How much fleshing out of the Tr'rask species mentioned in Desperate Hours did you do in writing the book? They are obviously large enough to cause impact tremors with their footfalls and formidable enough to subdue Kelpians and force them underground for survival. Beyond that do you coceptualize them as mamillian, reptialian, or something else? Do you have any ideas how the bred and cultivated the Kelpians as prey or for food? Thanks in advance.
I had imagined them as somewhat reptilian. Like bipedal dinosaurs, almost. Fans of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Ed., might have noticed that the name of the creature, when read aloud, sounds a lot like "Tarrasque" — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarrasque_(Dungeons_&_Dragons) — which was itself based on the French legend of the tarasque: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque However, I should note that the show's producers are in no way obligated to hew to my description, or even the name that I gave the beast. In fact, there's a good chance that season two, under a new showrunner, could run roughshod over every detail in Desperate Hours.
Thank you! If you introduce something like the Tr'rask beyond a name and a couple of descriptives, does it require consultation and coordination with CBS? Do they concern themselves with what an author may be doing with book continuity about something that may be further explored on the screen?
Thank you again! You answered my question from my added post. I imagine this species was advanced and intelligent to be able to breed and cultivated the Kelpians as a food supply as suggested on the show?
I don't want to give away too much of what was developed in the novelists' bible for Star Trek Discovery, as some of these details were meant to be reserved for James Swallow's book, Fear Itself. I'm not sure how much of that backstory/worldbuilding made it into his final draft, or how much of that is likely to be contradicted by upcoming episodes.
Fear Itself is a really good read and I enjoyed it thouroughly. It mentions the predator species from his homeworld only in passing with a name "Ba'ul." However it doesn't give anything away on description or the dynamic between the Kelpians.
Another species I always wondered about was the Tarmelites from the Vanguard sereis which has been my favorite Trek series so far. I always imagined Morikmol to be like a Jiralhanae from the Haloverse games. Was he something like that?
I think the inspiration for the Tarmelites might have been a species from the GURPS Aliens reference book. Can't remember which one at the moment, and my library is a bit … buried at the moment.
That might have been the Slidarians, a Klingon client race. They were described as massive half ape/bear like creatures the Klingons were never able to conquer, so they co-opted them. If that's so, I probably wasn't far off as the Jiralhanae are psuedo-ursine with traits from Gorillas, Bears, and Rhinos.
Upon further review (and some excavation of my office bookshelves), I think the Tarmelites were inspired by the Gormelites of GURPS Aliens: http://www.patric.net/morpheus/cast/gurps/aliens/gormelites.html