Neimoidian

"Neimoidians are a slippery lot, but the Jedi will wear him down."

- Clone Commander Gree concerning the Jedi's interrogation of Viceroy Nute Gunray

Neimoidians were a humanoid species native to the planet of Neimoidia, while also settling wealthy purse-worlds like Cato Neimoidia. They had smooth noseless faces, mottled green-gray skin, and large red-orange eyes. In the waning years of the Galactic Republic, they ran the Trade Federation, a vast consortium of business interests. As such, they ended up joining the Confederacy of Independent Systems and helped start the Clone Wars.

Biology and appearance
The Neimoidians were a sentient species. They were humanoid in form, having two arms, two legs, a torso and a single head. They had smooth, mottled green-gray skin and large, red-orange eyes with a pupil that split it horizontally. Adult individuals were known to be tall, ranging from 1.9 to 2.11 meters. Neimoidians had long, bony hands with five pointed fingers, one of which was an opposable thumb. Overall, they looked very similar to the Duros, a species of thin, tall humanoids with slit mouths, large eyes and no nose. Although many Neimoidians were lean, obese individuals were not unheard of.

Raised in hives before taking their adult form, Neimoidians spent the first seven years of life as "grubs," maggot-like larvae that were forced to compete with each other over a limited food supply. Only those that hoarded the most food survived.

Society and Culture
"These Federation types are cowards. The negotiations will be short."

- Qui-Gon Jinn

Throughout the galaxy, the Neimoidians were known for their business skills and their greed. They wore elaborate, flaunting clothes that included hats, cloaks and drapes. They had no qualms about enslaving other sentients. Neimoidian office drones were given a restricted diet to ensure that they never fully emerged from their grub stage, and, to enforce competitiveness, Neimoidian work overseers assigned identical work to two teams of worker drones, with the incentive that the successful teams eats the other. High-ranking Neimoidians often owned mechno-chairs, a type of self-propelled chair that moved on a set of four articulated legs.

History
The Neimoidians hailed from Neimoidia, a planet centrally located in the Colonies region of the galaxy. They colonized several nearby worlds, which were referred to as "purse-worlds." One of those colony planets was the fog-covered Cato Neimoidia. In ancient times, they occupied the planet of Narq and enslaved its natives, the Narquois.

In the last decades of the Galactic Republic, the Neimoidians were at the helm of the Trade Federation, a wealthy and influential commerce guild. Toward the end of Finis Valorum's mandate as Supreme Chancellor of the Republic, the Federation's viceroy, a Neimoidian named Nute Gunray, allied himself with a mysterious figure known as Darth Sidious. The resulting crisis led to the election of Senator Palpatine&mdash;who was in fact Sidious' public persona&mdash;as the new chancellor. Ten years later, the Neimoidians of the Trade Federation had joined the Confederacy of Independent Systems, an alliance of solar systems that wanted to secede from the Republic.

Neimoidians in the galaxy
Because of the way they were educated, Neimoidians made ruthlessly effective merchants. The other side of the coin was that many other species despised them for their selfishness.

Non-canon appearances

 * William Shakespeare's The Phantom of Menace: Star Wars Part the First