Hello all, Ric here again with another video on a world of Star Trek lore, Andor! That
rhymes! Unless it’s Andoria. Either way, after doing a video on Risa, I thought about
doing a couple of other worlds to examine. As with the previous, this is not a video
on the Andorians themselves (I’ve already got an index video for that, even if it is
an old one), but a video on their frozen home planet.
First off, there is a bit of confusion in the lore as to whether or not the Andorian
homeworld is called Andor or Andoria, as it has been addressed as both at different times.
This is where apocryphal and extra-canonical content comes to the rescue, and is kind of
supported by what we see on screen. I’ll be referring to it as Andoria for this video,
and I’ll explain why as we go. Andoria is located near the heart of Federation
Space, and one of the many core worlds in the Vulcan Sector, which also is home to Vulcan...
Obviously. This sector is more commonly known as Sector 005 and one of the closest to Earth.
Within Sector 005 we have the Andoria Star System and its local planets somewhere around
11 lightyears from Sol. The system’s binary stars were also known as Procyon A and B.
This is based on the real Procyon system, seen as part of the Canis Minor constellation
which consists of a white main sequence F-type star and a smaller white dwarf. Around it
circled at least 5 planets, one of which was a large blue ringed gas giant which is quite
some distance from its suns. This is the gas giant Andor around which are four moons, one
of which is Andoria, (although it could be the other way around, or not matter as we’ve
seen people refer to the moon as both before.) The moon, Andoria has a diameter of 10,084
kilometres, which makes it only slightly smaller than Earth. It’s hard to get a sense of
exact scale when looking at images set in space because the distances are insane, but
the gas giant looks to be on par with or larger than Jupiter at least. Andoria itself, is
technically a class M planet, in that it has many of the qualifiers for life to exists,
liquid water, natural, edible flora and fauna, an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and so on, but
it’s just barely habitable and even then most humanoid life would fare rather poorly
living in its arctic conditions. The planet’s surface is frequently encased in ice and snow,
although it does have liquid oceans and most of its landmasses are centred on the equator.
Its gravity was 1 G, like Earth and it had a day length of 30 hours. In summer, its temperature
rose to around 0 degrees Celsius on the surface although in colder reaches it plummeted to
minus 28. A heat wave was anything above zero. I don’t have any evidence to support this,
but I think the relative warmth of Andoria in a system with such small stars and being
so far away, may in fact be down to “tidal heating”. This is when a large celestial
body, such as a Gas Giant exerts its gravity on a satellite to such an extent that the
planetoid in question actually shifts, just as the oceans of Earth shift with the moon’s
influence. Only it would be magnified to an extent that causes the mantle of the planetoid
to become molten and remain heated, even at great distance from sources of energy like
a star. We observe this in our own system with Jupiter’s own Io.
Either way, the planet remains geologically active with liquid water and oxygen in the
atmosphere, naturally it made a passible home for humanoid life. Several different species
evolved here, the Andorians and the Aenar, and off-shoot species with telepathy. The
Andorians are far more suited for their cold climate than many others of the galaxy, but
even they cannot survive on the surface of Andoria for too long in deep winter. As such,
they established the majority of their cities in underground caverns, carving out the rock
and ice to form large interconnected highways. Modern Andorians still had relics of their
clan-like past and heritage, and their capital city, Laikan was founded as a neutral ground
and peace-making site for these ancient Andorians. Thalisar the Last was the final monarch of
the Andorian Empire in the 19th century before she reconstructed the government into a more
democratic one, then deliberately died with no heirs so that they could not be used in
any political games, thereby ending the monarchy’s line with her.
Other cities included Charulh, a mining city, Laibok, a one-time capital of the planet,
Lor’Tan the largest city which functioned as a powerful commercial and business hub
and Harbortown which was the oldest continually inhabited city on the planet, originating
from a series of surface fishing towns. Navigating the caves of Andor can be incredibly
dangerous in unmapped or poorly maintained areas, however it is still safer than braving
an arctic storm or Blizzard. Such chilling winds can bring with them torrents of snow,
obscuring everything and burying the surface with blankets of white while stripping away
warmth in minutes. Early travelling, before they were a space faring species was accomplished
via sea, although all Andorian vessels were by necessity, Icebreakers and the name of
the first that circumnavigated their world was the Kumari.
In terms of lifeforms, the planet is host to many a hardy creature, naturally evolved
to deal with the tundra and ice. The Ice-Bores are worms that can produce a mucus from their
skin that burns, allowing them to stay warm and, as the name suggests, bore through ice.
In fact there were a myriad of creepy-crawlies, (scientific term) as well as arachnids and
slugs. One of the other more famous life forms is the Ice Spider, or Glikar’ma, which had
several types that dwelt in caves or forests. And naturally they were as large as dinner
plates. Other insectoid things included the Grelth, the Rock Slug, and stinging centipedes.
Other creatures were the “redbat”, an edible flying mammal native to Andorian caves,
as well as numerous animals involved in agriculture like Bulls and Zabathu. I imagine in cases
like the Red-bat and Bull, these creatures are simply named as such by humans who compared
them with the closest Earth-native creatures and that the Andorians have their own names
for them. The Zabathu was used as a mount by Andorians, but we don’t get a description
of one. Alongside the many cave dwelling creatures,
there were those who delved into the icy oceans and other bodies of water such as the Preshava
which was an amphibian with monkey like proportions and those who braved the surface, covered
in thick fur like the Makra, Hybor and Alicorne. Andoria is one of the few homeworlds in Trek
that is actually a moon, and for this reason alone, I kind of love it. The environment
is one that is pretty much lethal to those not evolved there, or at least prepared for
it and in winter, the polar regions are literally uninhabitable, unless you have science fiction
technology available, I guess. With life being so tough on Andoria, I can
image that there were no small number of Andorian colonies out there where living on the surface
was not restricted to the equatorial regions and a summer actually brought the temperature
above zero for a time. Judging by the fact that we see plenty of Andorians in Starfleet,
we know that they were quite comfortable in temperatures that far outstripped their native
environment, but with their added anti-freeze like blood, they had a wide range of biomes
to choose from. The population of Andoria has fluctuated wildly
with time too, or with different sources I guess, with around 1 billion in the 23rd century,
before dipping to under that in the 24th and then doubling again to 1.8 billion in 2385
with 4 million Aenar. The only reason for this sudden boom that I can think of is that
a bunch of Andorians returned home for some reason, which does coincide with the Mars
Utopia Planetia attacks and the decision to withdraw many far flung Federation assets,
although that came in after the source material for these numbers was written, so it’s just
a convenient coincidence. Nevertheless, Andoria’s frigid landscape is a beautiful one, complete
with auroras, but one entirely suited to only the Andorians.
Thanks for watching this video on the planet, er… moon of Andor. Andoria. Bollocks. Thanks
for watching this video on the planet where Shran lived (there ya go). Until the next
one, I’ve been Ric and it’s been ice to see you. Nothing? Man, that’s cold. I’ll
see myself out.