The Andorian sexes

amwolfe

Am I crazy or did the crew data sheets used to include the Andorian sexes in their details?
(zhen, shen, chan and thaan)
I'm sure I used to see them listed when I looked up Andorian crew members data. Why was this removed?

stirling191

Because having to do "the talk" with four genders instead of two got too complicated?

thecosmic1

I assume it was removed because most people have no idea that Andorians have 4 genders - and even that is considered soft canon. It is confusing to many people who only have a casual understanding of Trek.

tatyanasergei

thecosmic1 wrote: »

I assume it was removed because most people have no idea that Andorians have 4 genders - and even that is considered soft canon. It is confusing to many people who only have a casual understanding of Trek.

Are you -sure- it is soft canon?

I seem to recall Shran mentioning the existance of four sexes in an episode of ENT... Lemme see if I can find the episode.

f9thaceshigh

Data mentioned once that Andorian weddings involve four people, IIRC, that's as close as it got. But I agree that it needs to be put back in. It is a simple text change, it's not like we need to add two more playable Andorian genders to the game (although that would be cool too). I thought it was a neat reference that added to the immersion of the game.

voyagerfan9751

The Andorian sexes have always confused me. Shran had a daughter and clearly didn't need two other people. So I am fine if STO wants to ignore it.

thecosmic1

tatyanasergei wrote: »

Are you -sure- it is soft canon?

I seem to recall Shran mentioning the existance of four sexes in an episode of ENT... Lemme see if I can find the episode.

The only mention I remember of Andorian sexes was in the DS9 novels - and all novels are considered soft canon.

hrisvalar

Always thought the four genders thing was beyond ridiculous, more so cause in some DS9 novels the Andorians, now numbering in the billions, were hitting reproductive problems, while everything was just dandy earlier in their history when their numbers were so much smaller. It doesn't seem likely, either way, that a species like that is going to be very successful.

So I always just sort of went for the middle ground, by assuming there are four genders cause there are two species of Andorians. (Three if you count the Aenar as Andorian.) The difference? A little bit of temperament and the placement of the antennae. ENT style front vs TOS/TNG style back. Any (one male, one female) pairing works, but the rear-antenneaed ones have some genes that always win out, so while they were originally fewer, and rarely seen in ENT era, they were the larger part of the population by TNG, and then that whole DS9 genetics mess could've been about angry front-antenneaed types bombing clinics to preserve their racial purity or whatever. The four-way marriages make sense if you think of Andoria as a frozen deathtrap, and really regard the whole institution more of a mutual god-parenthood arrangement. If your mom and I slip and fall into a crevice, your other mom and dad will take care of you. Tradition. Nothing more at this point.

And I can do that cause this mention of four genders in Enterprise... never actually occurred. Nor in any other series' episodes. (Edit: Although now I'm doubting about "Cogenitor", I'll just have to hope Phlox didn't go so far as to flat out state all four would be necessary for procreation. (I'd rather sit that one out.) And failing that, there's always "Nuh-uh! Enterprise sucks!" Then bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. I hope not.)

logicalspock

thecosmic1 wrote: »

The only mention I remember of Andorian sexes was in the DS9 novels - and all novels are considered soft canon.

Data mentions that Andorian reproduction requires four partners, so that is canon, although it was never shown on Enterprise.

hrisvalar

I'd like to think, if it was mentioned on screen, it'd be listed here: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Andorian

Memory Alpha wrote:

Apocrypha

In non-canonical novels by Pocket Books, Andorians have four sexes (β): zhen, shen, chan, and thaan. In function and appearance, zhens and shens are largely female, and chans and thaans approximate males, with shens and chans the more androgynous of the pairings. In the post-finale novels of Deep Space Nine, this quadrigender paradigm is cited as the reason for Andorian difficulty in maintaining adequate population growth in the face of near extinction. Andorian names in these works consist of two parts in the native tongue, Andorii (β): a longish personal name shortened to the size of established series' names, and a clan name with a gender-denoting prefix - for instance, TharinJar ch'Thas, a chan from Thas clan commonly known as Jar. This information is non-canon, however, and is derived from a comment that Data makes in TNG: "Data's Day" - that "Andorian marriages require groups of four, unless...."

drac0s65

I have an Aenar bridge officer and it is included there.

Aenar Chan, Thaan (Male)
Now granted that this is how he appears in the Gateway and I am not actually at a console I can go into the game at.

logicalspock

hrisvalar wrote: »

I'd like to think, if it was mentioned on screen, it'd be listed here: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Andorian

Data implies that Andorians have four sexes but he never outrightly states it. He explicitly states that Andorian marriages involve four people.

thecosmic1

logicalspock wrote: »

Data implies that Andorians have four sexes but he never outrightly states it. He explicitly states that Andorian marriages involve four people.

Four people does not mean four sexes. Phlox's Denobulan unions include several people, but that does not mean they have more then 2 sexes.

markhawkman

the books have it that each of the pairs of genders has one that is semi androgynous. But in STO this aspect is rather muted. The devs might have dumped it simply because having extra genders wasn't interesting from a gameplay perspective. It was pretty much nothing more than trivia before.

If you want to see the last vestige of this find an Aenar Boff. They still had it last ime I looked.

Anyways though, the take on it in the books was kinda silly.... REALLY silly actually.

I'm cool with the concept, but from a gameplay point of view it doesn't matter.

denizenvi

I always figured that traditional weddings took 4 people (maybe one of each gender), but reproduction only took two.


On earth, there's a micro-organism studied lately that has like 7 sexes, but any one of them can reproduce with any gender that's not its own. This raises the likelihood that any other individual one bumps into in a pond will be sexually compatible. So there are varying levels of 'complexity', even with multiple genders.


Maybe, for sake of 'limiting competition' over mates, Andorian males are only compatible with one kind of female, and vice-versa. So they usually cohabitate with another pair they won't have jealousy issues with because they're the different kinds, and so their marriages have a total of four involved, even if each mating pair might be closer to each other than their other partners.

travelingmaster

The problem here is that most of the Andorian 'details' that flesh out the species into something concrete are still mostly soft canon, despite the considerable coverage Andorians got in Enterprise. The sexual designation thing is half canon, half soft-canon.

Personally, I'm in favor of them having 4 sexes. I've always found the 'almost every sentient race is humanoid with human features, with a few cosmetic differences to mark them as aliens' logic to be a little thin, despite in-canon explanations. Having Andorians using 4 sexes would differentiate them considerably from the standard humanoid form. As it stands, the main differences are the antenna, blue skin, and an aggressive attitude.

The more fundamental differences between alien species, the better. That's my overall take on it.

markhawkman

travelingmaster wrote: »

The problem here is that most of the Andorian 'details' that flesh out the species into something concrete are still mostly soft canon, despite the considerable coverage Andorians got in Enterprise. The sexual designation thing is half canon, half soft-canon.

Personally, I'm in favor of them having 4 sexes. I've always found the 'almost every sentient race is humanoid with human features, with a few cosmetic differences to mark them as aliens' logic to be a little thin, despite in-canon explanations. Having Andorians using 4 sexes would differentiate them considerably from the standard humanoid form. As it stands, the main differences are the antenna, blue skin, and an aggressive attitude.

The more fundamental differences between alien species, the better. That's my overall take on it.

One thing just occured to me.... when have we seen someone who was only half Andorian? (Talla doesn't count because Aenar are a subspecies of Andorians)

f9thaceshigh

Of the few andorians we've seen, every single one of them has been full blooded. If we were to take the 4 genders into account, I think inter-species relations with a bi-gender species would be difficult at best.

neoakiraii

Andorians are just confused.

nynik

Fascinating. *Spock eyebrow*

captaind3

denizenvi wrote: »

I always figured that traditional weddings took 4 people (maybe one of each gender), but reproduction only took two.


On earth, there's a micro-organism studied lately that has like 7 sexes, but any one of them can reproduce with any gender that's not its own. This raises the likelihood that any other individual one bumps into in a pond will be sexually compatible. So there are varying levels of 'complexity', even with multiple genders.


Maybe, for sake of 'limiting competition' over mates, Andorian males are only compatible with one kind of female, and vice-versa. So they usually cohabitate with another pair they won't have jealousy issues with because they're the different kinds, and so their marriages have a total of four involved, even if each mating pair might be closer to each other than their other partners.

I'm for it, love that seven gender species info.

Some of the old resource books referred to Andorians as being insectoid mamalian, with something resembling an exoskeleton just beneath their skin. I thought it was very cool.

I think it would be interesting if we found out that they were partly egg layers.

mistertwid

I don't really think that the 4 gender thing is supportable.

The line that Data says ends with "unless" meaning that there's more to the Andorian concept of marriage, which we don't find out because he gets cut off.

One of Lal's choices is as an Andorian female. Not a shen or a zhen.

Shran seems to be a one woman kinda guy, first being romantically involved with Talas, who he refers to by "she" "her" and "Guardswoman" rather than some crazy made up gender.

He seems perfectly capable of reproducing with Jhamel.

Suggesting that there were two other unmentioned people involved in conceiving Talla seems to make things unnecessarily complicated, and Archer doesn't ask him how the wife, wife, and husband are.

Also, the idea of there being 4 genders implies that the purpose of Andorian marriage is for reproduction. Reproduction is a possibility in a marriage but not a guarantee. Some people are infertile. Introducing the need for 2 other reproductive partners increases the chances of it going wrong somewhere. I think the answer is probably simpler. That there is some sort of economic or social incentive to form a 4 way marriage. The fact that they're both a warrior society and from a harsh world, and it makes total sense that you might want two extra spouses. Andorians probably have a fairly high death rate. Or at least had, prior to the forming of the Federation. (this also means they need a more efficient reproductive rate. Perhaps spouses were shared to increase chances of pregnancies).