Andorian

For the Andorian Homeworld, see: Andoria

Introduction
Andorians are native to the icy M-class moon Andoria and well-known for their blue skin, a pair of cranial antennae, and white hair.

Biology
Andorians are well known for their blue blood, blue skin, white hair, and antennae on the crown of the skull. This blue hue of the species was the result of a high concentration of cobalt in the haemoglobin of their red corpuscles.

They were generally stronger as well as hardier than other races except when compared to the Vulcans. This was due to the greater gravity, thinner air and harsher climate of the Andorian homeworld.

Their homeworld's predominantly icy environments with a thin, ozone-rich atmosphere so they evolved to live in cooler conditions, but were capable of living in a wide range of climates. The average body temperature of an Andorian was 42 °C, pulse rate was 110, and respiration of 28. The average life expectancy for a male Andorian was 129 years, while the average for a female was 134.

One adaptation the species featured was a redundant circulatory system which allowed them to survive comfortably in their environmental conditions. Andorians efficiently metabolised nutrients and regulated body heat. However, compared to Humans, Andorian metabolisms tended to be higher, so they would tire more quickly when engaged in strenuous activities for prolonged periods.

One of the most noted features Andorians had were their antennae. They could obtain a great deal of sensory information through their continually waving antennae - they could detect electrical fields, changes in air density and temperature and sub-sonic sounds.

Their antennae were remarkably sensitive organs that gave them a sonar-like detection abilities that were similar to that of Earth bats. Due to this ability, it was very difficult to sneak up or even elude an Andorian - even in total darkness. There was a lesser desirable characteristic of these antennae which was their sensitivity to pain. A hit to them gave an Andorian as much pain as a male Human got by being hit in the groin. In combat, Andorian marine personnel were often equipped with specially designed helmets.

However the antennae were not particularly reliable sensory organs as they could be thrown by picking up strong emotions through surges in adrenaline or teptaline or even detecting overheating equipment. When an Andorian concentrated they could use their antennae to single out bio-electric signals nearby.

The antennae contained some brain tissue at their base, and most damage could be done safely above this area. If a portion of antennae were cut off, it would take several months to grow back, during which time the Andorian would suffer loss of balance, among other symptoms.

Reproduction
The Andorian species was unique in that it was composed of four sexes, known in Andorii, the primary Andorian language, as chans, thaans, zhens, and shens. Chans and thaans were roughly comparable in reproductive function and appearance to the male sex, while the latter two were roughly comparable to the female sex. The gametes of each 'male' sex contain one quarter of the number of chromosomes necessary to produce offspring. During the conception of an Andorian child, the thaan fertilizes a shen's egg with his gamete. The chanthen also fertilizes the egg. This produces a fertilized egg that develops into a zygote. The shen then transfers the zygote to the zhen's pouch, where it develops into an embryo. The Andorian fetus is incubated and nourished to term in the zhen's pouch. The zhen does not contribute genetically to offspring but is considered the primary caregiver to the off-spring, taking the role of mother to the infant.

The distinctions are as follows:


 * zhen: This sex roughly corresponds to female, and is the sex of the Andorian who will carry the zygote to term.
 * shen: This sex also roughly corresponds to female and is where all Andorian life originates. Although the zhen carries the infant, the child begins as gametes from the shen.
 * chan: This sex roughly corresponds to male.
 * thaan: This sex also roughly corresponds to male.

Subspecies
There are at least two Andorian subspecies: those with blue skin, the majority of the population; and the more reclusive, blue-white-skinned Aenar, long considered a myth until contact was remade with blue-skins circa 2104. The Aenar are blind, but exhibit telepathic and telemetric abilities. Aenar use their antennae as telepathic receptors.

Cultural Dogma
Andorians had a genetic predisposition toward violent behaviour. Within their own society life was extremely structured which helped tame their tempers. In the wider-galaxy many Andorians bottled up their rage, managing to contain it in public but sometime having violent outbursts in private.

Compared to many other species Andorians excelled under pressure. Their bio-chemical reactions induced them either to fight or increase their sensory input levels, which led to them having great abilities at analysis and reasoning.

Andorians seemed to have a belief that within society there was a need for productive members and that those that suffered from disabilities such as being blind were a burden. Such individuals were little cared-for and were only tolerated for what few capabilities they did have, such as breeding as long as such disabilities could not be passed on.

Family Life
The Andorian race have having four genders: thaan and chen (roughly equivalent to male), plus shen and zhen (female). The Andorian marriage rite is called a shelthreth and requires all four genders to procreate. Andorians have an intense dislike and mistrust of other races, particularly Humans and Vulcans, and frequently refer to Humans using the pejorative 'pink-skin.'

Ancient History
It was the migration of early Andorian tribal clans to the the more temperate latitudes that caused the race to become violent yet efficient warriors. In the northern regions of their home world which were warmer, the Andorians found an abundance of food and learnt rudimentary agriculture. However, the warmer climate that affected the clans made them more war-like which led to conflict as they began to fight with one another for land as well as food even though there was plenty to go around at the time. The northern tribes grew hungrier for war as a result and they moved south to fight the clans in those polar regions. Fortunately, the colder climate curbed the invaders violent tendencies and led to a logical resolution to the conflict. Around 30,000 years ago was the end of the Andorian stone age with the earliest recognizable Andorian cities being formed.

Since that point forward, the Andorians were engaged in constant warfare which was fought between the many warlords of both the local as well as regional levels. Each battled one another either for political or military advantage but other motives were present such as personal grudges or even sheer pique. These campaigns often shedded a great deal of Andorian blood and was another eason for the species rise as being warriors of virtue, courage, personal honor and skill at arms. This inter-species warfare ended by the year 1284 when the warlord Krotus arose and united the entire planet under his rule.

It was during his reign that the Andorians entered their Industrial Age and achieved a level of peace as well as prosperity that was not known prior to that time. However, this period of their history came to a traumatic end when Krotus was assassinated by his own daughter in 1332. Deprived of his strong leadership, the Andorians fractured politically until 1597 when a dispute between two local warlords for control over a trade route at the Tharan Mountains ignited the tribal conflicts once more.

The first seagoing ship to circumnavigate Andoria was the ice-cutter Kumari. Centuries later, its venerated name would grace a starship of the Andorian imperial Guard. Around this time an early extraterrestrial observation, Andor was surveyed by the Vulcan civilization's starship VCS Yeht Fai-Tukh.

Unification
This return to warfare was different from previous generations as this time the Andorian clan chieftains possessed advanced weaponry that was equal to that of Earth's 20th century. What followed a tragic and horrific period in their racial history that was known as the Time of Lament which lasted nearly a century and almost decimated the Andorian population.

The after effects of this age had a devastating blow to Andoria's economic and infrastructure with many parts of the world returning to a pre-industrial age level of technology. From this ruined world arose Lor'Vela who was 14-years of age in 1692 who attempted to persuade her people to step away from the endless cycle of conflict.

Lor'Vela herself was sickened by her peoples destructive ways after witnessing her mother, a kethni leader, defeat a rival. From her sickness, she received a vision of her world restored to the glory that it had achieved from the reign of Krotus. When Lor'Vela recovered, she challenged and killed her mother in a duel thus gaining control over her kethni. After that, she sent ambassadors to the other clans that survived the Time of Lament and summoned them to the city of Tarsk.

At the Council of Tarsk, she managed to convince the other kethni to abandon their war-like ways against one another and to demonstrate her new goal for unity - she released all the captives that her kethni held and allowed them to return to their respective clans. This act stunned the others who were persuaded in joining Lor'Vela in this dramatic shift in their society and form a world government. This led to the destruction of all written records before this period in the 17th century in order to erase any knowledge of past misdeeds that might trigger further conflict.

Lor'Vela's actions would save her species who entered into their space age by the late 18th century and began colonizing space near their homeworld. This saw the development of 19 impulse ships that were filled with colonists in suspended animation and allowed them to colonize neighbouring star systems of Luyten's Star 1.2 light-years away and Proxima Cancri, resulting in the future colonies of Indarax and Ando'al.

During the 19th century, specifically in 1875, the primitive space faring Andorians encountered a Romulan starship carrying Emperor Vitellus with his vessel around the planet Andor. Though technologically inferior, through sheer luck, the Romulan ships shields collapsed and the Andorians managed to seriously damage the ship with their primitive weaponry. The ship later crashed on Andor where most of the crew were killed leaving Emperor Vitellus the only survivor who died shortly afterwards. At the time, he had been carrying an artifact known to his people as the Bloodstone which was recovered by a Healer known as Telev. At the time, his homeworld had succumbed to a terrible plague and through the artifact he had recovered from the crashed alien ship - he managed to use it to save his people from further suffering. This artefact would later be known as Telev's Bane and became linked deeply with Andorian history.

At some unknown point in the future, the Andorians made first contact with the Ferengi, who threatened them with full scale slaughter unless they were provided with merchandise to trade. One of the items given to the Ferengi was Telev's Bane.

This has led to a continuous distrust of the Ferengi people until this day.

Interstellar Age
Andorian interstellar history is characterized by initial conflicts with most neighbouring species and the final alliance with its old adversaries, culminating in the founding of the Interstellar Coalition.

Their first encounter with the Vulcans was promising, but relations soured in time. The Confederacy of Vulcan soon came to see them as duplicitous, wishing to only honour 'agreements that didn't conflict with their interests.'

This led to a number of skirmishes between the two races until the signing of the Tau Ceti Accords. Border disputes, dating back to the 1950s and lasting two hundred years, began between the two powers, due to their neighbouring home systems and the Vulcans' suspicion towards the territorial and militaristic nature of the Andorians. The Andorians felt that the only thing that kept Vulcan from invading Andoria was 'the threat of massive retaliation.'

In the 2050s, the Andorians terraformed a class-D planetoid which they named Weytahn, lying at a strategic position on the frontier between the Andorian and the Vulcan-system. When Andoria refused to allow the Vulcan High Command to inspect the colony in order to search for possible threats in the form of military installations, the Vulcans forcibly evacuated the planetoid. In 2097, the 2097 Weytahn Accord was signed, in which the Vulcans officially claimed Weytahn, which they named Paan Mokar, and a surveillance satellite was placed in orbit of the planetoid in order to enforce the accord.

As part of the 2097 Weytahn Accords, the Vulcan-controlled 47 Ursae Majoris-system was ceded to the Andorians, and settlers arrived the following year. Eleven-months after the colony was abandoned when most of the local plant life proved toxic to species to cobalt-based blood, namely Andorians. The result was the Andorians believed the Vulcans had intentionally ceded the planet knowing it was dangerous for Andorians.

About 2104, Andorians made contact with the Aenar, dispelling their mythological status.

Another hot spot in the cold war between Vulcan and Andoria was Coridan, a class-M planet rich in dilithium ore. In the 2150s, Coridan suffered from a civil war, in which rebels, backed by the Andorian Imperial Guard, tried to overthrow the chancellor and her corrupt government, who was in turn supported by the Vulcan High Command, since Vulcan tried to maintain its trade partnership with Coridan, a lucrative source for dilithium.

In 2152, a new open conflict arose on Weytahn, which was reclaimed by the Andorian Empire after being deserted for nearly sixty-years. With the conflict about to escalate, Thy'lek Shran, who was leading the Andorian invasion forces on the planetoid, requested Captain Jonathan Archer of the UES Enterprise as a trustworthy mediator in order to negotiate a cease fire, which was finally accomplished and both sides resumed their negotiations.

In 2153 Andoria was subjected to the Xindi First Strike, which locally was known as the Shattering. This prompted the eventual Xindi Conflict.

In 2156, the Andorian Empire was eventually one of the founding members of the Interstellar Coalition.