Thy'lek Shran is a recurring character in the science fiction television
series Star Trek: Enterprise. Shran is a member of the Andorian species,
played by longtime Trek actor Jeffrey Combs. Shran is a highly capable
and decorated officer in the Andorian Imperial Guard. He holds the rank
of Commander, and when first seen was the commanding officer of the
starship Kumari. His first name was revealed from computer records of
the USS Defiant (NCC-1764) in the episode "In a Mirror, Darkly (Part
II)"[1].

Shran's first contact with humans - who, like most Andorians, he refers
to as "pink-skins" - came in 2151, when Shran led a commando team in a
raid on the Vulcan monastery at P'Jem. Shran and his people were
convinced that the Vulcans were secretly using P'Jem to spy on the
Andorians - a suspicion which later proved true when Captain Jonathan
Archer exposed a secret Vulcan listening post at the monastery. Shran
was indebted to Archer for this, and later returned the favor by
rescuing Archer and his officers from a terrorist attack on the world of
Coridan.

Shran, like most Andorians, did not trust Vulcans, believing them to be
duplicitous and sneaky. Shran and his team led an attempt to reclaim the
planet Weytahn, which the Andorians had colonized but which the Vulcans
also claimed as their own. Captain Archer was the only person whom Shran
felt he could trust to mediate the dispute.

Later, Shran repaid this debt as well, by leading his starship into the
Delphic Expanse to help Archer and his crew steal a prototype
super-weapon constructed by the Xindi. However, Shran had his own agenda
- his superiors had ordered him to steal the prototype and claim it for
Andoria. Shran obeyed, but when his military tried to bestow a medal
upon him, Shran angrily refused, regretting the fact that he had been
forced to double-cross a trusted ally. Shran later returned to aid
Archer and Earth by helping to destroy the real Xindi superweapon before
it could do the same to Earth.

In 2154, when Romulan spies threatened to start a war between Vulcan and
Andoria, Shran captured Vulcan ambassador Soval and reluctantly tortured
him to find out the location and strength of the Vulcan fleet. When
Soval refused to give in, Shran found a new respect for the ambassador.
Later, Shran's help was invaluable in exposing Romulan attempts to
infiltrate the Vulcan government, and war was averted. Shortly after
this, Shran became romantically linked with his tactical officer Talas.
She initiated the pairing; Shran later told Jonathan Archer that he had
the choice between arresting her and mating with her. He chose the
latter.

Later in 2154, Shran was devastated when the Kumari was destroyed by a
remote controlled Romulan prototype ship. Nearly Shran's entire crew
were lost, and his lover, Talas, later died from wounds she received in
a firefight that occurred when Shran, under the mistaken belief that
Tellarites were responsible, attempted to coerce a confession from the
Tellarite ambassador. To avenge the deaths of his crew and Talas, Shran
demanded to fight the ambassador in ritual combat, but at the last
minute Captain Archer claimed the right to substitute himself in the
Tellarite's place. Shran considered Archer a close friend and did not
want to fight him, but Archer insisted, and fought Shran nearly to the
death. Though Archer declined to kill Shran, the ritual was completed
(when Archer sliced off one of Shran's antennae, incapacitating him) and
Shran's desire for revenge was satisfied. Later, Shran helped Archer
contact an offshoot race of the Andorians, the Aenar, which led to the
destruction of t he Romulan prototype. On his way back to his homeworld,
Shran wondered whether he would ever get another starship command, as
the Andorian military tends to come down hard on any commander whose
ship is lost. However, the future did hold some surprises for Shran, as
computer records taken from the USS Defiant (NCC-1764) reveal that Shran
eventually reached the rank of General.

While initially resentful of the "pink-skins", Shran found that he
actually admired and respected humans, particularly Captain Archer. He
also has warmed to Vulcans, particularly Soval and T'Pol, whom he
considers honorable people. It is likely that Shran, like Archer, will
prove invaluable in helping to form the United Federation of Planets.
Shran even made Archer an honorary member of the Andorian Guard,
sometime after Archer became Earth's ambassador to Andoria.

The final episode of Enterprise, entitled "These Are the Voyages...",
takes place a few years in Enterprise's future, where Shran has a wife,
Jhamel (an Aenar whom Shran had earlier befriended) and a daughter,
Talla. In 2161, Shran - by now calling Archer "pink-skin" more as a term
of affection than of derision - once again enlists Captain Archer's aid
when Talla is kidnapped by criminals who think Shran has stolen a
priceless artifact from them. This request comes as a surprise to
Archer, as Shran was believed killed several years earlier. Shran later
revealed that he had faked his own death in part to protect his family
from criminal elements Shran had worked for after leaving the Andorian
military.

Talla is successfully recovered from Rigel X, but the kidnappers later
attack and board Enterprise; Commander Tucker sacrifices his own life to
stop them.

Considering Shran's later association with Archer (as revealed in the
Defiant's historical logs), it is presumed that he later reestablished
himself with the Andorian government.

Apocrypha

In the novel The Good That Men Do (by Andy Mangels and Michael A.
Martin), Shran has a significant role. He is not, as "These Are the
Voyages..." suggests, married to Jhamel (the events of that episode are
said to be largely faked), although he has a latent telepathic bond with
her. They do not have any children, although by the end of the novel
Shran joins Jhamel's bonding group, so Talla could conceivably be born
"for real" sometime later. Shran aids Enterprise crew in recovering a
group of Aenar who had been kidnapped for use as slaves by the Romulans
(the episode's use of Talla as a substitute in the holographic coverup
is to prevent the exposure of Section 31's mission into Romulan
territory to recover the Aenar). Shran's telepathic bond with Jhamel is
employed in order to search for the Aenar and recover them from Romulan
custody.

Unlike in the episode, the criminals who board Enterprise are not
looking for Shran, and do not think he has stolen anything from them;
the pirates were actually hired by Archer in order to fake Trip's death,
by giving Trip an excuse to sacrifice his own life to stop the pirate
"attack". Shran's ultimate fate is unknown, although the novel leaves
open the possibility that he could rejoin the Andorian military (as the
series itself suggested).

Also, in the novel, Shran has a different given name: Hravishran
th'Zoarhi. This was done in order to give Shran a name more in line with
those used by Andorian characters in current Trek novels; furthermore,
since Thy'lek was never clearly visible onscreen anyway, its canon
status is debatable (it is also unknown whether Thy'lek was a name, or
some kind of title or honorific).

Manny Coto, showrunner for Star Trek: Enterprise in its fourth season,
has said that if the show had survived to a fifth season, Shran would
have permanently joined the crew of the Enterprise (NX-01). [2]