Trek Lit and Comics overseen by TV staff

[Tuskin38]

Not much, but then they rarely go into much details aside from mentioning the Ba'ul or whatever they're called

The Ba'ul are also described as acting completely differently than how they're shown on the show.

Spoiler

In the novel, they're described as hunting the Kelpiens on their home world, but in the show the Kelpiens are (mostly) willing sacrifices to be taken away. They're not hunted

 

[Christopher]

The Ba'ul are also described as acting completely differently than how they're shown on the show.

Spoiler

In the novel, they're described as hunting the Kelpiens on their home world, but in the show the Kelpiens are (mostly) willing sacrifices to be taken away. They're not hunted

Spoiler

I sort of got the idea that the hunting is what would happen to the Kelpiens who didn't choose to live placidly in the villages awaiting slaughter. In the short and the episode, there was an undercurrent of existential fear, a populace sullenly resigned to the knowledge that their lives could be arbitrarily cut short at any moment.

 

[Tim Thomason]

I don't see an issue with the Kelpia/Kaminar name either. The planet name is in a different language entirely, and is being translated for our benefit. And you have the whole Earth/Terra/Gaia example to contend with.

The Kelpiens might refer to their world as Kelpia (or that could just mean universe or state of existence, if they had no concept of being on a habitable planetary body). Or Kelpia could've been a word coined by Saru for that purpose.

The Ba'ul, being more technologically advanced, may have called it Kaminar. The original Federation name would be something like 50 Ophiuchi A VIII, but they delegate it to the dominant species.

In 2255, Saru was still calling his world Kelpia. In 2257, he had reverted to Kaminar, to be more exact and not confuse those who looked him up. When speaking to his sister, Kaminar would've been translated to simply be "our world" or something, with only us hearing the word Kaminar.

Anytime we hear an odd alien race name or planet that doesn't jibe with what was said before, I just ignore it. Because universal translation is weird and languages change.