Aaamazzarites, Arcturians and K'normians were 3 alien species created for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The Aaamazzarites and Arcturians were only briefly seen in the movie and the K'normians were not seen at all, as far as I know. Have any of these species ever appeared in Star Trek novels or comics or RPG books?
There have been references to Arcturians since "The Conscience of the King," but the only TMP-style Arcturian I can think of from the novels is Lt. Neelakanta, the Endeavour helmsman in Vanguard and Seekers. The problem is that some of the '80s novels portrayed Arcturus as a lawless, unaligned world on the border of the UFP, Klingon, and Romulan territories -- which, going by our current understanding of Trek geography, is pretty much on the opposite side of the Federation from the location of the real Arcturus. I'd prefer to discount that version of Arcturus, but it has been alluded to in one or two relatively recent novels. K'normians haven't been mentioned in the novelverse, but in Star Trek Into Darkness, Kirk and his team used a K'normian trading vessel to travel to Qo'noS. As for the Aaamazzarites, apparently there's an allusion to them in Lust's Latinum Lost (and Found).
One showed up (very briefly) in SCE: The Art of the Deal, on Phantas 61, if I recall correctly - along with a Betelgeusian and a bunch of red Nasat. A strange group, but there we are. Also possibly the only time a Betelgeusian has shown up outside of one of your books. I was pretty amazed and impressed by that. One of the most obscure existing aliens. I wonder why they picked them? Also in Foul Deeds Will Rise, where it's mentioned that Therbians are allergic to Kazarites. "Therbian" being an alternative name for Aaamazzarites. Therbian flu is also mentioned in A Choice of Catastrophes, I believe.
The K'Normians are mentioned in the novelization of STID, but not much detail is provided beyond ehat's in the movie. It's mentioned that "No K'Normian trader with half a brain would being his inventory directly to a buyer where it might simply be confiscated." (According to Kirk, anyway.) Uhurs tells the Klingon squad leader (Kuron?): "We K'Normians are famous as traders. Knowing the language of others is my business." Perhaps they chose them because they are similar enough to humans that Kirk and crew could pass for K'Normians without surgery, and obscure enough that nobody would complain about details. Or simply because, well ... Why not? Only a handful will get the regference, and they'll get a small kick out of it. For the rest, it just sort of breezes past.
I'm sure Orci (or Lindelof?) put it in the script for the same reason we novelists put obscure races in our books, and the same reason fans post questions like this on the BBS: Because they're dedicated Trek fans who are interested in the obscure minutiae of Trek and like to shine a little light on them.
Something I forgot to mention - Aaamazzara (Therbia) and K'normia are both depicted on the Star Charts/Stellar Cartography maps. Aaamazzara is in the Alpha Quadrant slightly coreward of Delta, and identified with Epsilon Serpentis, and K'normia is rimward, also in the Alpha Quadrant, and relatively near to Kazar and Bre'el, while being identified with Psi Tauri.
I thought I read that the confiscated trader vessel they used in Into Darkness was an Easter Egg and they took the vessel from Harry Mudd when he was arrested?
The line in the movie is that the ship was confiscated during "the Mudd incident," which was no doubt meant to imply Harry Mudd -- although the Countdown to Darkness tie-in comic prequel inexplicably portrayed "Mudd" as a young Bajoran woman. But the ship itself was clearly referred to as K'normian, and Kirk told his people that they were passing themselves off as K'normian traders. After all, there's no reason Harry Mudd couldn't have bought or swindled a ship from the K'normians.
My favourite Arcturian reference is a bit obscure but, in "The Lost Years", an Arcturian character has the same speech patterns as the pasty-white, bulbous-nosed, large-eared alien whom McCoy meets in the bar in "Star Trek III". I assume JM Dillard was trying to suggest that the two aliens were connected? I recall digging up my old pics of TMP Arcturians, at the time, to compare to the ST III alien - and their noses are quite similar. If Arcturians have been glossed over due to the Robert Fletcher references to cloning (later at odds with UFP policies in TNG), perhaps the TMP Arcturians are flappy-skinned clones of the ST III alien's species? http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/San_Francisco_bar_visitors#Bar_contact Rec deck aliens by Therin of Andor, on Flickr ^I sent this reworked panel from an LA Times Syndicate "Star Trek" comic strip to Christopher to celebrate his use of many aliens from "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in the novel, "Star Trek: Ex Machina". And yeah, despite Citadel Miniatures UK making a pair of tiny, white-metal TMP K'Normians in 1980, we didn't see a TMP publicity photo of one until a Jan 2002 issue of "Star Trek: The Magazine"! http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/K%27normian
It's Dr. Lazarus! (OK, not *exactly*, but one could certainly be the Abramsverse reimaging of the other...)
Every post-TMP strip from the LA Times Syndicate is reprinted in two recent hardcover volumes by IDW. The panel was a quite early one. The date is clearly visible (3/27/1980), which places it in story #3: (3/9/80-5/3/80), Thomas Warkentin's "The Real McCoy". http://www.startrekcomics.info/ustosstrips.html
I assumed exactly that. And since there are references to Arcturus II, IV, VI, and VII, I decided that the natural-born got left on the original homeworld, Arcturus II, which was depleted and played out, while the clones terraformed IV, moved there, proclaimed a new homeworld, and began terraforming the remaining planets. And the clones join the UFP after the migration, so this is why Arcturus is the place to make deals and a neutral port. The only issue I think this does not resolve is the "equidistant from the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons" bit, and that, sadly must just be disregarded.