to make the wood taste better. As for the thing I would change, there’s a ton of them. But you can’t do everything at once, so I chose to focus on fighting the fight against baseless prejudice. But I have a lot of pet peeves. Take the Tabder-class Heavy Hauler. Dam it, what is a Tabder anyway? With how it looks like, all lumbering around, it may as well be called, like, an Elephant-class Hauler or something like that. But that’s just me rambling… *laughs*”

“Miss Beavus, I thank you for your time and wish you luck in your future endeavors.”

“Thanks Mr. News-person. See ya out there.”