Thank you so much for sitting down with me for the interview, Shalon! This is an interesting species I am looking forward to learning more about.

1) What gave you the idea for a frog like species?

A couple of different things led me to using frogs or toads as a starting point. First of all, frogs used to be my favorite animal. I still love them very much, but after years of people buying me frog themed things they lost some of their initial charm. Regardless, because of that interest I know quite a bit about frog biology. The fact that their breeding process is so far different from humans or mammals in general felt like an interesting way to give a non-human species an alienness that some of the other more established Star Trek species lack.

Humans, Klingons, Romulans, and Vulcans are similar enough that they can interbreed as well as a number of other aliens that I can’t recall at the moment. Once I began thinking along those lines I became interested in the motivations of a species whose breeding doesn’t depend on the mutual attraction of two individuals and therefore has no concept of romantic love.

Suddenly I realized that without a romantic urge an enormous amount of the motivations that we are familiar with fall away. How much posturing and competitiveness is the result of the instinct to be a better choice for mate? How does a person like that handle their interpersonal relationships with no overt desires or attractions? Luckily I have a couple of friends who are asexual so they were a great resource for understanding what that might look like. The idea for the species then grew from there.

2) Where did you come up with the name of Ool for them and Cartassa for their planet?

Get ready for disappointment. For most names that I come up with for characters, species, planets, etc. just come from me playing with pronunciations until something hits my ear right. Ool came from me trying to think of the sounds that frogs and toads make that could be extrapolated to sentient vocalizations.

3) Do you have an idea on the history of the planet and how they evolved to eventually become a Federation member?

To be honest I hadn’t really thought that far back in the history of the planet. My main concept is that it is an Earthlike world with a slightly larger mass than Earth that orbits in the Goldilocks Region of its star. So many planets in science fiction are portrayed as having a single environment, i.e. Vulcan’s desert planet, Dune’s desert planet, Tatooine the desert planet, etc, etc.

As a storytelling tool, this can make it very easy to characterize a people and their culture, but it falls very short on realism. I wanted Oolass to be a world with just as varied an environment and biosphere as Earth. I hate to admit this, but I was mostly thinking of their very recent history when I came up with the Ools.

Giving it a little thought, I imagine that they were not nearly as warlike as other sentient species since a great deal of war eventually comes down to ‘my side wants to kill your side so that our genetics will continue’ and their noncompetitive mating practice would make that thought process alien to them, no pun intended.

As such I feel that they may have skipped eras similar to our Dark Ages or the racial purges of Stalin and Hitler and developed their technology much faster than humans. However, they are meant to have been roughly 100 years behind Earth when the Federation made 1st contact.

As a gregarious and curious people, they would have begun relations with the Federation on a positive note with open arms.They became a Federation Associate Member through the usual diplomatic means and eventually agreed to allow the Federation to place the Tau Ceti Secundus Shipyard in their system. During that time the Ool’s technological level increased to be on par with the Federation as they were exposed to new technologies. As I see it now, the Ools are petitioning for full membership, a process that I imagine is going smoothly.

4) You have given some structure for their society but I am curious about what type of industries they have. What do they export or offer to the Federation?

As with other aspects of the Ool, I wanted their industries and sciences to be as varied as Humanity’s. I don’t see any particular industry jumping beyond those of other species to any significant degree. Their breeding facilities are the main technology that stands out, but even then, I’m sure that the Federation could replicate their construction with ease. The main thing that they offer to the Federation is their support, personnel, and the convenient location of their system that made an ideal location for a large shipyard.

5) Are they technologically advanced?

At this point they are equivalent with the Federation. I would imagine that Ool ships are much less powerful than Federation ships with much weaker armaments, but that seems par for the course from what I’ve seen of other Federation Associate worlds shown in canonical media.

6) Do they have a general mindset that they gear toward? Like do they prefer an agricuture society? Tend toward the Liberal Arts? Warlike?

Ool culture is marked by congeniality and compassion. They come off as very friendly to most as they lack the gender/sex motivations that result in a lot of the posturing and attitude between other species. They are also very good at cooperation and compromise.

Their main government is a Meritocratic Geniocracy made up of a council of 800 members that represent the main planet and 2 colony worlds. A Meritocratic Geniocracy is a government led by those who have significant talents and achievements rather than wealth or political clout, using creativity, intelligence, and compassion to rule. Ool leaders and politicians make excellent diplomats for that reason.

7) How will they fit in with Starfleet culture? Will they tend toward a certain department over another?

I imagine that they will fit in very well with Starfleet. Seeing as the Federation and the Ools are both egalitarian societies that favor scientific discovery and exploration over military might and conquest, they should go together very naturally. I have a feeling the Ferengi would like the Ool even less than “Hu-mons.” If Humans are the Root Beer of the galaxy, then Ools are the Cheerwine. I don’t think they’d be overly concentrated in a single department, but I do think that Security and Tactics would be the least common.

8) How do you envision role playing them?

This one’s easy! Look for Poosh on the Ogawa and Thoon on the Ark Angel. They are both friendly and gregarious and driven by their achievements as officers. Thoon is much more outgoing and adventurous, but Poosh is more grounded and mellow. The main difficulty is in looking for any of my writing to slip into motivations or behaviors that are human rather than ool. It’s going to be really fun!