"Show me Picard's flute!"

[Christopher]

Can't get enough of 'em blue people.

Neither can the Andorians themselves. That's the problem.

Oh, that's right! They literally can't get enough, in the Biblical sense! Good one.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Yeah. Four genders....

How do they mate, anyhow? Was that explained in the books or--

(Am I going too far off topic?)

 

[JD]

From Memory Beta:

The gametes of each "male" gender contain one quarter of the number of chromosomes necessary to produce offspring. During the conception of an Andorian child, the thaan fertilizes a shen's egg with his gamete. The chan then also fertilizes the egg. This produces a fertilized egg that develops into a zygote. The shen then transfers the zygote to the zhen's pouch, where it develops into an an embryo. The Andorian fetus is incubated and nourished to term in the zhen's pouch. The zhen does not contribute genetically to offspring.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

From Memory Beta:

The gametes of each "male" gender contain one quarter of the number of chromosomes necessary to produce offspring. During the conception of an Andorian child, the thaan fertilizes a shen's egg with his gamete. The chan then also fertilizes the egg. This produces a fertilized egg that develops into a zygote. The shen then transfers the zygote to the zhen's pouch, where it develops into an an embryo. The Andorian fetus is incubated and nourished to term in the zhen's pouch. The zhen does not contribute genetically to offspring.

Or, to put it simply, as they said in the Starfleet Academy comics, Andorian reproduction is complicated.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Oy, my head is spinning....

 

[David cgc]

IIRC, Prynn snuck a peak at Shar in WoDS9, and noted that his equipment wasn't prohibitively different than what she'd expect from a standard-issue male.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Yes...but apparently, the thaan and the chan are both needed in order to impregnate.

So...if Prynn and Shar were to get together...the odds of them having a child together is effectively...zilch--zero--nada.

Unless, of course, there's some kind of suppliment in the future--a sort of reverse birth-control pill, or something....

 

[DonIago]

So we've gone from talking about flutes to...talking about flutes.

Well at least we're on-topic.

 

[David Brennon]

The gametes of each "male" gender contain one quarter of the number of chromosomes necessary to produce offspring. During the conception of an Andorian child, the thaan fertilizes a shen's egg with his gamete. The chan then also fertilizes the egg. This produces a fertilized egg that develops into a zygote. The shen then transfers the zygote to the zhen's pouch, where it develops into an an embryo. The Andorian fetus is incubated and nourished to term in the zhen's pouch. The zhen does not contribute genetically to offspring.

If there are two "male" genders (thaan and chan) and two "female" genders (shen and zhen) and only three (thaan, shen and chan) contribute genetically to the mix does that mean that half of the genetic material is from the shen while the other half is from the thaan and chan at a quarter each?

That is one crazy way to reproduce! How the heck did they evolve that?

 

[Rush Limborg]

It was explained in the prolouge to the Andor tale in Worlds of DS9 vol. 1.

An old epic legend.

 

[JD]

So we've gone from talking about flutes to...talking about flutes.

Well at least we're on-topic.

Yeah, but at least it's not Picard's flute.

 

[David cgc]

Yes...but apparently, the thaan and the chan are both needed in order to impregnate.

So...if Prynn and Shar were to get together...the odds of them having a child together is effectively...zilch--zero--nada.

Unless, of course, there's some kind of suppliment in the future--a sort of reverse birth-control pill, or something....

I'm sure Prynn was thinking more recreationally at that point in her life.