This had some knock-on effects two millennia later: there was no Vulcan to make First Contact with Earth, no Romulans to serve as a rival to the Klingon Empire, no Vulcans to be a founding member of the Federation, no Vulcan/Andorian rivalry for Earth to intercede in. By the 23rd century, there is a Federation equivalent, the Interstellar Union with its Interstellar Guard, but it is a descendant of the Andorian Empire and its Imperial Guard in much the same way the Federation and Starfleet derive from Earth in the "Prime Universe." The Andorians dominate, politically and culturally.
The story is set around the time of The Undiscovered Country in the Prime Universe, with Captain Hikaru Sulu commanding the IUES Kumari, an IG warship on the Klingon border. Hikaru's daughter Demora is also an IG officer, posted as security in an anthropological outpost on the primitive planet of "Minshara." (Enterprise established that Star Trek's class "M-class" designation for Earth-like planets derived from the Vulcan term "Minshara class"; we speculated that "Minshara" was an older word for "Vulcan" itself, much as you might call "Earth-like" planets "terrestrial," derived from the Latin name for Earth, Terra.)
We used to have a web site, which contained some supplemental materials to the novel, including a glossary of the Vulcan language Michael worked out, and a timeline of historical events I wrote. That web site was hacked and taken down, and unfortunately, much of the content on it was only stored on the web server, not locally, and is now lost. Every now and again I get a request for those materials on the TrekBBS. I have looked and looked and never found them, perplexingly enough.
I was able to find, with Michael's help, a history we drew up before writing the book. This was intended for our own reference, not public consumption, and some of it was superseded by the actual published book. (You'll see, for example, it calls the IU military the "IU Guard," but in the novel we went with the simpler "Interstellar Guard" or "IG." I am pretty sure Sulu's history shifted as I actually wrote the Kumari sections, too.)
But it is what I have, and I hope it is of interest. Other than some typos I caught, I haven't edited it at all.
The Interstellar Union—History
By the middle of the 21st century, the Andorian Empire dominated “Local Space,” with a number of colonies on planets such as P’Jem1, Weytahn, Regulus, and Deneva. A war with the Tellarites in the 2060s resulted in an Andorian victory, building an Andorian reputation for ruthlessness and warrior prowess. The Andorians never conquered Tellar Prime, however, deeming it not worth the trouble. Andorian influence was strong, with planets such as Axanar, Mazar, and Nausicaa serving as client states. As time went on, Andoria’s domination came to be more economic than military.
In the 2063, humanity discovered warp drive when Zefram Cochrane made his famous historic flight out of Bozeman, Montana. It was uneventful—he merely traveled a few light-minutes and returned—and it would be years before the Earth, still climbing its way out of the postatomic horror, would be able to progress further. Finally in the 2080s, the exploratory vessel S.S. Valiant was launched for Alpha Centauri, only to be swept off course by a magnetic storm. The ship was rescued by an Andorian vessel before it could reach the galactic rim, leading to Earth’s first contact with extraterrestrial life.
Earth was of little interest to the Andorians, and so their intervention in Earth’s affairs were minimal, leaving the planet to claw its way back to functional levels on its own. But by 2150, the planet had a unified government, and engineers such as Charles Tucker III, George William Jeffries, and Jonathan Archer began development on the Warp-5 Engines. In 2170, the first Warp-5 starship, the NX-01 Enterprise commanded by Bryce Shumar, took to the stars.
In 2153, Andoria was attacked by a mysterious species known as the Xindi, who originated in the Delphic Expanse. A massive Andorian task force, lead by Commander Shran of the Kumari, retaliated, leading to the collapse of the Delphic Expanse and the subjugation of the Xindi races.2
At the same time, the Andorian Empire was beginning to experience economic troubles, falling behind its neighbors. The Tellarites had finally rebuilt and were actually experiencing something of a technological renaissance. A new massive dilithium deposit had been discovered on Coridan3. And the Earth Cargo Service was spreading far and wide. But all four governments became worried about the growing influence and competition of the Orion Free Traders, whose ruthlessness business practices threatened all four planet’s interstellar trade and economic well-being. To strengthen their position, they entered into an agreement of economic cooperation in 2177—the Interstellar Trade Union, headquartered on Andoria. The first prefect of the Union (largely a ceremonial post) was the Andorian general, Shran.
Over the next decade, the powers of the ITU rapidly increased, mostly thanks to murmurings of war with the Klingons. The war never came to pass, but that was chalked up to the fact that the four governments consolidated their militaries into the Union Guard—the first Field Marshal of the Guard was Avaranthi sh'Rothress. Under Prefect Lydia Littlejohn, the ITU became the plain-old Interstellar Union, a sovereign nation in its own right, in 2187, and membership began to rapidly expand, bringing in species such as the Denobulans and the Rigellians.4
The Interstellar Union—Military
The Interstellar Union has never been involved in an actual war; indeed, very few all-out battles have been fought by its forces. This is attributed to the Andorian reputation for ruthlessness acquired in their wars against the Tellarites and the Xindi. The Guard serves a primarily defensive purpose, but the fact that one of its constituent parts was the old United Earth Space Probe Agency means that there are some parts devoted to the exploration of space. The flagship of the Union Guard is typically a ship known as the Kumari, after Shran’s old vessel. As of 2292, that ship is the Kumari II, Excelsior-class.
The IU Guard is headquartered on Andoria, where it is lead by the field marshal (the current one is Thelian5). It has historically been dominated by Andorians, with humans, Coridanites, and Tellarites comprising the majority of the rest of the makeup.
Ranks:
- Field Marshal
- General
- Commander6
- Subcommander
- First Lieutenant
- Second Lieutenant
- Ensign
The Interstellar Union—Politics
The capital of the Interstellar Union is Andor. It consists of some 100 planets. It is governed by a prefect (the current one is Shiboline M’Ress7); the foremost legislative body is the Executive Committee. (Both of those somewhat economic terms remain from the IU’s founding.) Each member elects a representative to the Committee. The core of the Committee is the First Executive, comprised of the representatives of the four founders as well as four other planets on a rotating basis. The First Executive typically deals with situations when promptness is called for, and a full session of the Committee is impractical. Its role remains somewhat controversial among the non-founding members.
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| photomanipulation by Michael |
Hikaru Sulu
Hikaru Sulu was born in San Francisco in 2237, and he lived there his entire life, despite a longtime desire to travel into space and explore. When he turned eighteen, he joined the IU Guard, training as an astrophysicist at the IU Guard Institute.
By 2265, he was posted to the Enterprise (AA-1701) under Captain James Kirk, where he served with distinction on the Constitution-class starship’s five-year mission of patrol. As a science officer, however, he found his opportunities for advancement limited in the Guard, and when the mission was over, he signed up to retrain as a flight officer at the White Sands8 on Earth. It was during this time that he met Susan Ling in the city of Demora while on leave; the two conceived a daughter (who they named Demora) and were quickly married soon after. Hikaru was devoted to his family, but in 2273, he was quickly summoned to be part of the crew of the Enterprise when Earth came under threat by the V’Ger entity. He signed on with the ship permanently after that.
In 2276, Susan passed away, leaving Hikaru Demora’s sole guardian. He left the Enterprise to accept a teaching position at the Institute on Andor so as to spend time with his daughter. During his time on Andor, he was heavily involved with work on the Great Experiment to create transwarp drive aboard the I.U.E.S.9 Excelsior. Because of this, he was assigned as helm officer for the Excelsior in 2285 for its initial tour of duty, despite his desire to remain with Demora.
The Great Experiment was a failure, but Sulu distinguished himself well, and by 2288 he had been posted to the Kumari II (Excelsior-class) as executive officer under Captain Thelin. As the flagship of the Guard, the Kumari had a predominantly Andorian crew, and Sulu often had to put up with some good-natured ribbing from his fellow crewmen. In that same year, Demora entered the Guard Institute, following in her father’s footsteps.
In late 2289, Thelin was killed in an attack by the Klingon terrorist known only as the Albino, putting Sulu in command of the Kumari—the first non-Andorian to ever command a ship of that name. It is still in this position that we find him in 2292, when our story begins…
Also in 2292, Demora graduated from the Guard Institute and was posted to the security staff of an observation team on 40 Eridani A…
I.U.E.S. Kumari II
AA-200110
Excelsior-class transwarp testbed
- Commanding Officer Commander Hikaru Sulu, human male
- Executive Officer Subcommander Phelana Yudrin11, Andorian shen
- Medical Officer Chirurgeon Jabilo M’Benga, human male
- Flight Controller 2nd Lieutenant Vanda M’Giia12, Andorian zhen
- Tactical Officer 1st Lieutenant Thirrilan ch’Satheddet13, Andorian chan
- Chief of Security 1st Lieutenant Yrrebneddor th’Eneg14, Andorian thaan
- Engineering Officer 1st Liuetenant Corpek th’Rellvonda15, Andorian thaan
- Asst. Medical Officer Chirurgeon Tellameer V’Larr16, Caitian male
- Waste Extraction Crewman Shantherin th’Clane, Andorian thaan
1. Of course, some of these names are likely different in the new universe.
2. This was a late thought, but my primary idea was that I wanted the Andorian military prowess to be based on something more recent (and more devastating) than the Tellarite War. Presumably the Sphere Builders sent the Xindi after Andor in this universe for the same reason they did Earth in ours—the IU defeats them at Procyon V in the far future. (And if we believe Star Charts, Procyon is the location of Andor, which is a nice bit of irrelevant synchronicity.)
3. Of course, Coridan never gets devastated by Romulan intervention in this universe.
4. I just couldn’t find a place to work in Alonis Cobaryn. And even if I could, I doubt he’d actually be mentioned in The Tears of Eridanus.
5. SOURCE: Enter the Wolves, though he’d be a much younger man at this point.
6. “Captain” was mentioned in just one episode of ENT. I’m ignoring it.
7. With Arex as vice president, I think. ;)
8. I think this is the facility in Traitor Winds. Anyway, Sulu has to go back to Earth in 2270, since Demora is named after the city she was conceived in according to The Captain’s Daughter.
9. What does “I.U.E.S.” stand for, anyway?
10. Why AA? I wanted something as seemingly arbitrary as “NCC”, and “A” is for Andorian. No bloody A, B, C, or D, though!
11. SOURCE: My Brother’s Keeper, where she was a classmate of Kirk’s
12. SOURCE: Starfleet Academy videogame and novel; she would have graduated in 2290
13. Back in 2004 or so, I was apparently bored enough to create a BASIC program to generate Andorian names. I went through Ian’s Rogues Gallery and split all the first and last names into two halves and identified all of the prefixes that could go on last names, and then made a program to combine them at random. That’s where I got “Thirrilan”, “Satheddet”, and “Corpek”.
14. SOURCE: He was a secondary character in Foundation; obviously not the same guy, but I like the name
15. “Threllvon-da” was the name of an Andorian archaeologist in The Klingon Gambit. He’d be too old to be this man (he was already getting on in 2268), but they could be related. “th’Rellvonda” is presumably simply a more accurate Anglicization of his name.
16. SOURCE: Chris’s character in our Nimbus III RPG
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