Do Andorians Really Have Four Sexes?

hey guys tyler here one star trek species that i've been dying to talk about on this channel is the andorians a founding member of the federation first introduced in the original series episode journey to babel and subsequently featured in dozens of star trek episodes the andorian's blue skin antennae and other distinct features make them one of the more intriguing star trek aliens from a pure design perspective in this video i'll examine their biology as well as their unique history and culture and compare them to what we expect aliens to be like in real life let's get started [Music] in addition to being blue skinned andorians have blue blood that may be based on the protein hemocyanin instead of hemoglobin hemocyanin is found in some earth animals such as horseshoe crabs and it's more efficient at oxygen transport than hemoglobin in colder and lower pressure environments andorians also possess white or silver hair and have a higher metabolic rate than humans all adaptations to the icy climate of their homeworld indeed as shran remarks in an episode of enterprise while indorians can become accustomed to a variety of conditions they are best suited for frigid temperatures another one of the andorian's most distinctive features their antennae serve a number of purposes they primarily aid in balance although they may also aid in other senses like seeing hearing and touch if an antenna is lost an andorian can become partially disabled in the short term although they would start to compensate within days and 10 i usually grow back within nine months if left untreated but can grow back in half that time with the use of electrical stimulation and cranial massage while losing an antenna is not considered critical it can be humiliating as for how such a feature would evolve in an otherwise seemingly mammalian species well i'll get to that but first we need to talk about the endorian homeworld the endorian homeworld andoria is actually a moon orbiting a gas giant called andor not to be confused with indore the star this moon and gas giant orbit is called procyon or alpha canis minorus procyon was identified with the andorian system years ago in the non-canon reference book star trek star charts as well as later in stellar cartography the starfleet reference library and the star was confirmed in canon to be andoria's primary by maps used in discovery in picard procyon which is 11 light years away is a binary star that consists of a whitish f-type primary and a faint white dwarf companion an f-type star's habitable zone or the region around a star where life can develop is estimated to extend from about 1.1 astronomical units or aus to about 3.7 aus while the star is hotter and larger both in terms of mass and radius andor's distance from procyon probably is much further than earth's relative distance from the sun some star trek sources have the gas giant being the fifth or eighth planet orbiting procyon probably several aus further away here andoria would be heated largely due to tidal effects of the gas giant's gravity well this may sound too good to be true but guess what that actually happens right here in our solar system we can see this force at work with some of the moons of the gas giants jupiter and saturn here's how it works a gas giant's gravitational energy produces tidal forces that tug at a moon that's in a slightly elliptical orbit this tidal bulge varies over the course of the orbit generating internal friction that heats the moon's interior this is what's responsible for volcanic activity on jupiter's moon io and the same effect helps heat the subsurface oceans of one of jupiter's other moons europa and saturn's moon enceladus you may recall that europa enceladus and a few other moons in our solar system are prime candidates for the search for extraterrestrial life in their subsurface oceans these moons are believed to have hydrothermal vents under their ice layers and some of the earliest fossilized life on earth exists around similar hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor in other star systems though some moons of gas giants may garner enough mass to hold on to an oxygen atmosphere and produce other conditions suitable for life on the surface speaking of life on the surface a planet in an f-star's habitable zone would be subject to between two and a half and 7.1 times the amount of uv radiation that earth receives even with sufficient atmospheric shielding like an ozone layer there would still be enough uv radiation coming through to affect the coloration of pigments and native flora and fauna as i talked about in my video about the asari from mass effect such pigments and alien life could reflect higher energy blue light while absorbing other colors but when it comes to andorians given the greater distance of their homeworld from their star their appearance may actually be the result of their blue blood pulling closer to the surface of their skin to keep them warm indeed the endorians may have partially evolved underground possibly from mole-like creatures we know they built subsurface cities to take advantage of geothermal energy so it's not that far of a stretch one other fact about procyon the system is actually less than two billion years old this makes some sense from a statistical point of view given that f stars burn through their hydrogen more quickly so it follows that most of the ones that we'd encounter would be younger than our sun why is this worthy of discussion well it could have some implications about the history of andorian evolution as we learn in the next generation episode the chase most if not all humanoid life in the galaxy is descended from a genetic code seeded by the progenitors four and a half billion years ago when it comes to star systems younger than four and a half billion years while many of them have undoubtedly been colonized by non-native species some of the progenitors dna sequence could have drifted through space and landed on the surface of younger planets in a process called panspermia some scientists hypothesized this is how life actually got started here on earth bacteria and other microorganisms that travel the cosmos would have landed on earth via comet impacts or possibly from mars or outside the solar system as for andorians given how fine-tuned their evolution seems to be for their environment and given what we know about andorian prehistory i think it's fair to say that they are native to their homeworld they did evolve there the coded dna fragments that gave rise to life on indoria could have been seeded later by another ancient race like the preservers who are not the same as the progenitors as i discussed in one of my other videos or these fragments could have been transported there naturally via a mechanism like the mycelial network the mycelial network is like network that's that's the star trek reference the andorians are described and portrayed as a militaristic race they carry weapons without stun settings and it's considered an honor to serve in their imperial guard military rank greatly influences social reputation they are considered by outsiders and even themselves to be deeply emotional passionate and violent andorians are even taught how to fight with various weapons during childhood so yeah pretty sparta-like lest you think that these cultural practices would make the endorians and overall conservative species well arguably you'd be right but they do have some progressive elements women enjoy an equal position in endorian society and are considered just as capable as males in combat also as shown in enterprise women can initiate an intimate relationship by assaulting a male yeah when it comes to gender though the andorians are actually rather unique among star trek aliens according to data andorian marriages usually require groups of four people except under certain circumstances now while this could simply be a case of regular old polygamy some novels and other sources have taken this to mean that andorians actually have four sexes which makes their reproduction habits complicated whether or not andorians are for sex is still up for debate but it's never been commented on in canon and their on-screen depictions have never really made further distinctions than just male and female however the lower decks character jennifer sharayan's second name follows the four gender andorian naming convention established in the novels indicating that she is a shin a sex that provides one-third of the gametes for the offspring okay you know what even though it's not canon we we have got to explore this a little more deeply as established in the ds9 novel avatar book 2 the four endorian sexes are as follows shin is a sex that roughly corresponds to female and produces an egg containing one third of the necessary chromosomes than is a sex that roughly corresponds to male and fertilizes the shin's egg with his gamete containing another third of the necessary chromosomes chan is another sex that roughly corresponds to male who fertilizes the egg again with his third of the chromosomes chans usually have a wiry body type and are smaller than thons who are usually bigger and more muscular finally the zhen is the other sex that roughly corresponds to female and carries the zygote term in a pouch they thus do not contribute genetically to the offspring the writers and editors at pocketbooks which publishes many star trek novels have freely admitted that this is simply just one interpretation of data's line but it afforded more storytelling opportunities animals with chromosomes besides the familiar x and y do exist here on earth for example there are animals with w and z chromosomes but while there are definitely intersex humans the andorian's alleged four sex reproductive practices are rather alien so to recap andorian's possibly hemocyanin-based blood is more efficient at oxygen transport than hemoglobin their antennae aid in balance and give them enhanced perception of their environment and their culture promotes being skilled in combat on the other hand their inclination towards colder temperatures may limit their placement on human dominated starfleet vessels their higher metabolism makes them easier to tire out and their supposed forcex biology limits the scale of their reproduction all in all they're pretty evenly balanced as far as their strengths and weaknesses so if you were a starfleet captain would you recruit an andorian to serve on your crew why or why not i'll be interested to hear your responses andorians are one of the most fascinating star trek species to me personally i mean after all we just went through how could they not be well i certainly didn't include every single fact about andorians in this video my hope is that this has been an interesting overview of their biology history society and culture but what do you think let me know down in the comments with that said thank you all so much for watching if you enjoyed this video be sure to leave a thumbs up down below and don't forget to share it that stuff really helps me out if you haven't subscribed yet be sure to do that as well so you won't miss future uploads and click the bell icon to receive all notifications if you want to support my work even further becoming a patron or a member is a great way to do so links to those as well as my social media and merch store are also in the description that's all i have for this week live long and prosper [Music] you

Channel: OrangeRiver

Views: 83,083

Keywords: orange river, orange river productions, anim8orkid, tyler pilkinton, orangeriver, andor, andoria, andorian, andorians, shran, jeffrey combs, tos, the original series, journey to babel, enterprise, star trek, trek, alien, biology, astrobiology

Id: 5LNaq7rVgKU

Length: 13min 22sec (802 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 03 2021