IS Andor where their loyalties ultimately lie?
It appears to be that way. Plagues of Night shows a scenerio wherein a number of Andorian Starfleet officers left the service following their people's decision to secede.
1. In that specific instance, I was referring to whomsoever is serving or has served as Federation Councillor from Andor, not to any and all Andorians.
2.
Plagues of Night also makes it clear that a number of Andorian Starfleet officers
stay in the Federation Starfleet after Andor secedes from the UFP. Including at least one whose loyalty to the Federation is brought into question but then exonerated.
As I asserted above, this is very much a case-by-case thing. We can't generalize it.
Regarding the question of whether the Andorians would share noilitary secrets with their new allies in the Typhon Pact, we really don't have any information whereby to make a determination one way or the other.
Except that it's implausible that the Andorian government itself would have such information. We can assume that the Federation Councillor from Andor, who until secession would automatically have been a member of the Federation Security Council, would have access to such information, and that individual Andorian members of the Federation government and Starfleet Command might. But that doesn't mean they'd automatically be willing to give it to the Andorian government.
Andor's been part of the Federation for over two centuries, and their secession occurred by a very narrow margin. There's no doubt a large biologically Andorian diaspora that lives in non-Andorian worlds who have not seceded, and there's also no doubt a non-Andorian population that was residing on Andor when it seceded. The Federation is a strong union that's lasted for centuries, and it's completely plausible to assume that there are some Andorians who are more loyal to Andor first, some Andorians who are more loyal to the UFP first, and some Andorians who feel caught between the two loyalties and can't choose. I think it's really silly to pretend that we can assume anything one way or the other on such a complex, emotionally fraught issue.
As I noted, it is demonstrated in PoN that a number of Andorian officers chose to leave Starfleet following their people's secession, which would seem to belay the argument you're making.
How so? I did not argue that
no Andorians would put Andor before the Federation. I argued that it's something we can't generalize, something we can't assume. As I said above, that same book also makes it clear that other Andorians stayed.
There are probably some Andorians who wouldn't turn theory backdrop on the Federation, but PoN shows us that the general reaction among individual Andorians in response to the secession was to cut all existing ties with the Federation and its attached organizations.
Not exactly.
From
Plagues of Night, page 185:
"Douglas was on duty at the airlock where the Vren-thai was docked," Blackmer continued. "While she was there, she claimed that Ensign th'Shant arrived to say good-bye to Ensign zh'Vesk." Of the thirty-nine Andorian Starfleet officers on DS9 at the time of their world's secession from the Federation, seventeen had immediately resigned their commissions. In the intervening eight months, another eleven had followed suit, including two who departed the station three days earlier: Ensign zh'Vesk and an enlisted crew member, ch'Rellen.
So, we know that 28 out of 39 Andorians posted to DS9 eventually left Starfleet for Andor. That means that about 72% left and about 28% stayed -- and that's out of an extremely small sample size.
Now, does that mean they were intending to "cut all ties" to the Federation, or that they were all necessarily putting loyalty to Andor ahead of loyalty to the UFP? Surely some were. Probably most of the ones who resigned were. But I can also see plenty of those people returning to Andor for other possible reasons -- family pressure, for instance, or a desire to become pro-Federation Membership activists back on Andor. We don't know all of their reasons, and it's important not to stereotype or make assumptions.
ETA:
Sci
As said, your position is unsupported;
I have cited my reasons for viewing the Federation as a sovereign state in its own right in the link I provided. You have yet to elaborate on or provide evidential support for your claim that the Federation is less integrated than the European Union.
If there are andorians remaining loyal to the federation, they are VERY rare exceptions
We don't have the data to come to that conclusion. The closest we have is the DS9 sample, which is too small to come to a reasonable conclusion. Yet even there, 28% is hardly "VERY rare."
- and, once Andor joins the Typhon pact,
In the words of a certain wise diminutive humanoid:
"This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away -- to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was! Hmm? What he was doing!"
In other words:
It is unreasonable to come to any conclusions about the events of a novel that has not yet been released.
And andorian representatives elected by the andorians to serve andorian interests would not be among them; their job description is - and was - to promote andorian interests, not the interests of the rest of the federation.
Actually, the job description of a Federation Councillor from Andor is to do both. To make a real-world comparison, similarly, the job of a Canadian Member of Parliament from Québec is to serve both Canadian and Québécois interests.
And I sure as hell wouldn't claim that
a Québécois MP would never
put Canada first. Real history proves that's flatly untrue.
Your comparison with California, etc fails:
"The federation has more in common with the EU than with the USA regarding integration of its member species. Indeed, even within the EU the member states are better integrated than the member species in the federation."
Repeating your assertion does not make it an accurate assertion. You have yet to provide any details on WHY you assert that the Federation is less well-integrated than
