Join The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy Looking, Nerf Herders as they explore Star Wars lore via their own personal Holocron. This episode will focus on the Killiks.
Transcript
Cold Open
Long before humans built cities on Alderaan, an ancient insectoid collective quietly inhabited the stars—possessing a hive mind so intoxicating that it could rewrite the brains of Jedi, turning friends into puppet soldiers for a galactic war.
Intro
Welcome back to The Infernal Brotherhood of the Scruffy-Looking Nerf Herders. Today, we are opening a dark chapter from the Expanded Universe to explore one of the most terrifying, fascinating, and ancient species in Star Wars history: The Killiks—or as they refer to themselves, The Kind.
Discussion
Pre-Republic Beginnings & Celestial Slavery
To understand the Killiks, we have to travel back over 35,000 years before the Battle of Yavin—to the Pre-Republic era. Long before human colonists discovered the verdant world of Alderaan and found its iconic, empty giant spires, Alderaan—then known as Oroboro—was the center of Killik civilization.
But the Killiks were not alone in this primitive galaxy. During this ancient era, the hyper-advanced and god-like Celestials dominated the cosmos. Recognizing the massive labor potential of a unified hive species, the Celestials conscripted the Killik hives as slave laborers, seeding them up and down the Perl emian Trade Route. Under the direct guidance of powerful Celestial entities known as the Architects—specifically the Son and the Daughter—millions of Killiks were gifted specialized knowledge to construct immense, physics-defying wonders.
Architectural Masters of the Galaxy
Among these legendary projects was the massive repulsor station known as Centerpoint Station, which the Killiks referred to in their collective memory as Qolaraloq. Operating as a massive tractor beam capable of moving entire planets across hyper-dimensional space, Centerpoint was built primarily through Killik labor. The Thuruht hive—one of the oldest surviving Killik nests—retained memories of exactly how the Corellian system, or the “Five Rocks,” was artificially assembled using this technology.
Beyond Centerpoint, the Killiks helped construct Sinkhole Station, the Maw black hole cluster, the Vultar system, and mysterious ancient wonders like the World Puller, the Still Curtain, and the Chasm of Forever. Most notably, the Thuruht hive was actively involved in constructing the cosmic prison that held the chaotic Dark Side entity known as Abeloth.
Eventually, the rapidly reproducing Killiks began devouring their world’s resources and attempted to spread unchecked across neighboring systems. Following a mysterious rift—or perhaps an act of rebellion that angered their cosmic masters—the Celestials forcibly drove the Killiks off Oroboro. Stripped of their architectural guidance, the species descended into chaos and was banished deep into the dark voids of the Unknown Regions.
Biology, Pheromones, and the “Joiners”
Physically, Killiks are a marvel of genetic adaptation. Ranging from tiny fingerlings to mammoth bio-constructs as large as starships, the average Killik is a human-sized insectoid with a glossy chitinous exoskeleton, four clawed arms, and powerful mandibles.
But their true power isn’t their physical armor; it’s their neuro-chemical aura.
Killiks communicate instantly across vast distances through pheromones, electromagnetic waves, and telepathy. But these pheromones don’t just work on Killiks. When non-Killiks—like humans or Chiss—spend extended time around a hive, the pheromones physically alter their brain structure, specifically targeting and restructuring the corpus callosum.
These affected individuals become “Joiners.” Joiners lose their individual identity, absorbing the hive’s collective desires, memories, and emotions. Even powerful Force-users aren’t immune. When Jacen Solo and a group of young Jedi knights encountered the Killiks in the Unknown Regions, they were swiftly absorbed into the collective, genuinely believing that the Killiks were “dangerous friends, but no one’s enemy.”
The Dark Nest Crisis & The Swarm War
Fast forward to 35 ABY. The Yuuzhan Vong War had left the galaxy scarred, and the Killiks re-emerged from the Unknown Regions, expanding aggressively into Chiss territory.
Unknown to Grand Master Luke Skywalker and the Galactic Alliance, a secret, sinister hive called the Gorog—or the Dark Nest—had taken control of the Killik collective from the shadows. Led by former Dark Jedi Raynar Thul and Lomi Plo, the Dark Nest manipulated the entire species into a bloody confrontation known as the Swarm War.
The conflict pushed the New Jedi Order to its absolute limits. Luke Skywalker was forced to take up the mantle of Grand Master with absolute authority to purge the Dark Nest’s influence, leading to a brutal military campaign that nearly wiped out the Kind once and for all.
The Killiks remain one of the most chilling concepts in Star Wars lore—a reminder that in the uncharted depths of the galaxy, there are forces that can strip away the very thing that makes us individuals.
Outro
And that’s all the time we have today to explore The Killik. Thank you for watching. We’d like to invite you to click the like button, and don’t forget to subscribe to this youtube channel and click the bell icon to get notified when we upload another Star Wars Holocron lore episode.
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Until The Infernal Brotherhood convenes again, my fellow scruffy-looking Nerf Herders,
May the Force be with you.