Orion is in the Alpha Quadrant and was never Federation. Traders/Pirates/Slavers culture. It's not actually on-screen canon (trek & canon ha ha ha) that Gaila was Orion altho everyone assumed she was. They made her green with red hair because "it looked hot" and I no longer remember who but that's a quote from someone on the production team.
Right after AOS STIX there were several excellent Gaila backstory character study fics about how she might have gotten to the Federation and the Academy.
HA! I found it. From Memory Alpha ...
She is never explicitly referenced on-screen as an Orion; that information comes from production materials. Unlike past Orion women, who had black hair, Gaila had red hair. The decision to give her that hair color was made by Barney Burman, who was also involved in designing her makeup as well as those of other aliens in the film Star Trek. "I gave her red hair because she looked hot with green skin and red hair," laughed Burman. "When [Makeup Department Head] Mindy Hall saw that," Burman remembered, "she said, 'Yeah, they [Orions] have to have red hair!' We pitched that to production and J.J. [Abrams] loved the idea!" (Star Trek Magazine issue 155, p. 57)
no subject
Right after AOS STIX there were several excellent Gaila backstory character study fics about how she might have gotten to the Federation and the Academy.
HA! I found it. From Memory Alpha ...
She is never explicitly referenced on-screen as an Orion; that information comes from production materials. Unlike past Orion women, who had black hair, Gaila had red hair. The decision to give her that hair color was made by Barney Burman, who was also involved in designing her makeup as well as those of other aliens in the film Star Trek. "I gave her red hair because she looked hot with green skin and red hair," laughed Burman. "When [Makeup Department Head] Mindy Hall saw that," Burman remembered, "she said, 'Yeah, they [Orions] have to have red hair!' We pitched that to production and J.J. [Abrams] loved the idea!" (Star Trek Magazine issue 155, p. 57)