History Series / Andromeda

* TheBlackDudeDiesFirst: Thompson, first on-screen death, inaugural episode.

--> '''Dylan''': You told me there is always a perfect possible future, so what is it today, Trance?
--> '''Trance''': [[ImplausibleDeniability It's not that easy]]...[[DoWellButNotPerfect sometimes I have these 'flashes']] but [[CoverBlowingSuperpower it's not something I can make happen all the time]]. I'm very sorry, Dylan, but if there is a way out of this ''[[IWasNeverHere it has to come from you]].''

* Trance Gemini -- TheChick, cute and naive WaifProphet and medical officer, who later gets DarkerAndEdgier via TimeTravel.

[[caption-width-right:350:The main cast. (L-R: [[TheChick Trance Gemini]], [[TheLancer Beka Valentine]], [[RobotGirl Rommie]], [[TheHero Capt. Dylan Hunt]], [[TheSmartGuy Seamus Harper]], [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Tyr Anasazi]].)]]

->''The long night has come. The systems commonwealth - the greatest civilization in History - has fallen. But now, one ship, one crew has vowed to drive back the night and rekindle the light. On the starship Andromeda, '''hope lives again'''.''

* Late in the show when Rommie is believed destroyed Harper builds a new RobotGirl named Doyle as a ReplacementGoldfish, who has identity issues and who thinks ''she'' is the rightful avatar of the Andromeda Ascendant. HilarityEnsues (not).

''Andromeda'' was inordinately fond of the NegativeSpaceWedgie, depicting a universe rife with temporal anomalies -- in fact, the Andromeda Ascendant itself incorporated dimensional anomalies into its very construction. For a starship crew the cast also spent a great deal of time underground, presumably because somebody in the first season [[ShootTheMoney invested money in a tunnel set]] that had to be re-used over and over again.

* ApocalypseHow: Many different ways, starting with High Guard ships of the line, such as the Andromeda, that are said to be capable of de-civilizing an Earth-like planet in ''under two minutes'' with their conventional weapons.[[note]]1 kilogram missiles, launched at 0.9c. Delivering about 8 megatons per impact. ''19,200'' rounds per minute. Two minutes would be generous.[[/note]] Which is not to speak of the Nova Bombs that the Andromeda--a fairly standard ship of the line--carried ''40'' of, each of which was capable of turning a star inside out by nullifying its gravitational pull, and thus destroying an entire star system and everything in it in the resulting explosion. The Nietzcheans also possess planet-busters, although they also have an absolute resolve not to use such a weapon against a habitable planet. Then there are the Point Singularity Projectors, a weapon profligated by the Magog. The larger your mass, the more the damage--a person hit by one suffers the equivalent of a bullet wound, but hit a planet with one, and you have continents being crushed.

--> '''Hawkins''': Seamus Harper...Grand bTheft Spacecraft, and Interstellar Flight to Avoid Prosecution, and Public Lewdness.
* TheAtoner: Rev Bem, although he personally hadn't done anything to feel sorry about except eating through his human mother, which he couldn't help but do at that age. [[spoiler:He wants to atone even more after having killed fellow Magog in the assault on the Andromeda and the world-ship.]]

* TheBattlestar: Most High Guard ships, including the Andromeda Ascendant, carry "slipfighters" which are designed to defend the mothership, especially against missile attacks. The lack of pilots to do so comes up repeatedly.

* BindingAncienttreaty: During a conflict with the Pyrians, a species that never joined the Commonwealth, Dylan tries to force them to the negotiating table by invoking "Protocol Red Fifteen". The Pyrians scoff that any treaties they had with the Commonwealth expired when it did... but the fact that someone is using Commonwealth communications protocols piques their interest enough to get them to start talking.

* ComingInHot: The Eureka Maru, or other visiting ships, occasionally crash-land in the Andromeda's launch bay.
* CoolStarship
* CrewOfOne: Zig-zagged. The Andromeda Ascendant originally had a crew of over 4000, but apparently she can make do with six or fewer. The catch is, as mentioned frequently in the first season, that with so few crew she has no ground troops, no fighter pilots, and her general combat capability is reduced. Technically she doesn't need crew ''at all'', being able to run everything from planetary war-machines to nanobots. But having crewers aboard speeds up repairs, provides a lot more brains to run little things like slipfighters, and apparently is good for the mental health of the AI.
* CriticalStaffingShortage: The ''Series/{{Andromeda}} Ascendant'' originally had a crew of thousands, but in the first episode everyone but Captain Dylan Hunt either abandons ship or is killed as it gets stuck in orbit around a black hole. For most of the series the crew consists of the captain and the five (later four) former crew of a salvage ship who pulled the ship away from the black hole 300 years later (due to TimeDilation). Other characters join as well, and the crew varies between 6 and 7 for most of the rest of the series. Andromeda's ArtificialIntelligence can fill most crew roles herself so they get by, but it's pointed out several times that the ship is way less effective in combat -- or anything else -- than it would be fully crewed.

* BadassArmy: Nietzscheans think they are but they're really not. Only a few elites are as good as they say, and those stay away from combat. The rest are expendable drones, who need to die so that the elites can get all the females.

* BigBadEnsemble: Various organisations and factions now dominate the Three Galaxies following the downfall of the Systems Commonwealth, such as the Magog under the Spirit of the Abyss, the Nietzschean Prides (Particularly the Drago-Kazov), the Templars & their radical offshoot, the Knights of Genetic Purity, the Restorian movement, the [[HiveMind Consensus of Parts]] and powerful mercenary groups, criminal [[TheSyndicate syndicates]] & rogue Governments

* Trance Gemini -- TheChick, cute and naive WaifProphet and medical officer, who later gets DarkerAndEdgier via TimeTravel

* Rev Bem -- aka. Behemial Fartraveller aka. Red Plague. A [[TheAtoner reformed Magog]], scientist, sociologist and pacifist priest

Midway through the second season, the showrunner has a falling out with the male lead and is replaced. Rev Bem leaves the ship when his actor [[RealLifeWritesThePlot develops an allergy]] to the Magog makeup. This is when things start to get a little zany. After the third season, Tyr Anasazi is replaced by Telemachus Rhade, the IdenticalGrandson of Hunt's original first officer. This is when things get [[strike:a little]] ''more'' zany.

* Rommie -- The ship's [[RobotGirl female-shaped android avatar]] ("Andromeda" refers specifically to the ship's holographic AI, and also to the three individual entities of the ship (Andromeda Ascendant), the AI ([[SpaceshipGirl Andromeda]]), and the android (Rommie))

* BomberOnScreen: Many a ship battle used a display screen to show the location of the ''Andromada'' and other ships relative to it, though this usually came along with shots of those ships moving and firing.

* TheAtoner: Rev Bem, although he personally hadn't done anything to feel sorry about except eating through his human mother, which he couldn't help but do at that age. [[spoiler: He wants to atone even more after having killed fellow Magog in the assault on the Andromeda and the world-ship.]]

* GambitRoulette: The events of season 5 are essentially the last phases of a plan the Vedrans came up with centuries previously [[spoiler: to use their own sun to destroy the Abyss]].

The show has its origins in a combination of two separate Roddenberry story ideas from the 1970s, one about a sentient starship and a second about a man from the past trying to piece the remnants of civilization back together after it has crumbled - essentially, "What if TheFederation fell?". The former never made it to the air prior to ''Andromeda'', but Roddenberry (who died in 1991) used the latter concept in no fewer than three separate unsuccessful pilots (two of which actually included a protagonist named Dylan Hunt) before giving up on it. Undoubtedly these ideas were further developed by the ''Andromeda'' creative team. As a consequence, it's difficult to see Roddenberry's hand in this hard-boiled, dystopian future. ''Andromeda'' also had a spiritual bent unlike anything seen in ''Trek'', except perhaps in the GodGuise aliens of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.

* BodySurf: How Constantine Stark (originally Constanza), founder of the Templars, has stayed alive for 300 years

* HumansAreSpecial: AIs are horrible at guessing, which makes humans and other organic lifeforms are far better at slipstream navigation. Also, ship AIs seem to make poor commanders, are more effective in combat when working with a crew.

* IsThatWhatTheyreCallingItNow: Beka and Harper call out Rommie on her opportunity to "interface" with another sentient android.

[[caption-width-right:350:The main cast. (L-R: [[WaifProphet Trance Gemini]], [[TheLancer Beka Valentine]], [[RobotGirl Rommie]], [[TheHero Capt. Dylan Hunt]], [[TheSmartGuy Seamus Harper]], [[ProudWarriorRaceGuy Tyr Anasazi]].)]]

[[quoteright:330:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/AndromedaHome2.png]]

The show has its origins in a combination of two separate Roddenberry story ideas from the 1970s, one about a sentient starship and a second about a man from the past trying to piece the remnants of civilization back together after it has crumbled - essentially, "What if TheFederation fell?". The former never made it to the air prior to ''Andromeda'', but Roddenberry (who died in 1991) used the latter concept in no fewer than three separate unsuccessful pilots (two of which actually included a protagonist named Dylan Hunt) before giving up on it. Undoubtedly these ideas were [[strike:scrounged from the trash can]] further developed by the ''Andromeda'' creative team. As a consequence, it's difficult to see Roddenberry's hand in this hard-boiled, dystopian future. ''Andromeda'' also had a spiritual bent unlike anything seen in ''Trek'', except perhaps in the GodGuise aliens of ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.