First up, I thought I'd go with a relatively minor and uncontroversial race, and I picked the Nasats for my lightweight pilot episode, since they're in my "name". I wondered if anyone would actually have anything to say about such a minor race, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.
The Nasat
If you don't read the SCE/Corps of Engineers books, I imagine your first response will be "the who?" Indeed, I came to that series rather late and so for some time I wasn't sure who they were myself. My first exposure to the Nasats was in the context of minor factoids littered through other Trek books, which caught my attention precisely because they were all referencing something I didn't know about. The Sundered mentioned that they were able to survive vacuum and were naturally armoured, A Time To Sow mentioned they had extra hands (from a human perspective), etc. I didn't get an internet connection until 2008, so my knowledge was limited to books. I couldn't recall any canonical species called Nasat; it was like a conspiracy, and I had to piece together the clues to reveal the truth.
This is the truth:
The Nasat, for those not in the know, are a timid race of cowardly woodlice (pillbugs, I should say...) based off a character in The Animated Series. P8 Blue, a (relatively) major character in the SCE books, is a Nasat. They're minor Federation members from an eponymous planet featuring dense rainforests. They're brightly coloured, coming in 5 exciting varieties, and their preferred response to a crisis is to curl up and roll in the other direction.
One interesting thing about them right off the bat is that they're non-humanoid, and so in a minority as far as Trek races go, even in the books. They're particularly in a minority within the Federation, which has a few genuine non-humanoids (Pakhwa-thanh, Alonis, Sulamids) and, to be fair, a reasonable amount of semi-humanoids, but still comes across as weighted toward the familiar and human-esque. (The Typhon Pact actually looks more diverse on the surface). But...how non-humanoid are the Nasats, really? Physically they're different, yes, but psychologically are they just humans who happen to...also be pillbugs? How alien a character is P8 Blue? Not very, I think we'd agree. She's quite an endearing personality (at least, I'm a fan), but she's not that different from a human in terms of how she thinks. Whether or not that's a bad thing is up for debate. One member of the BBS (I forget who it was) once stated that he/she liked the fact that P8 was "one of the girls" rather than sticking out as alien, as many characters in Star Trek: Titan do, for example. Yet in the SCE story Balance of Nature, when she’s placed in context with other Nasat, the writing draws more attention to the non-human aspects of P8 Blue – and how humanoids rub off on her.
Not only are they non-humanoid, but Nasats are arthropods. Okay, so they can move and breathe and everything just fine while also being the size of a small man, so they're not actual arthropods, but you know what I mean. There are a lot of tropes associated with insectoid, arachnid or crustacean aliens, and the Nasat play into some while averting others. There’s no hive mind, for one thing. They’re social but a bit standoffish (no lovers or families, but apparently preferring to live in sizable communities). On the other hand, they're a very conservative society, in keeping with insectoid norms (the novel Imbalance has an interesting discussion of "typical" insectoids within the Trek universe, and one of the points made is that insectoid societies are structured, orderly and wary of change. Nasats have no hive, but seem to tick that particular box). Thinking about this further, Nasats do care for their young - not their young, but all the community's young - so they might be said to have something resembling the colony structure of other insectoids. As another note, woodlice are very social and care for their young, so does this make Nasats another "Earth animal as sapient alien" species, like Caitians?
There are many, many bug jokes in SCE, along with a few serious discussions of entomophobia - what’s it like to live and work alongside a giant bug? But humour and phobia aside, are the Nasats truly explored in the sense of being some form of "giant arthropod-like thing" or are they just walking jokes? Either way, they're the most prominent example of friendly "insectoids" in Trek lit (in fact, after Xindi-Insectoids, which are antagonists for the most part, and Tholians if we’re counting them (ditto) I’d say they’re the most notable arthropods full stop).
I was hoping for a little section about characters, but in this case, it's mostly it’s just P8, and she’s exceptional. And I've already covered the main point regarding her Nasatness - is she an alien or a human woman who happens to be a giant bug? The only other recurring Nasats are Z4 Blue, the reasonable authority figure from Balance of Nature who then got promoted to the Palais team in Articles of the Federation, and C29 Green, who isn’t really important other than being the Nasat on the Federation Council in Palais stories. Okay, they're not a very prominant people. But it might be nice to see some more Nasats, those who fit the stereotypes rather than avert them?
Speaking of stereotypes, Balance of Nature suggested that the mini-Rainbow of Nasats contains colours associated - through biology, culture, or some combination of the two - with particular tasks and attitudes. I've got a few observations on that count:
Reds: The reds seem to be the Nasats most comfortable with change and challenge, or at least the ones most able to buck tradition. This is likely coincidence, I admit, but I note that most prominant scientists, forward-thinkers and expat Nasats are reds. F3 Red the Nasat Einstein, V1 Red and V5 Red the progressive engineer and politician, the Nasats who left home to live on Phantas 61, etc.
Blues are the next most adventurous in my estimation, being rather outspoken; they seem more assertive but also more "grounded", as though they're not as flighty and creative as reds but instead more concerned with the practical realities. Where a red might wander off and change things because he/she's got a good idea, a blue will more likely get fed up with other people being impractical and promote something new because it gets the job done. Personally, P8, Z4, and B6 Blue (Bishop) in Constellations all strike me as having an open mind and a strong sense of the need to do what they think is right regardless of the squemishness of other Nasats, but they're practical people, not dreamers.
Unless I've missed something, all the Nasat Starfleet officers we've seen so far have been red or blue.
Yellows are conservative and stuck in their ways, even by Nasat standards. This at least is stated explicitly in Balance of Nature, so it's not just me this time. Stoic, reliable and methodical, Yellows get things done, just don't ask them to do anything unexpected or "different".
Greens seem friendly and reliable, but less solid and narrow-minded than yellows and also not "progressive" like blues or reds. P8 once makes a comment about green males being timid even by Nasat standards (nod to M3 Green or however we’re spelling it today); that was prior to Balance of Nature.
Browns are Hufflepuff House, apparently. Not very notable, apparently friendly and hard-working.
I doubt any of that is rigidly accurate, but as a loose guide to Nasats as they've been shown to us so far, it's something I've picked up on. I'm not attached to it, it's a rather selective categorize-for-the-sake-of-categorizing activity, but there did seem a general pattern or two in there, even if inadvertant.
Finally, I should bring up Balance of Nature one more time, being as it's the Nasats’ chance to shine as a culture. Heather Jarman at her world-building best. In my opinion, this is also one of the best SCE stories. In the context of the wider SCE series it’s quite distinct, featuring only one cast member and having nothing to do with the da Vinci. I often wondered exactly what happened on planet Nasat in the aftermath. In Articles of the Federation, Z4 Blue, having himself been airlifted out of BoN, mentions Nasat histories being written over the last few years, which suggests the Nasat took some of the lessons to heart. Given that KRAD wrote this one, and he was the driving force behind SCE, and that AotF is littered with other references from Strata to Koas, I like to think it's a deliberate link and not a case of forgetting that Nasats don't write histories.
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