#another day another thanos i'll do it myself-ing of cara dune content

[ooops-i-arted]

“I’m not a ‘joiner,’ Blue.”

Thinking about this line of Cara’s, because I have subtitles on when I work on ACCPOV and noticed they chose to emphasize the word “joiner” as above.  Now it could just be a choice to visually show emphasis, BUT I also play Star Wars The Old Republic, so it made me think of Killik Joiners.

On Alderaan there is an insectoid species called Killiks who are capable of “joining” others to their hive mind by using pheromones to alter the corpus callosum.  The victim does not have to be willing for this to occur either.  The Alderaanians had no qualms about fighting against the Killiks when needed to protect themselves.  A quick Wookieepedia check seems to say they were extinct by Cara’s time (about 3000 years after SWTOR), but somehow I doubt that “terrifying giant bugs that will mindwipe you” left the collective Alderaanian consciousness, or only survived via moss paintings like Killik Twilight.  Maybe little Cara was terrorized by an older friend or cousin the way kids do by tales of the scary giant insects that come in the night, snatch up misbehaving children, and force them to join their hive.

That makes me wonder if “joining” has certain connotations for Alderaanians in certain contexts.  In the scene where Cara says she’s “not a joiner” she doesn’t seem to have a very positive view of rejoining New Republic forces.  So maybe it’s not just “I don’t want to join” but “I don’t want to join because I feel I would just be a drone in a hive/a cog in a machine, instead of the real good I’ve been doing here on Nevarro with Greef as an independent thinker/valued teammate.”  Adds an interesting flavor to it and makes me want to know even more what made her change her mind?  Because a few episodes later she has joined the New Republic.  (Even if she drops that immediately as soon as Din asks lol.)

I’m probably putting too much thought into this one line, but ain’t that half the fun?