In my last post, I talked about why I made the Chuzeks (extraterrestrials in Of Seaweed and Chocolate) the way I did. And I mentioned that the very first Chuzek was named Vek Zoroke, but that in the beginning, he wasn't even Chuzek.
In this one, I'll talk about the origin of the Chuzek people - not about whether they evolved from protosalamanders on the homeworld or flew in from a distant galaxy, but about where I got the idea for them.
When Vek first came to life in my imagination, he was a character in a Star Trek fanfic I was planning, and he was Cardassian.
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| a Cardassian and a Maquis |
The story was to be about a closeknit Human family who lived in a farmhouse in rural Vermont. It was almost Thanksgiving, and everything was mulled cider and cozy sweaters until a sister came home with her significant other, who just happened to belong to the species her brother had devoted his life to fighting (Cardassian and Maquis, for those who follow the story).
After the usual stages of research, prewriting and outlining, I decided not to write it.
I believe that any fan fiction has to be worthy of publication through official channels, or it's not worth writing. That means not only does the quality have to be indistinguishable from canon, but it has to match the theme and tone as well.
And this story didn't pass the second test because it was Earth-based and didn't involve Starfleet at all. (Starfleet is the quasi-military space exploration agency at the heart of Star Trek.)
So I decided to wash the Trek out of it and just write it like any other story. That's when Vek stopped being Cardassian and the Chuzek species began. Vek now had an ancestor from the Chuzek metropolis of Zoke, giving his name the meaning "Vek of Zoke."
But I soon realized that Trekwashing wasn't going to make the story work, either. It was always going to feel like a fanfic, and all I was doing, with the exception of Vek's new people, was changing the names. I didn't need to waste my time writing a Trekoid - it was time to move on.
But by this time, the Chuzeks had taken on a life of their own and evolved a physiology and a culture that were not Cardassian at all. As the prospect of success for the story fizzled, my excitement about the Chuzeks took hold and grew.And it wasn't long before one of them showed up in a story. That was the night I stayed up with a toothache, and the Chuzek I dreamed up this time didn’t come from Zoke. This character’s hometown was a quaint little village in a black-sand desert...
...the same desert whose intense daytime heat and UV rays threaten Piper Craven's life in "The Mammal Cage."