I'm trying to work out where the hutts get there power.

I get that they have 'underlings' to do stuff for them but to make any sense the *first* underlings have to fear the first hutts....

Given that the hutts can be outran by a particularly motivated snail, dont appear to have any fearsome weapons or psychic powers.. well how exactly did they not just become 'land whales' and prey animals on their planer given that *anything* with hands and legs could walk slowly backwards while pelting them with stones.

I just never understood how they could in any way of become an 'apex' race

Drugs....

What they take them or sell them?

If its the former... it better be a drug that turns them into a velociraptor and if its the latter they'd be the worlds worst dealer as you could run off and not pay them.....

According The Clone Wars show, Hutts are not just fat slugs, they are actually very muscular and can be very quick. They also are very intelligent and cunning.

This is something I always thought was strange. The great Jabba was killed by a small chick in a bikini. Why hadn't anybody overthrown him?

This is something I always thought was strange. The great Jabba was killed by a small chick in a bikini. Why hadn't anybody overthrown him?

As fat as he was? I'm pretty sure he could only be under thrown.

Why is the mafia run by Italians?

I would consider the Hutt cartel to be organized crime very similar to the mafia. Why would anyone follow one man? Power, respect, etc. One Italian mafia respects the other. Now that doesn't mean they will always get along.

Hutts could overthrow Hutts. There would be those loyal to the original Hutt who would seek revenge but a number would recognize the power of the new Hutt. If a human overthrew a Hutt he would form a new syndicate or mafia but it wouldn't be recognized by the Hutts. i.e. he wouldn't have respected territory. A new Hutt would move in to take the old one's place. Probably in turn starting a gang war.

His power wouldn't come from physical strength but rather ability to lead, organize, etc.. There would be an amount of fear of him also. Hutts are also very intelligent. Jabba even stood up to Jedi mind tricks.

This is something I always thought was strange. The great Jabba was killed by a small chick in a bikini. Why hadn't anybody overthrown him?

Probably by being a Lord Vetinari: hated by all but preferable to anybody else of your competitors and causing too much upheaval and chaos by dying. Don't be the man, be the man next to the man.

And of course promoting court intrigue, such as at the court of Louis XIV, keeping them occupied.

That wasn't just a scantily clad chick. Have you seen her father's midi-cholorian count?

No i totally get why Jabba is powerful, he has underlings, he has enforcrs to do his violence for him, he has money etc.

But to get to that point, and if we use the 'mafia' as an example... a long long time ago you have to have some very hard men going 'hey look, nice shop, shame if it burnt down, pay us 120 ducats and we'll make sure it doesnt happen'

The point being that power *usually* starts from pure physical roots.

The king of england isnt originally there in medievals times purely because his dad was king but because generations previous his grandads grandads grandads dad had the sharpest sword and the biggest muscles and went 'im king, give me your loyalty or ill kill you'

So my point is if the hutts are all like jabba... well they would be 'prey' in a primitve society and end up being wipd out or enslaved before you get to the sort of evolved civiliasation you have in star wars.

If the clone wars says they are fast and powerful when young then that makes sense.

Any pics of a non lethargic hutt?

You're leaving out wealth. I don't want to go too long on this because I just did anthropology qualifications exams today, but basically if you imagine that at some point Hutts developed wealth in some way, through trade or perhaps agricultural endeavors (or agricultural endeavors involving growing "medicinal" plants) then that wealth enables them to control others by created a sense of indebtedness, and the money also enables them to pay others to enforce that control. It's all about wealth with the Hutts, not physical prowess.

Maybe Hutts produce (or evolved from a species that produced ) some type of pheromones that makes any predators leave it alone or activly guard/hunt for the Hutt.

Either that or they were once humanoid before George Lucas cut that scene from "A new Hope"

If we can imagine the life cycle of the Hutts, it would make sense that the young and dumb would be highly capable of all kinds of movement. Otherwise how would they have developed spaceflight in the first place?

And yes: money begets power begets money begets control. The Mafia is basically dead, but Wall St. has turned their control of the the means of production into ownership of the American political process. It would make a great deal of sense for Hutt culture to encourage the use of wealth to perpetuate itself.

It still leaves the question of how Hutt power transfers between generations, but it seems easy to understand where it came from.

Yep i get the ideas why they are powerful now but again the point is to accrue wealth you initially need to be either very strong in order to protect it or live in a system of law and order in which someone strong will protect it for you.

The only way i can see Hutts becomming powerful is by becoming money lenders/speculators/businessmen on a civilised world and that there current physical form is an atrophied form of their original body type (one that would let them survive in an evolutionary manner) and they've become bloated and slug like because they havenot *had* to move for generations.

Thanks for all the ideas though, just helps me get my brain working over concepts.

Well, wookieepedia does state they are inedible and that would make them safe from predation during their early development as a species allowing them to rise to dominance on their own planet (though in typical SW style they are the most of everything with traits ladled upon traits making it a whole mess). Once achieving interstellar travel they'd use their ambition and intelligence to scheme their way to the top. You don't have to be strong, you have to be ruthless. Their take over of a different planet after their homeplanet became inhabitable is a good illustration of their abusing laws to the breaking point (it also shows the inherent weakness of the Republic by adhering too strictly to the laws and less to the intents thereof. The whole Republic and arrogance of the Jedi Council, which came to an end in the prequels reminded me a lot of the destruction that befell Krynn, though it is a recurring theme in storytelling).

Their size is then, in part, both their defense and a show of success, wealth and power. Their true power is not in their physical form but in their ruthlessness. .

See inebible makes sense, that would stop them being prey.

Yep i get the ideas why they are powerful now but again the point is to accrue wealth you initially need to be either very strong in order to protect it or live in a system of law and order in which someone strong will protect it for you.

The only way i can see Hutts becomming powerful is by becoming money lenders/speculators/businessmen on a civilised world and that there current physical form is an atrophied form of their original body type (one that would let them survive in an evolutionary manner) and they've become bloated and slug like because they havenot *had* to move for generations.

Thanks for all the ideas though, just helps me get my brain working over concepts.

You know what else stops soft, squishy, tasty, slow, weak things from being prey? Projectile weapons. Hutts are very smart. They probably developed weapons' technology early-on. Even though they aren't particularly strong, it's easy to make a projectile weapons system capable of killing predatory animals (and other Hutts) that doesn't rely much on physical prowess, even at a relatively low level of socioeconomic development. Actually, now that I think about it, that makes the most sense. Allow me to posit a scenario.

Let us assume that Hutts are as smart as we humans are. Let us also assume that their strength physically is less than ours (Leia killed Jabba after all, and he didn't fight back very effectively). In such a scenario, for the Hutts to survive against both predators and potentially other sapient species (drawing on the ugly guys from SWTOR), they would need a weapons system that was not reliant on strength, but which was capable of killing enemies at a distance. The first such weapon that we have in our world is the crossbow. So, let's say the Hutts invent the crossbow relatively early on (as some tribal peoples do today in the mountains of Vietnam, where crossbows may have been first invented). This has important implications for their societal development.

Crossbows are not based on skill to use (beyond a certain basic proficiency), they do not require great strength to operate (Tyrion in Game of Thrones anyone?) and they are perfectly lethal against any animal on the planet, up to and including elephants. They are also capable of armor penetration, which spelled the deaths of the knights of old. So, crossbows are the first egalitarian weapon, and they enable the with the most wealth to compile the most crossbowmen, and the weight of numbers will win the day, as it did in the Napoleonic wars (for the most part).

In this scenario, the Hutts would have developed early crossbow technology, which would have enabled a social system whereby wealth was the chiefest form of power, because anybody could kill anybody with a crossbow, and that means that having the most crossbowmen is the best way to stay on top of the system. The way to recruit crossbowmen would have been, in very early societies, with food surplus. The Hutt who grew the most food, or had access to the largest number of domesticated animals, would have had local prestige, which he would have maintained with feasting rituals, whereby the wealth was ritually shared with the community (see Hayden 1990 and Hayden 2003 on ritual foods, domestication and early complex societies). This feasting and show of abundance on the part of the Hutt would have created indebtedness amongst other villagers, who would have had to pay it back in the form of service of some kind - either military or otherwise. As military service through the collection of crossbowmen would have been closely tied with socio-political success, we can imagine that each petty Hutt chief was using his wealth to accumulate military forces, which were then used to dominate the opposition.

Such a scenario would have differentially selected for Hutts who are devious, ruthless, and good at amassing wealth, at the expense of other traits. Hutt society would also have been rooted, not in notions of chivalry and fair play (which we erroneously derive from the Middle Ages, but which is instructive nonetheless) but in notions of capitalism, back-room dealing, and ambush (projectile weapons work best in ambush contexts). Without big, strapping warriors, the ideal of the fair contest between powerful men would be something unfamiliar to the Hutts, even derisible. This then also accounts for their culture's comfort with ideas of organized crime, though the Hutts probably don't see it so much as crime but the most efficient way to accrue wealth and power.

This is something I always thought was strange. The great Jabba was killed by a small chick in a bikini. Why hadn't anybody overthrown him?

Funny thing-I remember reading some of the backstories for the members of Jabba's entourage, and almost all of them had a plot to kill him-I think Bib Fourtuna was planning to poison him, and the dancers had their own little plots. So Jabba was going to be killed by someone, the rebels just did it first.

They are also capable of armor penetration, which spelled the deaths of the knights of old.

Not the first hand-held projectile weapons to be so capable, though. The longbow scored that honor. But, as you say, the crossbow requires less training (as did the first matchlocks, which replaced the longbow), and, more to the point here, I really don't see a Hutt having the dexterity to handle a longbow (at least, not RoTJ Jabba...).

They are also capable of armor penetration, which spelled the deaths of the knights of old.

Not the first hand-held projectile weapons to be so capable, though. The longbow scored that honor. But, as you say, the crossbow requires less training (as did the first matchlocks, which replaced the longbow), and, more to the point here, I really don't see a Hutt having the dexterity to handle a longbow (at least, not RoTJ Jabba...).

Actually, I would argue that the crossbow was the first to be reliably armor-piercing. A medieval longbow certainly could penetrate certain armors at certain ranges, but this penetration was much more limited than it was for a crossbow. The longbow excelled primarily in its incredibly high rate of fire. It also had great range, though from my studies of medieval battles and my own experiences with longbows (I've been a competitive longbow archer with some national and a world title) I think longbows were primarily used at relatively close range when they were actually providing the kind of fire that would have killed armored men.

Actually, I would argue that the crossbow was the first to be reliably armor-piercing. A medieval longbow certainly could penetrate certain armors at certain ranges, but this penetration was much more limited than it was for a crossbow. The longbow excelled primarily in its incredibly high rate of fire. It also had great range, though from my studies of medieval battles and my own experiences with longbows (I've been a competitive longbow archer with some national and a world title) I think longbows were primarily used at relatively close range when they were actually providing the kind of fire that would have killed armored men.

Well, recall that English bowmen were required to practice, and be accurate, at ranges of 150-220 paces. Plus, unless they're suicidal (like Arvel letting Oicunn run into him), an archer isn't going to have a whole lot of time to let fly an arrow into a charging knight at point blank range, when a charging horse is doing 20+ mph. So, you've got to figure that most of the firing is likely to be done early in the battle, especially since the archers would frequently have units of pikemen stationed in front of them, making low-trajectory/short-range shots difficult at best.

Of course, we've got to make allowances for differences in draw weight (70lbs+; usually 150 for the English Yew bow), arrowhead type, and armor quality, not to mention lucky hits (say, Harold at Hastings), all of which can throw our research out the window.

Check out Secrets of the English War Bow by Hugh D.H. Soar and "Archery versus Mail: Experimental Archaeology and the Value of historical Context" by Russ Mitchell in The Journal of Medieval Military History (volume IV).

Actually, I would argue that the crossbow was the first to be reliably armor-piercing. A medieval longbow certainly could penetrate certain armors at certain ranges, but this penetration was much more limited than it was for a crossbow. The longbow excelled primarily in its incredibly high rate of fire. It also had great range, though from my studies of medieval battles and my own experiences with longbows (I've been a competitive longbow archer with some national and a world title) I think longbows were primarily used at relatively close range when they were actually providing the kind of fire that would have killed armored men.

Well, recall that English bowmen were required to practice, and be accurate, at ranges of 150-220 paces. Plus, unless they're suicidal (like Arvel letting Oicunn run into him), an archer isn't going to have a whole lot of time to let fly an arrow into a charging knight at point blank range, when a charging horse is doing 20+ mph. So, you've got to figure that most of the firing is likely to be done early in the battle, especially since the archers would frequently have units of pikemen stationed in front of them, making low-trajectory/short-range shots difficult at best.

Of course, we've got to make allowances for differences in draw weight (70lbs+; usually 150 for the English Yew bow), arrowhead type, and armor quality, not to mention lucky hits (say, Harold at Hastings), all of which can throw our research out the window.

Check out Secrets of the English War Bow by Hugh D.H. Soar and "Archery versus Mail: Experimental Archaeology and the Value of historical Context" by Russ Mitchell in The Journal of Medieval Military History (volume IV).

I've already read all those things and more. I actually think the distance argument is completely wrong. If you look at how English longbows were actually employed at the major battles of the Hundred Years War and prior, what you see is that archers were positioned in such a way that they couldn't be charged by knights, but could actually shoot back at close range with impunity - Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt all display this in abundance (the use of marshy ground that cannot be charged, the use of hedgerows of the sort you saw in Normandy in 1944, and the use of stakes in the ground). When the archers were in a position where they could be charged, they usually lost - Patay springs to mind. Dropping arrows at long range is simply not that effective a strategy. It is extremely inaccurate, and it has much lower kinetic energy than it does at close range. Plus, the design of medieval English arrows (whopping great big fletching) is precisely the opposite of what you want for long distance shooting.

Look at the actual textual accounts of the Hundred Years War from Froissart especially. Check out other books beyond Hugh Soar's treatment (I think he has a lot of stuff patently wrong). Probably the best book on the longbow is called "The Great Warbow." It deals with a lot of myths (some of which are perpetuated by Soar) and has some of the best accounts of the battles utilizing close readings of the primary texts.

By Matthew Strickland? I'll take a look, thanks for the suggestion!

By Matthew Strickland? I'll take a look, thanks for the suggestion!

Yep, that's the one. It's a massive tome, but it's absolutely phenomenal.