I agree; it was rather refreshing, and I think the writing successfully demonstrated how this version of the Federation was both familiar and distinct. To tie in somewhat with your points about a more straightforwardly military fleet, I really liked the ceremony with the flabjellah; seeing the familiar Federation ideals filtered through a warrior culture's perspective was most enlightening. I also liked how this union wasn't presented as being inferior or superior to the more familiar Federation, but simply different. Functional in different ways; less than perfect in different ways (the decimation of the Xindi was indeed disturbing, but the implied clash of perspectives in the modern fleet looking back on that part of its history was very interesting). I suppose overall the story's strength is that it presents "the Federation" struggling with itself and the nature of its core values and history in ways that differ from what's possible in the mainstream 'verse, and therefore it justifies itself as a "Myriad Universes" story. Human protagonists who are filtering their perceptions through an Andorian-coloured prism; very intriguing.
I am enjoying these comments and this discussion. Thank you all. I would speculate that in the Prime timeline, neither the Andorians nor the Vulcans ever expanded as much as they would have liked, each thanks to the militancy of the other, leaving a number of unclaimed planets for the humans to snap up. With no Vulcans, the Andorians simply took all the colony worlds they liked. The human population is indeed somewhat reduced, I suppose. So, basically what the Nasat said. (There is a "Trooper Vaughn" mentioned as being part of Kumari's security division.)
Cool, and thanks for replying. Are you at any liberty to say how the Andorians dealt with the reproductive crisis in your AU?
My honest answer is that we have no answer! It wasn't something we dealt with, even in our background notes (which you can read here, though there are some inconsistencies with the final book). We wanted to steer a wide berth around that aspect of the Andorians, since it wasn't relevant to the story being told; I was insistent that there not even be an overt reference to the four sexes, since I didn't want the story to be off-putting to someone who hadn't read the DS9 relaunch.
Oh, but could you? The fact that "grey skin" seemed like such a "correct" description tells me that you and I are more alike than you would care to admit, though granted, with different favorite species...
Wow, thanks! Sorry it took me so long to notice this and reply. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Aaarggh . . . typos. No matter how hard everyone tries, a few always slip through. I'll have to track those down and let my editor know in case they can fix on reprint. That was a fun part of writing it, trying to be true to the original performance while also taking the character in new directions. I hoped to make him sympathetic without losing his rough edges. And I put the poor guy through hell!