Andorians and climate?

[kkozoriz1]

From "The Mines of Selka", FASA, 1986:
"In general the Humanoids of Andor are believed to have originated among the ice and glaciers of of the polar continent in the southern hemisphere of the planet."

That sounds right for the FASA RPGs.

The Federation supplement also gives a general climate of cold. Not much to go on but it would appear to be the earliest mention of Andor being a cold planet.

 

[Therin of Andor]

No need, I have a well-worn copy of Worlds of the Federation lying around here somewhere.

Never doubted you for a second!

 

[MikeSussman]

And for those who may be curious... production requirements had more to do with Andoria's chilly climate than anything else. The standing desert sets from the Vulcan trilogy were repainted, redressed and transformed into Andoria's "ice caverns".

 

[kkozoriz1]

Cool!

The Andorian story was great. Nice to see the blue guys get a little background.

 

[xortex]

It would be nice if the Aenar referred to them as the 'heat dwellers' in condescension. Enmity is a nice thing.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

And for those who may be curious... production requirements had more to do with Andoria's chilly climate than anything else. The standing desert sets from the Vulcan trilogy were repainted, redressed and transformed into Andoria's "ice caverns".

This is why they fight. They only have one set of caves between them, and they keep trying to redecorate against the other's wishes.

 

[Christopher]

^I see it now! Gary Graham and Jeffrey Combs in The Interstellar Odd Couple!

 

[DS9Continuing]

The other Andorians don't go near the pole. One of the major plot points of "Andor: Paradigm" is an unexpected example of an Andorian phenomenon of terrifying flash floods, which would definitely be a problem in the more temperate areas as huge amounts of snow and ice suddenly melt to produce those few warm days per year mentioned by Shran in ENT.

Also, remember that the world climate of Andor during ENT may well be different two centuries later for the DS9 Relaunch. Some fudging is possible.

It's been a while since I read it, but I believe in the beginning of The Chimes At Midnight Thelin is working on an environmental project on Andor that it hints could be related to the differences of environment. It is an alternate universe, but I believe that the author, Geoff Trowbridge, intended for this to be an explanation for the Prime Universe as well.

For what it's worth, Star Charts puts Andoria in orbit of Procyon, a star whose habitable zone is most likely disrupted by the gravitational influence of its white-dwarf companion. So the planet's orbit could change over time, sometimes plunging Andoria into an ice age, other times giving it a hotter climate.

This all adds up with what I conjectured myself - that when humans first met Andorians (in ENT), they were in the tail end of an ice age. But that with new technologies and climatic change over the course of two centuries, Andorians now live in a more temperate environment. However, the consequence of those changes is a certain meteorological unpredictability, including the flash floods, the strong winds around Cheen-Thitar Keep and the big storm over the Spring Water Festivals in Thelasa-vei.

 

[Nerys Myk]

And for those who may be curious... production requirements had more to do with Andoria's chilly climate than anything else. The standing desert sets from the Vulcan trilogy were repainted, redressed and transformed into Andoria's "ice caverns".

In the words of the immortal Bo Derek in the classic film Tarzan the Ape Man "They're painting me white!!!!"

 

[Dayton Ward]

^ You know, I'd done a pretty good job of erasing that film from my memory.

So, thanks for helping bring that one back.

 

[JD]

It's been a while since I read it, but I believe in the beginning of The Chimes At Midnight Thelin is working on an environmental project on Andor that it hints could be related to the differences of environment. It is an alternate universe, but I believe that the author, Geoff Trowbridge, intended for this to be an explanation for the Prime Universe as well.

Umm, I was the one who said that, not kkozoriz1.

 

[kkozoriz1]

Yeah, don't put his words in my mouth! I don't know where they've been!

 

[Myasishchev]

I gotta mention that the idea of a desert-world Andor goes at least as far back as Shane Johnson's 1989 World's of the Federation book.
Considering the Andorian's colouring and that they're the portrayed as the volotile opposites of the Vulcans, an ice world (opposite of desert Vulcan) makes sense.

I often hear people expressing the idea that blue coloring "makes sense" on an ice world, but I don't understand the reasoning behind that assumption. I'm not aware of any arctic organisms on Earth with blue skin or hair. White would make more sense as a camouflage color. Blue coloring would only make sense as camouflage for an aquatic organism such as a whale or a fish.

All I can think of is that it's by association with human lips turning blue when the body is extremely chilled, but that's the result of insufficient circulation, and it makes no sense that a healthy organism adapted to a cold environment would have the same problems.

I do fully agree, but blue coloring makes a lot of sense with blue blood (like pink coloring makes sense with lightly-melanized humans).

The behind-the-scenes reason for making Andoria a moon of a Jovian planet was to suggest that the Jovian was Andor and the moon was Andoria. However, the DS9 post-finale novels suggest that Andor is the indigenous name of the planet and Andoria is the Latinized form used by humans.

Although that is terribly trivial reason, it's about time a homeworld moon showed up--Andor doesn't have an red dwarf sun (probably?), but given their prevalence, and the fact that only moons of tidally locked gas giants are likely to be good cradles in such systems, I'd almost suppose most extraterrestrial life is/would be on moons.

I suppose it would make the name "UFP" seem kinda weird in retrospect, but it's serviceable; for example, the UFoICO (Inhabited Celestial Objects) would sound rather unfortunate.

What I wonder about is the climate of a tidally locked Earth or super-Earth moon would realistically look like. Wouldn't the inner face be subject to greater nighttime because of the occlusion of the gas giant? How would that affect temperatures, glaciation, weather, etc? Indeed, what about the tides? Io and Europa would have some awesome waves with water oceans.

But I turn now to the wisdom of the experts on lunar life:

"Some would say that the Earth is our Moon... but that would belittle the name of the Moon, which is--The Moon."
"Point is, we're at the center, not you!"

 

[Christopher]

What I wonder about is the climate of a tidally locked Earth or super-Earth moon would realistically look like. Wouldn't the inner face be subject to greater nighttime because of the occlusion of the gas giant? How would that affect temperatures, glaciation, weather, etc?

Using the Jupiter system as an analogy, a habitable Jovian satellite would probably be far enough out from the planet that the Sun would only be eclipsed for a few hours per revolution at most. And if the moon's orbital plane is tilted relative to the planet's, such eclipses would only occasionally occur, same as with Earth and Luna.

Also, a large Jovian would generate a lot of radiant heat of its own, and be far closer to the inhabited moon. Not to mention tidal heating. The presence or absence of sunlight would be less of a factor in a Jovian moon's weather and climate than it is on Earth.

What's that you're quoting at the end there?

 

[Myasishchev]

Oh, Aqua Teen Hunger Force's Mooninites, Ignignokt and Err.

 

[Nerys Myk]

^ You know, I'd done a pretty good job of erasing that film from my memory.

So, thanks for helping bring that one back.

It dwells in my memory so that when a crappy Tarzan movie comes out I can at least say, "well, there have been worse."

 

[Ghalev]

Blue = cold is the sort of cartoonish analogy one might expect from a universe featuring aliens that look exactly like humans except for 2 little antennae and blue skin.

Just for the record, at no point during the authorship of Among the Clans was the "blue = cold" reasoning used or considered.

 

[ryan123450]

I just finished reading the Battle of Andor part of Beneath the Raptor's Wing, and for a while I was thinking the battle would result in a cataclysm that would explain both the climate change and the Andorian population decline. But I guess that's not the direction it took afterall.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I always assumed (in my way of splicing incompatible Trek stories together without a care in the world) the Andorian population decine was the result of the plague mentioned in the old novel Bloodthirst, that began "centuries ago" and left most of the female children sterile.

Awaiting the return of Lamia...

 

[Ghalev]

I just finished reading the Battle of Andor part of Beneath the Raptor's Wing, and for a while I was thinking the battle would result in a cataclysm that would explain both the climate change and the Andorian population decline. But I guess that's not the direction it took afterall.

It did include a nice nod to Among the Clans, though, with the "Ka'Thelan Krotus"