trek-discussion Andorians & Tellarites- Unrepresented?

[Cirus Almonaster V]

Since the two species were co-founders of the Federation, I often wonder why they are so unrepresented in Star Trek. 

ENT had quite a bit on Andorians, but not near as much (I think) for co-founder. 

Except for a recent episode of SNW we can almost say "What's a Tellarite?"

Thoughts?

[LCDR Aine O. Sherlock]

Budget. At least I believe that's the production reason. In world it could be looked at as Starfleet was the Terran equivalent of their already space faring organizations so there's not as much reason or incentive for members of their species to join Starfleet.

[+ Arturo Maxwell]

It could also be that Tellarites are more inclined to join the Federation Merchant Marine over a career in Starfleet?

[Madison Marsh]

I agree with @Lt Aine Olive Sherlock on this underrepresentation being a budget issue in the 1960s. I did enjoy the Andorian content in ENT as well @Cirus Almonaster V! I have always felt that we need to see more Tellarites on the silver screen. In all honesty, I would love to see additional Tellarite characters here at SB118 in the future. If you can not see them as much on the shows and love them, then you can technically still write them. 😃

[+ Christopher Caldwell]

I know it's an old thread but just wanted to chime in. For sure the real world explanation would be due to budgets but I suspect there was also maybe some degree of "Spock is the alien" and not wanting to undermine that or confuse audiences, but the Rise of the Federation novels (which I'd recommend if you are looking for Trek books to read), does a pretty good job of giving an in-universe explanation for the lack of diversity seen in the TOS era.

Essentially, when the Federation was founded each of the founding races had very different technology and each race already had it's own space divisions. This made it difficult to integrate everything so each race essentially took on a different duty within Starfleet, the Andorians focusing on defence for example. As a result, most ship crews were predominantly single species. This also nicely explains the references to the United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA) made in Star Trek, the Enterprise NCC-1701 was a Starfleet ship but was operated by UESPA.