Are the humans in the Star Wars Galaxy really humans?

Question

Related: Why are there humans in the Star Wars Universe?

This is a subtly different question because I'm not asking whether there's a historical relationship between the two lineages.

I am asking this question because answers to these questions:

How did Anakin think the power to cheat death would be helpful?

When was Luke Skywalker conceived?

are making assumptions about the appearance of Padme while pregnant, the period of gestation, and appearance of newborn babies.

All of these presuppose that the "humans" of the Star Wars Galaxy are 100% biologically equivalent to us. In fact, as far as I know, we don't actually know any of those facts from canon. (Do we?) All we know is that "human" children and adults look like us.

So, do we have any canon or out-of-universe commentary that tells us that Star Wars humans and Earth humans are biologically equivalent?

Another way to put this would be

If presented with a Star Wars human and a Milky Way human, would the best doctors or the best medical droids be able to distinguish them?

My original basis was that midi-chlorians are more like symbionts or organelles and therefore don't impact the humanness of the host. — ThePopMachine, Dec 11 '15 at 16:18
Oh yay! It's the ole downvote bandwagon. I have removed the source of the original criticism, folks. — ThePopMachine, Dec 11 '15 at 16:25
@ThePopMachine: well, you’ve removed the source of my criticism. There may well be other criticisms that people think so obvious they don’t even need to explain it! — Paul D. Waite, Dec 11 '15 at 16:44
This is a pretty great question. The only label I recall hearing being applied to humans (and in this case, only some humans) was Corellian - which seems to indicate the planet a person was born on rather than what species they are. I assume that "human" is implicit since we can relate more easily to those characters while we hear "Wookie", "Bothan", and "Ewok" explicitly mentioned often enough. — Ellesedil, Dec 11 '15 at 17:53
Actually, @Ellesedil, they do say human. For example, in the undeleted scene between Han and Jabba, Jabba, you're a wonderful human being.. The question is essentially whether human is an translation or approximation or they are literally supposed to be human in the biological sense. — ThePopMachine, Dec 11 '15 at 18:05
@Richard: I'm not sure that the answer in that question applies because I can't recall or find any reference to books or movies called "Phantom Menace" or "Attack of the Clones". Are those fanfics? — Ellesedil, Dec 11 '15 at 20:39
@ThePopMachine - Would you also define real-life mitochondria as "symbionts or organelles" and therefore not really part of our biology? We would after all die if our mitochondria suddenly vanished... — Hypnosifl, Apr 10 '16 at 05:54
Instead of all these semantics about "do they really mean human when they say human" the question should be asking if they are homo sapiens — Joshua, Apr 11 '16 at 02:10
@Joshua, without you defining how you perceive human and homo sapiens to mean different things, I don't know how to respond to this. — ThePopMachine, Apr 11 '16 at 14:48
@Hypnosifl: What are you getting at? Whether I say yes or no, we don't know whether Star Wars Galaxy 'humans' have mitochrondria (AFAIK) so how does it impact the question? — ThePopMachine, Apr 11 '16 at 14:50
@ThePopMachine sorry I thought it would be pretty clear. One is the technical species, which would be purely biological, genetic. Saying human can sometimes only refer to the nature of a human or the appearance of a human. For example, in Farscape the "humans" that the main character finds are actually descended from humans on earth, but they are different enough that they could not be classified homo sapiens. Star wars humans could be related, but with small differences like you list, gestation, maturation, lifespan, etc. They could be homo lucasans instead. — Joshua, Apr 11 '16 at 15:28
@ThePopMachine so you are really asking if they are the same genetic stock as us, homo sapiens. Just a suggestion to clarify if you are not getting the answers you are looking for for due to this point of confusion. I think you explain it fine. Just thought adding the species name would be more technical and avoid the "human being" confusion. — Joshua, Apr 11 '16 at 15:29
@Joshua: No, I think you are conceiving this a very specific way which makes sense to you, but isn't a given. Read the question again. I don't think there's anything ambiguous about the question 'Could a medical expert tell the difference?" It doesn't matter how that came to be. — ThePopMachine, Apr 11 '16 at 15:46
As you probably know, unless you give the bounty to M.A. Golding, my answer (though it's not really ideal) will get half of it. Could you consider awarding the bounty, so as not to let the other half go to waste? — Adamant, Apr 17 '16 at 17:52

Valorum · Answer 1 · 2017-07-26T20:14:28.270

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The canon answer is no.

Per the (fully Disney canon) Star Wars Made Easy factbook, the "humans" we see in the Star Wars universe are definitively not biologically related to humans from Earth.

ARE THE HUMANS THERE "US"?

You mean, did they come from Earth and have our history? No, they're in a galaxy far, far away—I thought we covered this! These humans are not related to us at all, though they are anatomically identical, which probably made casting the movies a lot easier.

The latter part of the quote also addresses your question about the biological differences. Aside from their possession of midi-chlorians (which can be tested for), humans in the Star Wars galaxy can't be distinguished from those on Earth.

edited Jul 26 '17 at 20:14

answered Jul 26 '17 at 20:05

Valorum

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Your quote explicitly calls them humans several times, and also mentions that they are "anatomically identical," explicitly mentioned in the question ("could the best doctors distinguish them") – Adamant Jul 26 '17 at 20:08
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@Adamant - I've addressed the latter part of the question. Humans on Earth don't have midi-chlorians. Aside from that they're "anatomically identical" – Valorum Jul 26 '17 at 20:10
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@Adamant They're not humans as humans are Homo Sapiens. They are not homosapiens – Edlothiad Jul 26 '17 at 20:30
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Yes, but except for the midi-chlorians, they basically are human (and are referred to as such in that very passage). As such, the title of the answer should be "mostly," in my opinion. – Adamant Jul 26 '17 at 21:43
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@Adamant - If I make a burger that's identical to a Big Mac, that doesn't make it an actual Big Mac. – Valorum Jul 26 '17 at 21:44
Well, this is ambiguous because anatomy means "the branch of science concerned with the bodily structure". "Anatomically identical" can be as distinguished from "physiologically identical". The fact they are anatomically identical doesn't necessarily mean a trained doctor with the right tools wouldn't be able to tell the difference. – ThePopMachine Jul 26 '17 at 22:38
@ThePopMachine - Sure. A midi-chlorian detector ;-) – Valorum Jul 26 '17 at 22:42
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@Valorum: The thing is, the OP explicitly says "I'm not asking whether there's a historical relationship between the two lineages". Yes/No answers are hard to do effectively on SE anyway (which question are you responding to with the header? "Are the humans in the Star Wars Galaxy really humans?" That's just the title, and you don't seem to be interpreting it in the way the OP intended. "If presented with a Star Wars human and a Milky Way human, would the best doctors or the best medical droids be able to distinguish them?" The answer seems to be "mostly no, but midichlorians mean yes") – wyvern Jul 26 '17 at 23:17
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Also, ThePopMachine said in a comment "My original basis was that midi-chlorians are more like symbionts or organelles and therefore don't impact the humanness of the host". Anyway, my point is that it's confusing for an answer to a question titled "Are the humans in the Star Wars Galaxy really humans?" to start out with a yes-no answer before it's been made clear that the answer uses a different definition of "human" than the question. – wyvern Jul 26 '17 at 23:18
@Valorum, I'd like to bring this related meta to your attention. – SQB Jul 27 '17 at 07:13
@Valorum: Well, yes, but you could have a totally different biochemistry and still have exactly the same body plan and structures and that would still qualify as the same "anatomy" while being easily determined with basic chemical tests, the use of a microscope, smell, etc... Anatomy and physiology could be totally unrelated. – ThePopMachine Jul 27 '17 at 14:36
@Valorum - It does for all reasonable purposes. Just because it doesn’t have the McDonald’s imprimatur, you wouldn’t call it a Big Mac? – Adamant Jul 27 '17 at 18:41
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@Adamant - Only McDonald's can make a Big Mac since part of the definition is "made by McDonald's". What you've made is a facsimile. – Valorum Jul 27 '17 at 18:43
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I personally find this whole Q&A perplexing. I can all but guarantee that, except for the matter of midi-chlorians, no current, past, or future writer for Star Wars will intentionally write an aspect of human biology in Star Wars that differs from that of human biology on Earth, right down to gestation periods and the appearance of babies. People can have that as their head-canon - right up to the point that it is brutally and indeed incidentally debunked by canon writers. The canon source even specifically mentioned that they were anatomically identical, just to dispel such doubts. – Adamant Jul 27 '17 at 18:44
@Valorum In the book A New Hope, Ben makes the comment to Luke "Still, even a duck has to be taught to swim" to which Luke replies "What's a duck?". Does this not suggest some kind of link with humanity? Admittedly it is a small throw away line which is not of importance to the story. – May 15 '19 at 19:40
@jim - In this book, Ben is Owen's brother and there's a whole host of other stuff that was retconned out by the time the actual film had made it to cinemas – Valorum May 15 '19 at 19:43
@sumelic, how do you know we don't have midichlorians? Do you have a midichlorian detector? – Jetpack Oct 14 '19 at 21:06
@Jetpack - I checked and you don't have any midi-chlorians. – Valorum May 12 '21 at 18:40

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 10 '16 at 03:48

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I can't be sure, but the evidence indicates that they are really human.

Pablo Hidalgo is in charge of maintaining the coherence of canon in Star Wars following the Disney acquisition. According to him, speaking of Depa Billaba:

Chalactan is a culture and heritage. She is biologically human.

We should assume that Pablo Hidalgo means "human" in its usual sense. If Billaba is human, it makes sense to assume that the various individuals who resemble her in the Star Wars universe are human.

answered Apr 10 '16 at 03:48

Adamant

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I don't think you can assume he means "human" in the real-world sense, since "human" is standard lingo for characters like Luke and Han in Star Wars. I think he just means "biologically the same race as other 'human' characters in Star Wars". – Hypnosifl Apr 10 '16 at 05:51
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I agree with @Hypnosifl's determination. This particular quote doesn't add anything except to give another example of the use of the word human for Star Wars Galaxy species. It doesn't tell us if it's literally true or just a translation/convention/approximation. – ThePopMachine Apr 11 '16 at 14:53
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"It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is." -- Bill Clinton – Paul Jul 26 '17 at 20:17
@Hypnosifl Han is referred to as a Corellian. – May 15 '19 at 19:42
The linked tweet has been deleted. – galacticninja Jul 20 '22 at 09:10

Are the humans in the Star Wars Galaxy really humans?

2 Answers2

The canon answer is no.

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