Andorian Empire


This article is an official Galactic Anthropology Committee Article.This article is official Star Trek canon.
AndorianEmpire.png
Andorian Empire
Basic information
Major Species
  • Andorian
  • Aenar
Capital(s)

Laibok

Founded

1823

Warp Capable

Yes

Official Language
  • "Andorii" Andorian
  • "Ghalev" Andorian
Official Currency

Latinum

Political Information
Military Branches

Andorian Imperial Guard


The Andorian Empire was one of the founding members of the United Federation of Planets and also the Coalition of Planets. They are still one of the most important members of the Federation and Andorian Starfleet personnel are highly sought after for their military prowess. The Andorian Empire was known for extremes depending on the mood of its government, though it has been tempered somewhat in recent years.

History

The Clans

General Shran
The Andorian people have always been a people who hold honor, loyalty, and family in high regard though another thing they hold in high regard are their clans also known as a keth, or kethi plural. The Clans are held in esteem by Andorians even above loyalty to the Empire and the only matters known to be more important to Andorians at this time were their god, Uzaveh, and their individual families. In the past, the Clans were at war with one another constantly, always striving for resources and domination. Not much is known past 600 years ago because the Andorian people felt the need to destroy their history in order to save their species. After 1671 AD Earth calendar, the Andorians began to attempt to make peace with each other though it did not go well and soon the Clan Kavel, led by Lortik, set out to conquer the rest of the clans. Many of the people in Clan Kavel did not agree with this course of action and gathered to undo the damage done by Lortik and his followers. The Aenar withdrew from Andorian society at this time, and within a hundred years passed into myth and legend.

The First World Governement

Lortik and Clan Kavel did manage to force the other clans into submission, but the other clans were soon growing weary of Lortik's rule. For the first time, clans allied themselves to force someone out of their lands and succeeded in overthrowing Clan Kavel. The other clans saw that working together was good for both themselves and their world so they made a unified government made of leaders of all the clans, no clan being superior to another in numbers. The imperial family was elected from Clan Zhane, and their descendants are still alive today thought not directly from the last emperor. The fifth planetary emperor, knowing the corruption that could happen when power is in the hands of so few, set up the current Imperial Parliament and deliberately died childless, first setting up a constitutional monarchy and placing the power in the elected Parliament Andoria. The monarchy legally still exits though it is known as the Empty Throne.

First Spaceflight & First Contact

Andorians began to look to the planet their moon orbits around 1900 and began to build spaceships to make the journey. Unfortunately, due to the gaseous nature of the planet, they were unable to make planetfall. Undeterred, they built warp ships to explore the rest of their solar system. First contact with another species was sometime in the 1950s by the Earth calendar due to the visit they received from a Vulcan science ship. This event told the Andorians that they were not alone and that they needed to defend themselves. Andorians did not trust the Vulcans and vice versa; the Andorians considered the Vulcans too cold and unfeeling where the Vulcans thought of the Andorians as duplicitous. After a battle in open space, a cold war began between the two races, affecting the surrounding area.

Cold War with Vulcan

As stated above, Andorians did not trust the Vulcans and one starship commander rose above the others, Thy'lek Shran. Shran had the typical Andorian fury in him, but he was also fair and as such, he was greeted with both trust and skepticism. Shran was ordered to investigate a suspected observatory at the Vulcan P'Jem monastery and discovered, with the help of Captain Jonathan Archer, that the Vulcans were in fact spying on the Andorian Empire using a monitoring station hidden under the monastery.

One conflict in the war was Coridan which was rich in dilithium ore. Coridan was undergoing a civil war in the 2150s, the rebels backed by the Andorians and the corrupt government backed by the Vulcans. The Vulcans had a trade agreement with the government of Coridan and did not appreciate the Andorians attempting to take it from them by means of the civil war.

Another hot spot in the cold war began the Empire and the Vulcan High Command was the planet Weytahn, known as Paan Mokar to the Vulcans. Weytahn was a Class-D planetoid that was terraformed by the Empire for colonization. Believing it to be a staging platform for incursion into their space, the Vulcans attempted to take it by force in the 20th Century. It was given to the Vulcans by means of negotiation in the 2040s. By 2151, the planetoid was abandoned by the Vulcan High Command and the Andorian Empire reclaimed it and began to terraform it for colonization. Once again, the Vulcans objected to this, not wanting an Andorian colony so close to their homeworld. Fighting ensued, ending in over a dozen Andorians dead and 3 captured. Shran, commander of Kumari, agreed to negotiate for their return, but only with Captain Jonathan Archer as mediator. The Vulcans agreed to release the captives and the planet to the Andorians, however Vulcan High Command Administrator V'Las planned an attack on the Andorian homeworld.

The Vulcans took details of the Xindi superweapon and attempted to misdirect the Andorian Fleet to Weytahn in order to allow the Vulcan fleet to attack Andoria. This was accomplished by sending false warp signatures to Weytahn while massing the Vulcan fleet in the Regulus system, well outside the range of Andorian listening posts. Vulcan Ambassador Soval and the Enterprise NX-01 warned Shran of the incursion, though Shran was unable to muster more than six Andorian ships at the outskirts of the Andorian system, Enterprise joining them. After the battle began, Vulcan Minister Kuvak told V'Las to stop the attack, not knowing that V'Las was a Romulan operative. Kuvak saw that they had lost the element of surprise and that both sides were sustaining heavy casualties needlessly since none of the Andorian vessels had the Xindi weaponry that V'Las had claimed for making the attack. Kuvak stunned V'Las and immediately told the fleet to withdraw, ending the battle.

Coalition of Planets and the Federation

Coalition of Planets
After the Vulcan Reformation, the Vulcan High Command was dissolved and the new government made overtures of peace to Andoria, ending years of cold war and military tension. The Vulcans did not use anything like the P'Jem monastery to hide a sensor array for spying on the Andorians again. In late 2151, Shran planned to meet Tellarite Ambassador Gral on Babel, with the purpose of resolving an old trade dispute between them. By the time of this conference, the Romulan Star Empire had become aware of the threat posed if Earth and its allies should enter a closer partnership. The Romulans' aim was to destabilize the region using two drone-ships and spread hostility and distrust among the allies as the ships were able to disguise themselves by cloaking as numerous other ships. Under the guise of a Tellarite cruiser, a drone-ship destroyed the Kumari, Shran's command, and thereby causing the cancellation of the Babel Conference and causing the conflict to escalate. However, the Enterprise was able to settle the dispute and allied the Andorians, humans, Vulcans, and Tellarites to find and destroy the drone-ships, effectively ending the Romulan mission with the opposite effect of what it was intended to achieve.



With the crisis at Babel avoided, the Empire, Earth, and many other worlds realized that they were much stronger united than separately and thus founded the Coalitions of Planets in 2155. Though they were initially opposed by a isolationist terrorist group known as Terra Prime, the Andorians were convinced by Archer that, as explorers, they should go out into the galaxy together. The Coalition of Planets was fully founded in 2156, when the conflict with the Romulans became a fully fledged war against Earth. However, after a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Cheron in 2160, the Romulan Star Empire agreed to establish the Romulan Neutral Zone between the two powers.

In 2161, one year after the Earth-Romulan War had ended, the old war allies--Andoria, Vulcan, Earth and Tellar Prime--founded the United Federation of Planets in San Francisco on Earth. Shran was promoted to general and appointed Jonathan Archer as an honorary member of the Andorian Imperial Guard and five years later, in 2169, Archer was the Federation ambassador to Andoria.

Government

During its reign, the Andorian Empire had an elective parliamentary-type body that was led by a chancellor in lieu of the emperor. In fact, the Andorian Empire has not had an emperor since the last one had deliberately died childless. The Andorian Parliament ruled from 1940s to 2161, a two hundred year period of war and hostilities, particularly with the Vulcans. It was not until the met humans that they began to relax and become more willing to talk rather than just to fight.

The Upper Parliament drafted laws and then both parts voted on it, organized by the Chancellor. Upon the founding of the Federation, the Parliament withdrew its reign to Andoria and allowed the Federation Government to govern the spaces in the Federation, though they still assisted where needed.

The Imperial Court was made up of 9 judges, and all decisions must have had at least 6 votes to be final. Like the current High Court, the Imperial Court was made up of both men and women, from as many of the Clans as possible to avoid conflict. Those cases that could be handled at lower courts were stopped before they reached the Imperial Court.

Military

Andorian Imperial Guard

Emblem of the Andorian Parliament
In the days of the Empire, the Andorian Imperial Guard was a force to be reckoned with as the Andorians take military matters quite seriously. It was considered a great honor to serve in the guard and every member who died in its service was considered a hero of the Empire. The Imperial Guard was both the ground and spacefaring forces of the Empire and served to protect the Andorian people.



Unlike the United Earth Starfleet, Andorian military theories and practices are purely that: military with no scientific or exploratory aims. Their purpose was to protect the Andorian people, territory, ships, and trade routes and believed in taking an aggressive stance in dealing with problems, rather than compromise. While it didn't pick fights, it didn't hesitate to finish them. Even though the Imperial Guard had a reputation for bravery and ferocity, they didn't fight without reason or when better options are present. They knew when retreat was necessary and that aggressiveness doesn't necessarily mean attacking until the last Andorian is dead.

Unlike the militaries of most planets, the Imperial Guard was not entirely absorbed into Starfleet though over half of them were. Part of the Imperial Guard remains separate even today though in a reduced capacity as their current mission is to assist Starfleet in the protection of the space lanes and trade routes in and around Andorian space and to protect important persons on Andoria, though they left the matter of wars to Starfleet after the founding of the Federation.

Am Tal

The Andorian Intelligence Corps, or Am Tal, is an intelligence organization that differs from every other in one important way: they do not believe in assassination. The Am Tal can be ruthless and secretive, as can any Andorian, but they also hold honor close to their hearts. Though most of the Am Tal was absorbed into Starfleet Intelligence upon the founding of the Federation, the Am Tal exists to this day to protect Andorian interests and the Andorian people. Starfleet Intelligence knows about the Am Tal and begrudges their existence as SFI sees it as their job to protect the Federation and do not appeciate outside groups infringing on their duties. Many Am Tal agents have undergone surgery, including removing their antennae, for undercover operations into either friendly or enemy territory.

Economy

Andorian textiles came to be of more value during the time of the Andorian Empire as well as Andorian art. The military employed some 20 percent of their population and industries such as mining and terraforming and computers another 60 percent. Upon the founding of the Federation, the Empire began to relax its military stance and focus more on technology and other industries, though a large part of Starfleet is still Andorian.

Technology

Andorian starships were on par with Vulcan starships and early United Earth Starfleet spacecraft, meaning that they did not have deflector shields and used pulse disruptors and torpedoes. Andorian disruptor wounds were more serious than phase wounds, another indication of the Andorian mindset.

Territorial Claims

The Empire claimed Andoria, Weytahn, and a few other planets and systems, and had a long border dispute with Vulcan. They also had borders with Tellar Prime and Earth.