Reading Andoria: Paradigm for the first time

[Jarvisimo]

Slowly bu surely I make my way through the DS9 relaunch, which I strangely stalled at when getting into the Worlds books ages ago (life, i guess, and focusing on newer books). Anyway, I'm reading Andor: Paradigm and finding that it is a beautiful book. I love that it is so domestic, with so much brilliant world-building - customs, religion, geography, language, fashion, visual culture, etc. Ahaha, I wish Memory Beta - rather dry on the Andorian culture - could just quote relevant sections of Jarman's prose in Paradigm on all these aspects. And I wish that the colour and feel of this species was still around?

I must ask, how much do you think Jarman's work (as well as that of her predecessors in the other DS9R books) carried on with Andorian depictions since? Especially Paths of Disharmony and A Ceremony of Losses, but also in Enterprise and more generally in Treklit? Do you think the Andorians feel less alien in later works - and is that partly because of Enterprise's more normative depiction too?

Also what happened to Jarman? Her twitter feed is really interesting, but does anyone know why she stopped writing treklit circa 2006?

 

[Therin of Andor]

I wish that the colour and feel of this species was still around?

Well, "Destiny" might have fixed a bit of that.

I must ask, how much do you think Jarman's work (as well as that of her predecessors in the other DS9R books) carried on with Andorian depictions since? Especially Paths of Disharmony

Well, Dayton references "Paradigm" in hi book - and I was beta reader on "Paths of Disharmony" and it all seems like the same place to me - although Dayton's story is set above ground and a lot of "Paradigm" is subterranean.

s that partly because of Enterprise's more normative depiction too?

We only saw the Aenar's polar region in ENT, but coincidentally it was set in subterranean tunnels. And ice in "The Aenar" and

Spoiler: weather conditions

thawed flash flooding in "Paradigm".

Also what happened to Jarman? Her twitter feed is really interesting, but does anyone know why she stopped writing treklit circa 2006?

She's been overseas with her family. Recently announced on Facebook that they had plans to return to the USA.

 

[zarkon]

I didn't like her depiction of the andorians, or the story threads it has been giving us for around ten years now. For what it's worth I feel a lot of her andorian ideas have survived, I'm just personally sorry they did.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I didn't like her depiction of the andorians, or the story threads it has been giving us for around ten years now. For what it's worth I feel a lot of her andorian ideas have survived, I'm just personally sorry they did.

SD Perry reintroduced the Andorians in the "Avatar" duology in 2003, so it's hardly Heather Jarman's "depiction of Andorians".

 

[zarkon]

woah, I've been blaming the wrong person all these years. I guess that's what happens when I only read a book once...

was avatar the one with all the angst between shar and his bondmates?

 

[Stevil2001]

Avatar introduced Shar, but without much background detail, I think, beyond the four-sex system. It was Jarman's This Gray Spirit where Shar's bondmates showed up and made him angst a lot.

 

[zarkon]

Ah, wasn't that far off then!

 

[vorador33]

I've also been slowly making my way through the DS9 relaunch and have just finished the second Worlds of DS9 book. I loved Jarman's work and thought her Mission Gamma book was the point were the DS9 relaunch started living up to it’s potential. All the stuff she added to the Andorians was a nice bit of world building and made me care about a species who up until that point, outside the character Shran, I hadn't had much interest in. Would definitely like to see her write more Trek.

 

[Jarvisimo]

Thanks all for replying - it's rewarding to essentially discover Paradigm anew, and, though it predates them, to contrast it favorably with Enterprise and it's books, the post-destiny works and even earlier Andorian elements in the relaunch. I just really have enjoyed it - much more than I expected. It's a multitude of details, as I listed above, in Jarman's work as well as her delightful style that is rewarding. And the four genders work, so well, shockingly and intimately, as do much in the nook's world building is to the reader intimately shocking.

Tbh I never enjoyed the secession story, and I'm glad it's over. It never felt right (although that's perhaps what one was hoped to feel?). But more so, reading Paradigm, set in the Visionist heartland even, I wouldn't even think that plot development possible.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I never enjoyed the secession story, and I'm glad it's over. It never felt right (although that's perhaps what one was hoped to feel?).

That's what I got from my reading of Dayton's novel. We are meant to be thinking, "But that's such a wrong decision!"

 

[Deranged Nasat]

But more so, reading Paradigm, set in the Visionist heartland even, I wouldn't even think that plot development possible.

This was before the Borg Invasion made the genetic crisis more pronounced, though. So many quads would have suffered losses that the timeframe for extinction fell from "we have fifteen or twenty generations" to "if we don't find something in the next few years there's no going back and we won't see the end of the next century." This is a society with a lot of pain, which has been gestating for a long time without any obvious target. After the Borg Invasion I think they just hit their point of despair. The reality of what was happening to them crystalized; I suspect it was no longer a frustration or a cultural pressure, it was a stark and brutal reality that was suddenly looming far larger than they'd expected. When the Tholians dropped their bombshell, it was the straw that broke the zabathu's back, so to speak.

Even before the Invasion, there were hints that the political situation on Andor was deteriorating (or continuing to deteriorate, following Paradigm). I particularly like the reference in SCE: Remembrance of Things Past to a series of terrorist bombings on Andor, with high-profile landmarks coming under attack. It's the reason given for Tev being off-ship - he's attending an old colleague's funeral - and it's not important to the plot, but it's a nice acknowledgement that this is an ongoing arc, a situation that continues to unfold whether we're focused on it or not. In a similar fashion, there was a reference in Articles of the Federation to mounting anger on Andor that the Zife Administration had been showing little in the way of support - Zife never visited the planet, even though the full extent of the crisis was made public early in his second term. There is a thread running through the meta-story, little mentions here and there, which help link Paradigm to Paths of Disharmony via Destiny.

 

[Therin of Andor]

a series of terrorist bombings on Andor, with high-profile landmarks coming under attack.

TerriO tried to obliterate it, but only David Mack succeeded!


Therin Park T-shirt by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

 

[DS9forever]

I think it was actually Twilight that introduced Shar's bondmates.

 

[Therin of Andor]

"Like all Andorians, Shar has been raised to 'live for the whole' and is expected to undergo the shelthreth ceremony with three Andorian partners: Anichent, Dizhei and Thriss. [Gateways: Demons of Air and Darkness (Pocket, 2001) by Keith RA DeCandido.]

"The full names of Shar's three bondmates are eventually revealed: Dizhei is Vindizhei sh'Rraazh and Thriss is Shathrissía zh'Cheen. Anichent, a male in appearance, is Thavanichent th'Dani. [Mission Gamma, Book 1: Twilight (Pocket, 2002) by David R George III.]

"Dizhei calls Councilor zh'Thane her zhadi and she, in turn, calls Dizhei shri'za. [Mission Gamma, Book 2: This Gray Spirit (Pocket, 2002) by Heather Jarman.] "
http://andorfiles.blogspot.com.au/2009/10/rel-rogues-gallery.html

 

[KRAD]

Yes, the three bondmates were introduced by name in my novel Demons of Air and Darkness, mentioned by Vretha, Shar's zhavey (mother, more or less). But we don't meet them in person until Twilight. I'm also the one who came up with the term "shelthreth," which was also first mentioned in DOAAD.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm also the one who came up with the term "shelthreth," which was also first mentioned in DOAAD.

And Andor thanks you!

 

[Jarvisimo]

I never enjoyed the secession story, and I'm glad it's over. It never felt right (although that's perhaps what one was hoped to feel?).

That's what I got from my reading of Dayton's novel. We are meant to be thinking, "But that's such a wrong decision!"

I'm sure you are right. I wlll need to reread Paths at some point... But it doesn't compare as a text. Jarman's writing, its copious building of detail, was so exhilarating. Was it related to older Andorian things too? Like RPG books?

Also the charcaterization in Paradigm was great, and most of the plot - although the kidnapping plot was less interesting and rather perfunctory (Except as a catalyst and for its effect on the andorian characters).

I read Trill and Bajor too

The former, I found some of it nice (esp. the dive) but enjoyed it far less than Lotus Flower, Paradigm and Fragments and Omens.

With the latter - a stunning and wonderful piece of genre, in the sense of genre as scenes of normal life (its correct use in art history). I was grinning ear to ear most of the way, wishing there was just more of this slow, domestic story these days (with non-extravagant politics like the Asarem-Krim plotline). The Rena and Jacob plotline was wonderful, as was the scenes of Ben settling into family life. I liked how almost every pov was Bajoran, or in the case of Ben and Kassidy this is discussed that they too are Bajoran. Immigration and emigration was very well-depicted in the novel also.

Do we ever see this side of Bajor again? Just as do we ever see that beautifully domestic and detailed world of Paradigm again? Or are these rare and beautiful glimmers whose very preciousness is their isolation, their Waugh-esque glimmers into another lost world like Oxford of the mid-1920s?

Regarding Bajor's set up for future novels, I guessed the villain was Ghemor due of course to her shadow on Treklit and future novels - but I would have loved to have been clueless reading that years ago. The little tell of the dying wife being horrified at Kira: subtle.

Now - at some point - onto Krad's Satisfaction Not Guaranteed, DRg's olympus Descending and then the last two. And finally i will be caught up.

 

[Jarvisimo]

I'm also the one who came up with the term "shelthreth," which was also first mentioned in DOAAD.

And Andor thanks you!

Really interesting!

Also how much did Marco do during the Relaunch? I'm really curious to how an over-seeing editor plays a creative role.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Jarman's writing, its copious building of detail, was so exhilarating. Was it related to older Andorian things too? Like RPG books?

AFAIK, Heather Jarman and Marco Palmieri deliberately avoided looking at previous fanmade material.

The first exploration of Andorian worldbuilding was Leslie Fish's fanfics in the 70s and, of course, this material is unauthorized and unlicensed:
http://andorfiles.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/summary-of-physiological-roots-of.html

Interestingly, in 1976, Leslie had postulated three sexes, not four, and overcrowding on Andor from overpopulation rather than the low birthrate crisis of the Relaunch. (Marco told me they deliberately avoided the material until after "Paradigm" was written.)

However, a contemporary of Leslie Fish was Jean Lorrah, and some of Leslie's Andorian worldbuilding did make it into "TNG: Metamorphosis", except she was then told by the Star Trek Office at Paramount to turn her novel's Andorian character into a Theskian (eg. Lt Thralen's "Great Mother" deity is still mentioned).

Another coincidence was that many old fanfics, and even the more recent "Starship Exeter: The Savage Empire" fanfilm, set on Andor (and cameoing Senator Therin) featured networks of underground caverns, ie, Andorians typically not living on the surface.

The concept of Andor as an iceworld had originated in the FASA RPG materials, and carried into the Last Unicorn Games' materials, and Jarman didn't really use this concept either - although her cave systems had a huge flood (from a thaw?). (Previous licensed texts had suggested Andor as a hot world.) The icy cover art of LUG's "The Andorians: Among the Clans" (1999) inspired the production team at "Enterprise" when planning the episode, "The Aenar", but the episode came out after "Paradigm" was published.

 

[Christopher]

With the latter - a stunning and wonderful piece of genre, in the sense of genre as scenes of normal life (its correct use in art history).

Sorry, but this caught my eye. You call the art-history usage the "correct" one, but it strikes me as a rather idiosyncratic one. "Genre" literally just means "kind" or "type," from the same Latin root as "gender" and "genus." I can easily see how it came to mean "a class or category of artistic endeavor," but it's much harder to see how it came to mean "paintings of scenes of everyday life." It's probably the same kind of synecdoche/shorthand that leads to our modern use of "genre" as shorthand for "science fiction/fantasy/horror" -- a term that originally just meant "category" coming to be applied to a specific category that's seen as contrasting with the default/mainstream type of work. SF/F is called genre because it's seen as an exception to ordinary, mainstream fiction (even though that consists of various genres of its own), so I'm guessing that specific field of painting came to be called "genre" because it was distinct from whatever was considered the accepted norm in painting.

Ah, here we go. Wikipedia says that type of everyday-life painting is also called petit genre ("small sort"), as distinct from grand genre ("large sort"), portraying important historical events. So dropping the petit and just calling it genre must have arisen as a shorthand which was somewhat careless about the literal meaning of the term.