A Summary of the Physiological Roots of Andorian Culture

F. Sigmund Mead, "A Summary of the Physiological Roots of Andorian Culture" (Journal of Xenoanthropology, June 2341), edited by Leslie Fish is a short article on Andorian culture first published in Sehlat's Roar #2, a fanzine of the 1970s, published by Randy Ash.

Table of contents:
 * General description
 * Coloration and its effects
 * Significance of the antennae
 * Cultural effects of diet
 * Complexity of the reproductive mechanism
 * Cultural effects of the reproductive process
 * Social effects of Andorian fertility
 * Cultural effects of the clan-centred social structure
 * Social checks on aggression
 * The effects of space travel and Federation membership

Illustrated with line art and quotations from poems and songs.

Differences from canon

 * Andorian women have six breasts.
 * Andorians are telepathic through their antennae.
 * The Andorian homeworld is not the iceball seen in Enterprise.
 * Andorians are androgynous until they fall in love—at which point they change physically and cannot fall in love again.

Differences from DS9 relaunch

 * This article describes Andorians as having two sexes, but each sex has two roles during reproduction.
 * The biggest consequence social population they face is overpopulation.


 * With a little ingenuity and creative license one can interpret the four-gendered society in the DS9 relaunch as a different Andorian culture that has built different rituals around the same biological facts.