Summa-verminoth

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"Wh...What is that?"
"The endgame, Admiral. It's a subspecies of the Summa-verminoth. The galaxy's greatest predator."

―Admiral Corleque and Sly Moore^[src]

Summa-verminoth were a gigantic, space-faring species of legend that dwelled in the Akkadese Maelstrom around the planet Kessel. With numerous eyes and electrified tentacles that they used to ensnare prey, summa-verminoth were often misunderstood creatures. In 10 BBY, after the Raid on Kessel, Beckett's gang accidentally awakened a summa-verminoth in the Maelstrom, whilst aboard the Millennium Falcon. Han Solo, the ship's pilot at the time, endured a chase with the creature until he lured it into the Maw Cluster gravity well using the Falcon's escape pod. The Maw's gravitational pull tore the skin from the summa-verminoth's skeleton before the creature was destroyed entirely.

Biology and appearance[]

Summa-verminoth were a massive, space-borne species that lived in the Akkadese Maelstrom, a cluster of matter that encompassed the planet Kessel.^[3] At 7,432 meters long,^[2] they sported multiple eyes and numerous large tentacles.^[4] A summa-verminoth's tentacles were armed with suckers and electrified stingers, which they used to trap prey^[5] and satiate their voracious appetite.^[6]

History[]

"See if it goes for this."
"No, what are you doing, that's the escape pod!""
"I know."
"Then why'd you do it?"

―Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, after the former jettisons an escape pod^[src]

Due to their size and appetite, the often misunderstood summa-verminoth were embedded in legends of what starship crews might have encountered within the Akkadese Maelstrom.^[6] In 10 BBY,^[7] Han Solo and the rest of Beckett's gang unintentionally awakened a summa-verminoth near the Maw Cluster, while escaping Kessel in the Millennium Falcon. The individual had come to the Maw untold eons ago, drawn to it. The Maw entranced the creature and it eventually fell into a dream-like state out of longing.^[8] After awakening in hunger, the massive creature pursued the ship and its crew, until Solo flew the Falcon near the vicinity of the gravity well. He then ejected the Falcon's escape pod, which the creature chased instead, right into the gravity well. The summa-verminoth was caught by the well's pull and its skin was torn from its skeleton, before the rest of its body was consumed in turn.^[4]

Behind the scenes[]

"The jellyfish in the Kessel Run, again, came from throwing dumb ideas out in a meeting. I literally opened my sketchbook and pitched, 'What if the Falcon had to fly through a jellyfish?' [laughs] 'Yeah. All right. OK.' But we come back and, 'There's a jellyfish in the presentation.'"

―James Clyne^[src]

Concept art of what became the summa-verminoth.

The summa-verminoth first appeared in the 2018 Star Wars Anthology film Solo: A Star Wars Story. Nicknamed "Space-o-pus" by the film's crew, the summa-verminoth was not originally in the script, but was a late addition approved by director Ron Howard. The creature's death scene, in which its skin is ripped from its skull, was conceived by design supervisor James Clyne as a partial nod to the Indiana Jones franchise.^[9]