Origin of Andorian Marriage Customs?

[KWKeller]

Therin of Andor said:

Extrocomp said:
So does that mean that Thy'lek is some kind of a nickname or title or what? Is the biography from In a Mirror Darkly not canon?

Mike Sussman, who wrote the Archer and Sato biographies seen in "In a Mirror, Darkly", had no idea the text would be as visible as it was on TV monitors, and therefore the pieces never went to the executive producers for proper approval. The bios are also peppered with spelling errors, and contained a few dates he suspected would be overwritten by the still-to-be-filmed "Demons", "Terra Prime" and/or "These Are the Voyages", so Mike said in interviews, and TrekBBS posts, at the time to treat the two bios' contents as "soft canon".

Memory Alpha wiki, however, has a hard and fast interpretation of canon: if it's onscreen, it's canon.

It seems that Paula Block at CBS Consumer Products has happily approved both Thy'lek (in Sussman's recent MU novel with Dilmore & Ward) and the more traditional (novel) full Hravishran th'Zoarhi name proposed by Mangels & Martin for "The Good That Men Do", almost simultaneously.

But it's not worth getting into knots about. Maybe one day Shran takes on the name, or honorific, of Thy'lek, leaving his old name behind?

What's in a name, Shran?

Wiki talk

Edit: removed term "live action"

Yeah, I really don't see what the problem is for Shran having two full names. If you look at Earth history, many people have done the same. For example, go back a few centuries and Latin was considered the prestige language. To be taken more seriously as scientists, many would create Latin names for themselves. Perhaps Shran was born as "Thy'Lek Shran" (meaning "Shran, thaan of the Lek clan"), and then, when entering the military academy, created the more "mainstream" name "Hravishran th'Zoarhi" to be taken more seriously by the long-name-surname-last majority.
Or, alternately, "Hravishran th'Zoarthi" was his birth name and every Andorian that reaches a certain social level, in this case becoming a general, is given a new name (like a king or the pope).

Ronald Held said:
One might ask how intelligent life evolved on a completely ice covered world.

Easy, Andoria wasn't always covered in ice. It could be in the middle, or even tail end, of a major ice age. It could even be that in the 22nd century it was in a "snowball earth" type situation, and by the time of Paradigm: Andor, they were using terraforming technology (or, if you want to use a less severe wording "weather modification") to warm it up.

 

[Therin of Andor]

KWKeller said:
Perhaps Shran was born as "Thy'Lek Shran" (meaning "Shran, thaan of the Lek clan"), and then, when entering the military academy, created the more "mainstream" name "Hravishran th'Zoarhi" to be taken more seriously by the long-name-surname-last majority.

I think it's interesting, thanks to Mike Sussman, that he's Thy'lek on the ship's database in a reference to events well after ENT, so still plenty of time for him to gain a new name - one that Mirror Universe Shran already has in Sussman's MU novel.

by the time of Paradigm: Andor, they were using terraforming technology (or, if you want to use a less severe wording "weather modification") to warm it up.

In fact, there's a flash flood in "Paradigm" - from a recent thaw?

 

[foravalon]

KWKeller said:

Ronald Held said:
One might ask how intelligent life evolved on a completely ice covered world.

Easy, Andoria wasn't always covered in ice. It could be in the middle, or even tail end, of a major ice age. It could even be that in the 22nd century it was in a "snowball earth" type situation, and by the time of Paradigm: Andor, they were using terraforming technology (or, if you want to use a less severe wording "weather modification") to warm it up.

Therin of Andor said:
In fact, there's a flash flood in "Paradigm" - from a recent thaw?

Or... Being a moon of a Gas Giant it is subject to a Very long year, perhaps an 80 earth-year long revolution. If that were the case, the world might be subject to "30-40" year Winters, continually followed by 30-40 "year" long summers.
With out doing the math, this would be a perfectly fine justification for why Shran grew up much of his life having never seen the sun, as Andorians retreat underground for the winter cycles. And why Shar grew up on a sort of lush forrest/jungle world.

The four prolonged seasons might translate well in to their celebration of the four "deities" (i can't remember what they were really called but in Paradigm there was a huge celebration regarding one of them) and the Andorian periods attributed to them, sort of like the Cycle of the Chinese new years. (ie, dog, Dragon, rat, etc.)

 

[Therin of Andor]

foravalon said:
Shran grew up much of his life having never seen the sun, as Andorians retreat underground for the winter cycles. And why Shar grew up on a sort of lush forrest/jungle world.

Sounds like a plan.

The four prolonged seasons might translate well in to their celebration of the four "deities"

In Andorian mythology, "The Tale of the Breaking" tells of Thirishar the Warrior, the Greatest Among Mortals. When he approached the gatekeeper of Uzaveh the Infinite, he was permitted to walk the Path of Light. Assuming he was entitled to claim the Empty Throne, Thirishar was told he was not worthy and not yet Whole. From Thirishar, Uzaveh created the First Kin, four separate beings.

Each one was banished to the four farthest reaches of the kingdom, accompanied only by a Guardian. The beings were: Charaleas (representing wisdom, guided by the stars as Guardian); Zheusal (strength, protected by the earth); Shanchen (blood, a vessel for the Water Spirit); and Thirizaz (passion, guarded by the Fire Daemon).

- summarized from "Andor: Paradigm" by Heather Jarman in "Worlds of Deep Space Nine", Book 1, Pocket, 2004.

 

[GMDreia]

Here's my thought about how the shelthreth quad functions on a physiological level, if it hasn't been already written elsewhere...

My idea is, that their reproduction doesn't resemble mammalian reproduction. It's closer to that of egg-laying species, and then only somewhat closer.

The thaan and chen would likely have a standard-issue male organ.

As for the shen and zhen:

If the shen implants the fertilized ovum into the zhen, the shen likely has an ovipositor instead of a vagina.

The ovipositor would consist of a tube-like projection of the genital orifice, like that of some fish. This would act both as the receptive sexual organ and as the ovipositor. The ovipositor would be used to place the zygote in the zhavey's pouch.

It also seems to me that neither shen nor zhen would have a mammalian-style uterus, and that the zhen doesn't have a vagina. The zhen would have more developed female secondary sexual characteristics than the shen does, but I think that was assumed.

Finally - it seems to me that any Andorian would have three sex chromosomes. It would be interesting to see the karyotype of each of the four sexes... for example, would the thaan be XYY, chan XXY, and so forth and so on.

If these karyotypes are normative (which they would be, for a species with three sex chromosomes), they needn't result in the same issues as they do among humans. For an Andorian to have the equivalent of Klinefelter's Syndrome (XXY in a human male) he'd have to have *four* sex chromosomes instead of the normal three.

Just some thoughts from a biology nerd.

 

[GMDreia]

bump

 

[foravalon]

I dig your observations, I've always had this idea for a book detailing the biologies and cultures of various Star Trek species, with a particular emphasis on Andorians (since I love 'em!) in an old world journal style book with watercolor type illustrations much in the styles of the 1977 book of "Gnomes" or the book of "Faeries". These are both really fantastic and everyone should check them out.

P.S. how did you even resurrect this thread? It hasn't seen daylight for 3 motnths, not that I'm complainin'...

 

[Trent Roman]

Please don't do that. This forum is not so active that threads risk falling from the first page in a short space of time if unheeded. If and when someone has a reply, they'll post.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

EDIT: Yes, sorry Foravon. You snuck in while I was posting (you stealthy warthog, you).

 

[foravalon]

I'm guessing you're referring to the bump and not me...

 

[GMDreia]

foravalon said:P.S. how did you even resurrect this thread? It hasn't seen daylight for 3 motnths, not that I'm complainin'...

It popped up in a Google search for all things Andorian. I'm researching an RPG character.

Dreia