No matter what you end up writing, chances are you will need to do research of some kind. Maybe it's just fighting styles or how far away point A is from point B. I have had to do research for each book that is all very different from book to book. I love to learn so this is always a fun part for me.
TRESPASSING
I started with investigating the basics of neuroscience to see how the brain works and also particle physics because I wanted to base the Elbie on something. I love the sciences in general so this was a easy ask (of myself) and I still read neuroscience books when I find them because the human mind is a weird and wacky place.
The big difference here was I was dealing with a people group from another culture so I wanted to make sure I represented the people correctly. I had found a bunch of videos on YouTube that were filmed in India with the desert tribes. I noticed they were posted all by the same person. So I contacted him, Rolf Lunheim, and asked him where I could find more information and he told me where to buy his book. He is an anthroplogist and studded the people group in my book.
I read Samit Basu's scifi books to get a feel for how someone from that culture writes about their own culture in the scifi genre. Here is the thing I discovered. No matter what background your characters come from we all experience love, pain, betrayal, friendship, disappoint, et al in similar ways.
For extra measure I asked a few Indian friends to read the book to make sure I didn't have any blind spots.
This book went in a direction I could not predict when I started this series. It also went into a realm that have very little knowledge of. I won't say much more but hopefully this example of my reading will get you excited for where this series is going.