Andorian

Thelev, an Orion assassin disguised as an Andorian, from the 1967 original series episode "Journey to Babel".

Andorians appeared in four episodes of The Original Series, but there was very little back story on the Andorians until Enterprise.[4] Historically, the Andorians were rivals with the Vulcans. In the Enterprise episode "The Andorian Incident", the Andorian Imperial Guard appeared on a Vulcan monastery world P'Jem to search for a spy station, destroying property in the process. Archer discovered the spy station and informed the Andorians, leading Shran (an Andorian) to begin to trust Archer. Also in this episode, Andorians begin to refer to humans using the pejorative "pink-skin."

The tensions between Andor and Vulcan gradually resolved when Archer settled a conflict between the Vulcans and Andorians over the territory of a planet in the second season episode, "Cease Fire".

In the third season of Enterprise, Shran offers to assist Archer in retrieving a prototype of the Xindi weapon, only to betray him by taking the weapon. Archer believes Shran will use the weapon against the Vulcans, so he remotely sets the detonation sequence to prevent this. Shran expels the weapon from his ship before detonation. In the season 3 finale, Shran helps Archer fight the Xindi reptilians who were bringing the final weapon to Earth. Shran's involvement with the Xindi weapon leads to a brief armed conflict between Vulcans and Andorians in the fourth season episode "Kir'Shara". A Vulcan leader named V'Lass believes the Andorians are designing a new weapon from their scans of the Xindi weapon.

In the episode "United", an Andorian dies from a phaser wound, leading Shran to challenge a Tellarite to the Ushaan. In Andorian tradition, the Ushaan is a duel to the death, which is fought with hand-held ice-cutting blades called Ushaan-Tor, as mentioned in the second scene of Act 3. The Ushaan Right of Substitution allows combatants to choose another combatant to fight in their place. The Ushaan is settled when a combatant is rendered defenseless. Archer takes the Tellarite's place and wins the duel when he cuts off Shran's antenna.[5]

Andorians have blue blood, blue skin, white hair, and antennae on the crown of the skull. By the time of the 2001 – 2005 TV series Star Trek: Enterprise, the antennae were depicted as protruding from the forehead, and capable of movement, used for gesturing and balancing. If cut off, an antenna will grow back after nine months, though the time can be reduced by half with electrical stimulation and brisk cranial massage.[5]

The Aenar are a more reclusive, blue-white-skinned subspecies of Andorians. They were considered a myth until contact was remade in the episode "The Aenar", during the fourth season of Enterprise. The Aenar are blind, but exhibit telepathic and telemetric abilities. Aenar appear to use their antennae as telepathic receptors.[6]

Andoria is an icy moon orbiting a ringed gas giant. It has also been referred to as Andor.[1] In a DVD bonus feature for the 4th season of Enterprise, episode writers Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens stated that Andor was the gas giant, Andoria the moon, and that this was a conscious effort to address the discrepancy. Most of its cities are built underground to take advantage of geothermal warmth. Temperatures have been known to reach −28 °C in the summer. Andoria has at least one moon or neighboring planet. Andorians share their homeworld with an obscure telepathic subspecies, Aenar, which have either light blue or white skin.[6]

The non-canonical Star Trek Star Charts (2002) cites Andor as the seventh planet in orbit around the star Procyon (Alpha Canis Minoris) in the Beta quadrant,[7] but previous material has Andor as the eighth planet of the orange dwarf Epsilon Indi in the Alpha quadrant.[8][9] Andor is near Betazed, Earth, Tellar, and Vulcan.

A 1970s technical fiction book, The Starfleet Medical Reference Manual, held that Andorians were the only known semi-insectoid race in Federation territory, with a limited exoskeleton and antennae used for both quadriscopic vision reception and focused hearing.[10] These points were repeated in the 1980s book Worlds of the Federation.[9] Fully insectoid races depicted or referred to onscreen include the unseen Jarada in the Next Generation episode "The Big Goodbye", and the Xindi, which were introduced in Star Trek: Enterprise's third season.

In the Deep Space Nine relaunch novels, four-person Andorian marriages were extrapolated into four sexes (thaan, chen, shen, and zhen).[11] A recurring plot point in the post-TV series novels is that the rarity of compatible Andorian foursomes produced extremely low reproduction rates which, in tandem with genetic weaknesses, led to the species' near extinction.

Similarly, the Marvel comic book Star Trek: Starfleet Academy refers to complex yet flexible marital structures, involving one or more fathers, and describes Andorians as passionate, with a violent history.[12]

In the Pocket Books continuity, specifically the 2010 novel, Star Trek: Typhon Pact – Paths of Disharmony by Dayton Ward, the Andorian Empire withdraws from the Federation in 2382.[13] However, the Andorian government still maintains diplomatic relations with the Federation, and Andorian officers are allowed to remain in Starfleet if they so choose. Despite Andor's withdrawal, a sizable percentage of the population – represented in the Andorian government by the "New Progressive Party", as opposed to the secessionist "Visionist Party" – favored continuing membership in the Federation, opening the possibility of a later reunification. In a subsequent novel, Dayton Ward's Star Trek: The Fall – Peaceable Kingdoms, Andor does rejoin the Federation.[14]

In the Free-to-play online role-playing game Star Trek Online, which takes place in 2409, the Andorians are still ordinary members of the Federation.

In the Fan film episodic series Starship Exeter, the communications officer on the bridge is an Andorian Lieutenant named B'fuselek. In this series it is explained that Andorians' antennae give the Andorians the ability to detect nearby fluctuations in gravity, and know their position in relation to these gravity differences. Andorians and Vulcans also have a history of feuding over many things.

• Andorian at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)

• Andor at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• A Rogues' Gallery of Andorians – a series of blog postings listing the appearances of Andorian characters across all Star Trek media