Battle of the (Andorian) Sexes

[Admiral Shran]

I prefer to think they have two sexes but that Andorian marriages consist of two couples.

Ooh, I like this idea... I wonder how the selection process would occur... same-sex pairs of best friends choose same-sex pairs of best friends of the opposite sex? A pre-existing hetero couple finds a socioeconomically viable mirror couple?

Either one could work. Or maybe Andoria has something like arranged marriages. We know Vulcans have them, so why not? An individual Andorian chooses his or her immediate partner and the family arranges the marriage to the other couple for whatever reason (familial friendships, political reasons, economic reasons, etc.)

 

[Therin of Andor]

Two genders under the Leslie Fish model mentioned by Therin up-thread.

Except that Leslie postulates three sexes, with some Andorians choosing to stay neuter gender.

 

[Timo]

It is canon they marry in groups of four

Data said that Andorian marriages typically operated in groups of four, "unless...."

Actually, this is what Data said:

Data: "Andorian marriages require groups of four people, unless-"

For all we know, the four are the bride, the groom, the priest and the stringaphone player. After all, we're talking about "marriage" here, not about sex or procreation or family life. Data is studying up on successful marriage, and the first thing up that alley is the wedding, aka the marriage ceremony.

Or, seeing how "groups" is in plural, perhaps all the wedding guests have to march into an Andorian church in random groups of four lest they defile the holy building and jinx the future of the happy couple (or trio, or quintet, or whatever)?

If Data instead is staying consistent with his previous example of marriage success depending on childbirth within the first year, then it's married life we're talking about. But again not procreation - the four required by law and custom for successful family life might be husband, wife, solicitor and godparent/politruk, with everybody else (such as children or lovers or extra spouses or co-habiting parents) being optional extra. Or then four is important per se, for obscure numerological reasons or out of sociopolitical pressures, and if a third child is born to a couple, it has to be given away, or one of the parents has to leave the household. And until two children are born, the couple has to accommodate friends or relatives to round out the number.

All that said, my vote goes for four genders, simply because that's the most interesting angle. And never mind whether those genders are biological and necessary for procreation, or merely social and necessary for cultural reasons.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[The Wormhole]

Hmm, I see your point. But perhaps the Andorian navy had been designed to take multiple members of the same marriage group together as a single "package." And since this would be a cultural requirement grounded in biology, Andorian culture would see it as "normal." It would be "the way things are."

Thing is, Starfleet is remarkably accomadating to cultural practices. After all, they let Worf run around with a 20 poind sash just because it's a Klingon thing. And we've seen twins get posted to the same starship (like those two sisters on Voyager Tom Paris was always trying to score with). Therefore, if all the Andorians of a particular marrige group were serving in Starfleet, it should be easy for them all to have the same assignment. Hell, if one Andorian were on a Galaxy class ship, they could bring the whole family along.

Of course the real reason why we never saw any Andorians in the 24th century shows is because Berman thought they looked silly, and was even hesitant to bring them into Enterprise. So hesitant that the early plotline for The Andorian Incident was going to be about the Gorn(!).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Two genders under the Leslie Fish model mentioned by Therin up-thread.

Except that Leslie postulates three sexes, with some Andorians choosing to stay neuter gender.

Ah, so Lady Gaga is an Andorian? Who knew?

 

[Paper Moon]

Hmm, I see your point. But perhaps the Andorian navy had been designed to take multiple members of the same marriage group together as a single "package." And since this would be a cultural requirement grounded in biology, Andorian culture would see it as "normal." It would be "the way things are."

Thing is, Starfleet is remarkably accomadating to cultural practices. After all, they let Worf run around with a 20 poind sash just because it's a Klingon thing. And we've seen twins get posted to the same starship (like those two sisters on Voyager Tom Paris was always trying to score with). Therefore, if all the Andorians of a particular marrige group were serving in Starfleet, it should be easy for them all to have the same assignment. Hell, if one Andorian were on a Galaxy class ship, they could bring the whole family along.

Of course the real reason why we never saw any Andorians in the 24th century shows is because Berman thought they looked silly, and was even hesitant to bring them into Enterprise. So hesitant that the early plotline for The Andorian Incident was going to be about the Gorn(!).

Ah, touché... alright, I'm playing my last card here... maybe there are extensive in-law obligations in Andorian society which make long-term, long-distance tours of duty aboard a starship untenable? (Unless a ship is willing to take on a whole cadre of Andorians... )

But yeah, I concede that my suggestion doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Ah well.

And that bit about Rick Berman makes total sense, especially given what we know of him. And I see his point. The Andorians we saw in "Captain's Holiday" and "The Offspring" did look rather ridiculous. I wonder if the technology to make the antennae movable (and much more realistic moving) did not exist until the 2000's?

And I had never heard that about the would-be "The Gorn Incident". Glad cooler heads prevailed. The Andorians (Shran, in particular) were some of the few highlights of Enterprise, in my view.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Andorians have said that while they have few sympathies, one that they do have is for family. So I can only assume that even for the most military-minded among them, they will be given every opportunity to take family members along, on their duties aboard a starship.

 

[Tiberius]

How would more than two genders evolve anyway?

The requirement for three people in order to produce a child makes it less liekly that it will happen. Take animals, for instance, a bird. The male has to display to get the female's attention, and she has to accept him as a mate before he can fertilise one of her eggs.

Now, if a THIRD bird is required for that to occur, then the poor male has a big problem. He has to attract a mate, get that female to accept him, and then he has to attract a bird of the third gender - before the female gets bored and flies away!

And such a system will tend to evolve into two genders anyway.

Let's say that the system uses a third gender to produce a hormone which make fertilisation possible. It stimulates the female to ovulate, let's say.

Now, any female that can produce this hormone herself is going to be at an advantage. She will find it easier to produce offspring. So she's going to produce more of them in her life, and there's a good chance that the offspring will have the gene that lets the female produce this hormone. So, over time, the population will evolve to where the female doesn't need the hormone from the third gender anymore. The third gender is superfluous.

This will happen no matter what the third gender's contribution is. If the female (or the male) can do the job of the third gender, then the third gender will gradually disappear. It's technically possible for a second gender to disappear too, leaving only females. This has happened in some species of lizard. However, it tends to cause some problems with a lack of genetic variation, so it's not that common.

And any variation that results in a lower likelyhood of the offspring being the third gender is also going to be favoured. After all, if the females don;t need the hormone from the third gender, then any individual of the third gender is essentially a reproductive waste.

But then again, they're a reproductive waste to begin with if they don;t contribute any genetic material to the offspring.

So, from a strictly evolutionary perspective, the concept of three (or more) genders doesn't make much sense, not to me at least. perhaps the groups of four thing is a cultural thing, which would work fine, but as for what the Andorians have stashed in their pants, I think they'd have only two genders.

 

[Nerys Myk]

My personal theory, based on Data's line, is that Andorians marry in groups of four: One female and four males and that Andor is a matriarchy. Each male represents one of the major castes in Andorian society.

 

[The Wormhole]

And that bit about Rick Berman makes total sense, especially given what we know of him. And I see his point. The Andorians we saw in "Captain's Holiday" and "The Offspring" did look rather ridiculous. I wonder if the technology to make the antennae movable (and much more realistic moving) did not exist until the 2000's?

And I had never heard that about the would-be "The Gorn Incident". Glad cooler heads prevailed. The Andorians (Shran, in particular) were some of the few highlights of Enterprise, in my view.

I don't think movable antennae was really the solution. I mean they could have had Andorians looking exactly as Shran and the others on Enterprise did but with still antennae and it would have looked fine. I'm sure such a thing was possible in the 1990s Don't get me wrong, the moving antennae were fun, but I doubt that just because the antennae moved Andorians stopped being silly.

It's the damndest thing though, I've been looking around and I can't find proof to back my earlier claim about The Gorn Incident. I'm sure I read that somewhere, though it is possible I'm mixing the facts up. I believe there were several attempts to bring the Gorn onto Enterprise before the Mirror Universe story finally did that.

 

[Paper Moon]

And that bit about Rick Berman makes total sense, especially given what we know of him. And I see his point. The Andorians we saw in "Captain's Holiday" and "The Offspring" did look rather ridiculous. I wonder if the technology to make the antennae movable (and much more realistic moving) did not exist until the 2000's?

And I had never heard that about the would-be "The Gorn Incident". Glad cooler heads prevailed. The Andorians (Shran, in particular) were some of the few highlights of Enterprise, in my view.

I don't think movable antennae was really the solution. I mean they could have had Andorians looking exactly as Shran and the others on Enterprise did but with still antennae and it would have looked fine. I'm sure such a thing was possible in the 1990s Don't get me wrong, the moving antennae were fun, but I doubt that just because the antennae moved Andorians stopped being silly.

Hmm, I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure it would have worked for me (having Shran-style antennae that were rigid). But that may just be a case of YMMV.

It's interesting; my order of preference for Andorian make-up style is Shran, the admiral from TVH, Shras (from TOS) and then the weird stuff we got in TNG. Rare that something TNG gets ranked below something from TOS, at least for me.

It's the damndest thing though, I've been looking around and I can't find proof to back my earlier claim about The Gorn Incident. I'm sure I read that somewhere, though it is possible I'm mixing the facts up. I believe there were several attempts to bring the Gorn onto Enterprise before the Mirror Universe story finally did that.

Check out the third paragraph under "Background" here: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gorn

 

[Therin of Andor]

And I see his point. The Andorians we saw in "Captain's Holiday" and "The Offspring" did look rather ridiculous.

Well, it was the same wig and antennae used in both eps.

The advances in latex appliances by ST IV is the only reason we saw a balding Andorian in that. For the first time, they didn't have to use a wig to cover the joins! (There was an Andorian "God image" in ST V, too, but it was cut.)

I wonder if the technology to make the antennae movable (and much more realistic moving) did not exist until the 2000's?

Precisely. That kind of miniaturization had only just become small enough and light enough to create Shran - a featured player requiring many closeups.

And I had never heard that about the would-be "The Gorn Incident". Glad cooler heads prevailed.

Brannon Braga, often the guy blamed for not caring about canon, pointed out that Kirk's encounter with the Gorn was a "first contact" for the UFP.

 

[The Wormhole]

And that bit about Rick Berman makes total sense, especially given what we know of him. And I see his point. The Andorians we saw in "Captain's Holiday" and "The Offspring" did look rather ridiculous. I wonder if the technology to make the antennae movable (and much more realistic moving) did not exist until the 2000's?

And I had never heard that about the would-be "The Gorn Incident". Glad cooler heads prevailed. The Andorians (Shran, in particular) were some of the few highlights of Enterprise, in my view.

I don't think movable antennae was really the solution. I mean they could have had Andorians looking exactly as Shran and the others on Enterprise did but with still antennae and it would have looked fine. I'm sure such a thing was possible in the 1990s Don't get me wrong, the moving antennae were fun, but I doubt that just because the antennae moved Andorians stopped being silly.

Hmm, I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure it would have worked for me (having Shran-style antennae that were rigid). But that may just be a case of YMMV.

It's interesting; my order of preference for Andorian make-up style is Shran, the admiral from TVH, Shras (from TOS) and then the weird stuff we got in TNG. Rare that something TNG gets ranked below something from TOS, at least for me.

It's the damndest thing though, I've been looking around and I can't find proof to back my earlier claim about The Gorn Incident. I'm sure I read that somewhere, though it is possible I'm mixing the facts up. I believe there were several attempts to bring the Gorn onto Enterprise before the Mirror Universe story finally did that.

Check out the third paragraph under "Background" here: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Gorn

Ah, there we go. I was only checking out what various websites had to say about The Andorian Incident.

Brannon Braga, often the guy blamed for not caring about canon, pointed out that Kirk's encounter with the Gorn was a "first contact" for the UFP.

Braga pays more attention to continuity than most people give him credit for. Particularly with the Romulans having a cloaking device in Minefield, he admitted that was a mistake that slipped by everyone and even apoligised for it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I doubt that just because the antennae moved Andorians stopped being silly.

Berman's opinion was that TOS Andorians "looked hokey" and reminded him of bad B-grade sci-fi movies. He also wanted to hold firm on Roddenberry's suggestion that TNG steer clear of aliens we knew from TOS (and, of course, the original plan after Farpoint was to have the Enterprise-D go off on an extended mission into unexplored regions beyond Federation space.

Captain Rixx, the Bolian, was originally pitched as an Andorian. Tracy Tormé was overruled by Berman.

When Braga pointed out that ENT couldn't use the Gorn as the pitchers of "The Gorn Incident" intended, he pushed to use the Andorians - and the makeup team promised that they could make then look "not hokey". Moving antennae solved the problem of Andorians' antennae being poised like immobile blue horns. (Note that, to cut costs, some extras playing Andorians and Aenar did not have moving antennae.)

Braga pays more attention to continuity than most people give him credit for. Particularly with the Romulans having a cloaking device in Minefield, he admitted that was a mistake that slipped by everyone and even apoligised for it.

Yep. And I give him a pass on that, too. In the two TOS episodes featuring a cloaking device, Kirk and crew act like it's the first time they've encountered the phenomenon. Perhaps the Romulans have tinkered in such a way that each time, even ENT, was using a very different type of tech.

 

[Timo]

The only problem with that is that Spock in the first TOS encounter insists that invisibility is "theoretical". At least the second encounter lacks such explicitness...

Okay, we could argue that Spock feels that the specific way invisibility was achieved there ("selective bending of light" with "enormous energy costs") was theoretical, while invisibility as such was mundane and quite familiar to the Federation (like it basically is in every other encounter). But that would be stretching, bending and trampling on the semantics and dramatics of that dialogue well past the breaking point.

..he admitted that was a mistake that slipped by everyone and even apoligised for it.

Which as such isn't always a good idea. An apology was also offered for the Vulcans referring to Klingon ships as "warbirds" in the pilot episode, even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with Klingons having warbirds. They have various other sorts of bird-ship, after all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[captcalhoun]

i assumed the Vulcan got his English wrong and meant 'bird of prey'...

 

[david lowbridge]

i have been doing research into this at the moment for some writing. And while i found some interesting information and this forum, I have decided to go for this:

There are four sexes in the Andorian species. zhen (pure male), shen (mainly male, though as some female qualities), Thaan (pure female) and chan (mainly female with some male qualities).

The species use four chromosones in two pairings with a XX/YY, XX/XY, XX/XX, XX/YX being the chromo respectively to above. When mating, one of the chromos from the first pair mix with one of the pairing from the second. When a XX and XY or a XY and an XX come together the result can be mixed with either XXYX or XXXY being the end result. This means (and I've done the maths) that 33.33% of the population will be shen, 33.33% of the population will be Chan, 20% of the population will be zhen and 13.33% of the population will be Thaan.

A zhen and a shen cannot have a child together as the shen cannot carry children nor can a Thaan and a Chan (my own surmise, no evidence, just what i've come up with). However any other coupling is possible for a child to be born. this surmises that there must me at least a prodominately male and female in the relationship and that a shen can only reproduce by being a father, and a chan can only reproduce by being a mother.

The meaning of the groups of four I've concluded based on Shran from enterprise, is that Andorians marry in pairs of couples as a society.

As I said, dont berate me for this, this is just what I've created to give a future story of mine some interesting turns.

 

[T'Girl]

This is what I worked out a while ago.

The thaan, and the chan have penises or it's analogy. The zhen has a vagina, and the womb. The thaan and the chan have sex with the shen, to create a zygote, then the shen has sex with the zhen, to impregnant the "mother." The shen would have both a pee-pee, and a hoo-hoo.

The thaan's sperm has a single X chromosomes.
The shen's egg has a double XX chromosomes.
The zhen contributes no chromosomes.

The chan's sperm (like the thaan), has a single chromosomes, however the chan possesses one of four different chromosomes, it is the chan alone that determine the gender of the future child. Satistically each Andorian gender is 25% of all births.

Not saying this is "The Way,' just a idea.

 

[captcalhoun]

this is what i worked out a while ago:

there are Boy Andorians and Girl Andorians and when a Boy Andorian and Girl Andorian love each other very much, they get married in a ceremony with 2 other people involved in some way.

THE END.

it fits all available on-screen evidence, to wit no Andorian on ENT was anything other than male or female and Data said that Andorian marriages involve four people.

 

[Bry_Sinclair]

That is one interpretation.

I still stand by the idea that the Andorians have four genders. Nothing on screen has shown that that isn't the case. Marriages involve four people, those four people could each be of a different gender, all of which are needed to conceive a child.

After which children can then be raised by four, three, two or one parent(s). Being an alien race means that they don't have family units like humans. For all we know, children are born and then always raised by just one parent with the others chipping in only occassionally.

But it is a topic that is for each person to decide what option they prefer.