Vintage memo reveals why Andorians were blue

So what made the Andorians blue?

Andorians, the blue-skinned species with antennae on their heads, made their debut in Star Trek: The Original Series‘ episode “Journey to Babel.” Fans didn’t learn more about these aliens until Star Trek: Enterprise re-introduced them in the first season episode “The Andorian Incident.”

Throughout the course of that series, we even came to like one of them—Commander Shran who was portrayed by Jeffrey Combs. But out of everything we learned, we still didn’t know why they were blue, although, they were from an ice planet and human skin turns blue when cold. Maybe that had something to do with it. Turns out, that wasn’t the case at all.

The real reason behind the Andorians’ blue skin

In a memo shared by the Trek Files, a make-up costume note describes the Andorians for “Journey of Babel.” They were described as a fierce warrior breed, in spite of how fragile they looked, and their costumes were to support that, along with the appearance of a vicious-looking bladed weapon which Andorians had no problems using.  (Star Trek: Enterprise gave us a better understanding of the aliens’ fighting capabilities so this part in the memo didn’t come as a surprise.) What does come as a surprise though is the final line of the note.

"Andorians are pale blue. Because."

And there you have it. The color of their skin had nothing to do with their ice-cold planet, and everything to do with “because.” It sure sounds like someone shrugged a shoulder and said “why not?”

If you want to learn even more about the Andorians and what it takes to become one of the fearsome warriors, The Trek Files spoke with Noah Averbach-Katx, who played Ryn on Star Trek: Discovery. You can check out the podcast here.