Focusing on the IDIC and basic Vulcan philosophy, which celebrates the vast array of variables within the Star Trek universe, join us for a series of interviews to highlight the unique alien species found within our Fleet. Our goal is to give you an insight into the different species within the Starbase 118 community; including the reasons behind choosing a certain species and what challenges, and rewards, playing as a member of that species can bring.
For the next installment in this series, we are hearing from the writer behind Lieutenant JG Gnai, a Galadoran who currently serves on board the USS Artemis-A as a Science Officer.
Matthews: Thank you so much for joining us for this interview. Why don’t you tell us a little about the writer behind the character — where in the world do you hail from and what drew you to SB118?
Gnai: Thank you for having me! As I’ve said before, I’m situated in the Midwest of the USA, right in the heartland. I’ve been into Trek since I was a little kid over a decade ago, and I’ve been into roleplay since even before that (got my start pretending to be warrior cats on forums), so it was only a matter of time that I’d end up here at some point!
Matthews: So, Gnai is the only member of the Galadoran species within the Fleet; it’s a species that is only mentioned in passing during one episode of Deep Space Nine. What was it that attracted you to such an obscure species?
Gnai: I’ll be completely transparent, it’s partially a very selfish reason. As a writer, I love worldbuilding so I wanted to be able to shape a species, and not have to worry about stepping on toes, or having decades of canon to keep in mind. The Galadorans were fresh, new, and completely unexplored in canon — which meant that I could do (basically) whatever I wanted to with them. There were a few details on the wiki that I fell in love with as well, like them having fled a catastrophe on their original homeworld, and finding a new one across the galaxy. If you were around for the last writing contest, my entry into it explored that exodus.
Additionally, when I joined, I came in knowing that I wanted to write something alien. There weren’t many options in the ILI that felt alien enough (there were a few others that I had in mind before I looked, but were not on the permitted list — I’ve got plans for them someday, like with my PNPC Kobali), except the Galadorans, predominantly because they are a non-humanoid species. The idea of running around stuck in a tank, dependent on that for survival, stuck in my mind and I kept revisiting it constantly when I was applying…
I also really liked the idea of limited telepathy. Galadorans are only able to broadcast their thoughts to other species, not read them. It’s really fun to break that out, every so often, and remind the crew that it can talk to them without the suit, and to freak out Lt. Sadar a little as she worries that it might be able to read her thoughts (and realize that sometimes she looks at it and thinks about lunch).
With regards to telepathy, I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting and developing ideas about Galadoran linguistics and how that might differ from our own. As a species that desires to return to being a hivemind, and that already exists as a clonal colony, there’s a lot less emphasis on the individual, which I wanted to reflect in how Gnai speaks to others through both the suit’s clanky way of interpreting its speech, and its own direct thoughts when it speaks telepathically. If you’ve ever read a sim of mine in which it’s talking about “I ::partial::”, that’s what I’m talking about — Galadorans have different personal pronouns than we do, ones that encode information about if the speaker is referencing a single Galadoran or the entirety of the species as a single being, as well as how many Galadorans a “we” might be referencing. It’s a bit convoluted, but I enjoy it!
Matthews: Were there any other potential species that Gnai could have been or was it always going to be a Galadoran?
Gnai: There was absolutely no other species that it could have been. Gnai was written as a Galadoran from the very start, as I wanted to explore how such an alien culture might interact with the rest of the galaxy, and how someone with such an odd world view might interact with other people aboard a vessel. One of the other things that really drew me to the Galadorans was their desire to become a hive-mind again. When I was working up my idea for Gnai, I thought it was such an interesting and novel motivation for a species, and that there was a lot of room to explore in sims what that sort of would look like, and how someone who desired (at least a little) to leave behind their individuality might interact with the world.
Matthews: The Galadorans are a very unique Star Trek species. The Wiki itself comments on their similarities to the ‘jelly-fish’ of Earth. Have you found information about the invertebrates useful when writing for Gnai? And do you have any favourite facts about the species that you’d like to share?
Gnai: I have!! Whenever I’m curious about what might happen to Gnai physically, I generally go look up scientific papers on how a jellyfish might be affected. One notable incident was during Frontier Day: Gnai had been rescued from its Borg-assimilated suit, and needed to be put in liquid to transport… and the first thing that was within reach in the Kitty Hawk’s sickbay was an old pot of coffee. After that happened, I decided to actually look into how caffeine might affect a jellyfish, and lo and behold, there was an academic article about just that! I had a ton of fun writing Gnai getting sluggish, much to the surprise of the others, as caffeine actually causes jellyfish to be less active and to slow down their body functions.
Another thing that really influenced me from the beginning was how Galadorans ate. Jellyfish eat in a very interesting way, either passively just sucking up smaller animals as they swim, or pulling them in with their tendrils. I have written the suit that Gnai wears to have the capability of dispensing food into the water of its tank, so it can swim around and eat it. But it’s not exactly a pretty sight — whenever Gnai has just eaten one of its favorite Earth delicacies (roe), you can see the little fish eggs bobbing around in its bell as they’re slowly digested.
Speaking of diet, Galadorans being based on predominantly carnivorous animals posed an interesting worldbuilding question for them in my mind. How would they be able to survive on a world that’s totally different from the one they evolved on, and on their long cross-galaxy flight? The solution I settled on (but that hasn’t been simmed much yet, as I haven’t gotten around to writing much about Galdor II) is that they are sort of “fish farmers” and brought with them stocks of fish (and other small sea creatures) that they cultivate and eat!
And to finish this off, one of my favorite facts about jellyfish is that we have fossils of them that predate the dinosaurs! I like to think a lot about how a society of jellyfish-like beings would have existed (especially since they rely so heavily on advanced technologies), and it’s really interesting to consider how much earlier such a society could have formed on a planet, if they didn’t need to wait the 500 million years that humans did to exist. Maybe they were in fact around before the Progenitors seeded the Milky Way!
Matthews: Lieutenant Gnai has quite an interesting method when it comes to living on a starship and interacting with the crew of the Artemis. Does the mechanical suit pose any challenges for you as a writer, and does it affect how the crew respond to Gnai? Are there any interesting stories about the suit that you’d like to share with the Fleet?
Gnai: It does pose some challenges, as there’s a barrier between Gnai and the world! But I find that they’re more fun to have to write around than frustrating. It’s really an interesting exercise, trying to see how a being might interact with the world that can’t walk like you or I do, and what sort of ways it might come up with to fit in better. For Gnai, that’s the suit, but it still doesn’t really walk the same as we do. It can get caught in things far easier, and roll on its back in a way that’s hard for it to right itself much like a beetle… But the suit isn’t all bad news — Gnai never suffers fatigue from long treks in jungles, and its suit can carry far more weight than its humanoid companions can.
The crew of the Artemis (and the Kitty Hawk, when Gnai was temporarily assigned there) have all found their own unique ways to interact with Gnai and its suit. One of the most fun things has been that Gnai doesn’t just go to the doctor over shore leaves for check-ins, it also goes to Lt. Cmdr. Salkath in engineering to get its suit looked over, like an “Engineering doctor”. That’s led to some great scenes and interactions, and I adore the friendship that’s developing between Gnai and Salkath. In fact, it much prefers going to Main Engineering to sickbay — when it was at the Academy, there was too much poking and prodding at Medical, as Starfleet has minimal records on Galadoran physiology, so they needed to establish a lot of baselines for its care, much to its chagrin.
That isn’t to say that it doesn’t have good relationships with the doctors aboard the Artemis! It’s found a somewhat kindred spirit in Lt. Gila Sadar, especially after their harrowing experience together aboard the Kitty Hawk during Frontier Day. It lost its suit then (after the suit’s mechanical parts were assimilated by the Borg and Gnai was forcibly removed from its tank) and she carried it around in a special-made backpack for the rest of the mission. That was a ton of fun to write, and very challenging, as I had no control over where it was being taken, but I still had to push scenes forward with each sim. I look forward to having further interactions with them, especially when Gnai learns how closely it resembles one of the Mizarian delicacies that Gila loves so much.
Another relationship that developed for Gnai that I think is really interesting, is with Genkos Adea (who was my first and current mentor aboard the Artemis, out of character). As he’s a Betazoid, they’re both telepaths (to a degree), which makes their interactions very fun to write. I really like to explore how Gnai talks through its suit as well as telepathically, as there are subtle differences. The suit processes Gnai’s thoughts, and transmits them with a speaker (not always well, and the suit/speaker is liable to malfunction, which is fun to write), which means that sometimes things get a little lost in translation. When it talks to someone like Genkos, who can listen as it speaks telepathically and transmit his own thoughts telepathically as well, there’s a whole additional level to their conversations, as it gets to be a bit more true to how Gnai’s voice and diction might sound (as I’ve spoken a bit about a few questions before).
Matthews: Have there been instances where a more limited pool of information, as opposed to what is available for more highlighted species such as the Klingons or Vulcans, has been a hindrance when writing for Lieutenant Gnai?
Gnai: NEVER! It’s been a boon, in fact. If I was writing for a popular canon (or 118 canon) species, I would be worried about being accurate to everything that had been simmed or seen on screen. But with such a unique species that only I am writing for… I can do whatever the hell I want! Now, this isn’t to say I wouldn’t enjoy other Galadorans for Gnai to run into, but I do appreciate that I have pretty much total creative control over the species at the moment.
Matthews: Do you have any advice for anyone who is considering creating an alien character in the future? What are the upsides and downsides that someone should keep in mind?
Gnai: Making an alien character requires a lot of care in my opinion, otherwise you just end up with a funky looking human. You’ve got to make them feel alien, and really dig into what makes them unique.
I like to think a lot about the culture that they come from, what their world might look like, what their society might look like… and then how that directly influences your character. I ask myself a LOT of questions while writing and thinking about the various aliens I write, constantly. Do they bristle against their society’s norms (and how do those compare to human norms)? Do they follow along with what everyone else does? Somewhere in the middle? What reminds them of home, even on alien planets or in unfamiliar situations (will they feel more comfortable or less than their colleagues in certain situations)? Why did they specifically join Starfleet, and are there a lot of others of their species in the fleet, or are they the only one? If they are the only one, how do they feel about it? How do others in the species feel about it? There are a lot of things to ask when making an alien, I think.
For example, Gnai comes from a world that’s incredibly homogenized, where there’s little desire to go out and explore, or to do anything really that pushes things too much, as the Galadorans have managed to craft an incredible quality of life for themselves on Galador II. There’s little need for things like doctors, as the environment on Galador II has been engineered to perfection, and they don’t see death with the same weight as we might. I’ve crafted their society a bit like the colonies that certain animals make, like ants, where there’s sort of this unspoken drive towards cohesion, and towards slotting oneself into a role that best helps out the group. As such, Gnai is seen as a bit of an eccentric for its desire to leave and study the stars, and to join Starfleet (as was its mentor that helped it build the first version of its suit). No one’s really against it doing so, per se, but there’s certainly a bit of polite fuss about it deciding to deviate so strongly from the rest of the aspiring hive mind.
Part of what also helped me flesh out the Galadorans was doing a little short story for the writing contest where I explored a moment far in the past — when their original world was destroyed, back when they were a proper hivemind — which has helped me sort of work out what things might look like for them now. Through that, I spent a lot of time thinking about how that might look, how that might interact with its environment, and what that might do to a species that followed it. Obviously, there’s the drive towards returning to this state that has almost a religious flare to it — the Galadorans don’t have much by what we might call religious or spirituality, except with regards to the singular lifeform that their ancestors made up (hence Gnai’s refusal of anything like that, and its strenuous claims even to itself that it is NOT superstitious). I HIGHLY recommend thinking a ton about an alien species and its history when creating a character, and seeing where ripples of the past might crop up for them.
Matthews: Finally, where do you see yourself going within the Fleet? Both in character and out of character — is there anything you have planned for Gnai in the future or would you be interested in joining any of the OOC groups?
Gnai: I would love to just keep writing! I had to take an LOA recently, which is why this article is SO DELAYED (sorry a million times over), because I had lost all my energy for writing, but taking a bit of a break has helped me a ton. I had a chance to relax and get back on my feet before our mission, and it was much needed. With that done, though, I feel incredibly ready to face any of the writing challenges that are ahead of me on the Artemis!
In terms of Gnai in the future, I’d love for it to get to go on more scientific adventures, and see more of the galaxy and meet more interesting people. Everyone’s been poking me about getting it on a proper Starflirt date, so perhaps keep an eye out on shore leave for something awkward like that (don’t expect anything to come from it, though, as I don’t think Gnai has much of an understanding of “romance” and the like, coming from a species that reproduces asexually)! Aside from that, I do plan for it to get more experience and to grow as a scientist.
OOC — I can’t wait to dip my toes back into the wiki, and get more requests done for the Image Collective. If/when I make it up the ranks, I’ve also got my eye on the training crew (and applying for Wiki Administrator)… but we’ll cross that bridge if/when I get to it. In a while. Hopefully. If I write enough, Captain MacKenzie definitely won’t see this, right? Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. All joking aside, I’m just glad to be able to contribute to this community, and to hang out and write with you all.
Thanks for your time, Lieutenant JG Gnai!
Thanks for having me!!
You can read more about Lieutenant JG Gnai on the Wiki, here. Further information on the Galadoran species can be found using the link at the top of this page.
