Battle of the (Andorian) Sexes

[Sci]

Well for the Aenar is seems to class them as a 'sub-species' rather than just another race of Andorians.

I'm fairly certain it's the presence of telepathy and the lack of functional vision that marks them as a subspecies, not their skin color.

 

[Paper Moon]

I think the point that Bry is making is that it is a bit odd, evolutionarily speaking, that the Aenar developed quite so differently from their non-Aenar Andorian cousins. Yes, of course, white skin, telepathy and blindness (though to a lesser extent) are not uncommon in the Trekverse, but all three traits together in a subspecies of a blue-skinned, non-telepathic, non-blind species?

Is the idea of there being variation in something as genetically minor as skin color really all that implausible, whether by itself or in combination with other, more substantive traits?

It's just skin color. Hell, in real life, skin color doesn't even stay the same at all times for a single individual.

In humans, of course it's not implausible. But we've seen almost no variation of skin color among Andorians. The little we have seen seems to be more a matter of make-up techniques and lighting than deliberate portrayals of ethnic variation.

My point is that, for Andorians anyway, skin color may not be a minor genetic trait. Maybe Andorian skin itself is actually relatively lacking in pigmentation, but is seen as blue because of the way the Andorian circulatory system is designed; blood vessels concentrated densely enough and close enough to the skin that the skin itself takes on a blue hue, for example. Perhaps Aenar blood vessels are spread out more, leading to paler skin. This would mean that skin color is reflective of more fundamental differences in physiology, more on the level of blindness and telepathy.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get off on such a tangent about skin color. All I'm saying is that the Andorians and Aenar are alien species that evolved on an alien planet. The same rules of genetics/biology will almost necessarily not apply there.

 

[The Wormhole]

But we've seen almost no variation of skin color among Andorians.

There were green Andorians in TNG.

 

[Paper Moon]

But we've seen almost no variation of skin color among Andorians.

There were green Andorians in TNG.

As I said, almost no variation (since there were two green Andorians in TNG, but dozens of blue Andorians in TOS, the movies and ENT). (Lol, if someone throws Thelin at me, though, I will scream. jkjk)

Again, as I said:

The little [variation] we have seen seems to be more a matter of make-up techniques and lighting than deliberate portrayals of ethnic variation.

But I grant that it's a weakness is my argument.

Perhaps the Andorians we see in the 24th century are the results of integration of the Aenar into Andorian mainstream? (That's what Geoff Trowbridge proposed to explain away Thelin's odd complexion in The Chimes at Midnight.)

 

[Skywalker]

Perhaps the Andorians we see in the 24th century are the results of integration of the Aenar into Andorian mainstream? (That's what Geoff Trowbridge proposed to explain away Thelin's odd complexion in The Chimes at Midnight.)

That could explain it, sure. In TATV, Shran's daughter Talla also had greenish skin and she was part-Aenar.

 

[Paper Moon]

Perhaps the Andorians we see in the 24th century are the results of integration of the Aenar into Andorian mainstream? (That's what Geoff Trowbridge proposed to explain away Thelin's odd complexion in The Chimes at Midnight.)

That could explain it, sure. In TATV, Shran's daughter Talla also had greenish skin and she was part-Aenar.

The only part of that idea that I don't like, for the purposes of my personal continuity, is that according to the novels, Paths of Disharmony specifically,

Spoiler: the Aenar in the 24th century

the Aenar are extinct by the late 23rd century. I suppose I can still retcon that by assuming that Dayton Ward meant that only Aenar-Andorian hybrids remained, and that even they were dwindling group then.

In any case, it does offer a pretty reasonable, in-universe explanation.