From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The AAnn are a fictional species of reptilian humanoids in Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series. They are described as lizard-like with flexibility and speed superior to that of most men, although they are generally shorter and somewhat less strong. Because they do not have the capacity to display emotions via facial expressions as humans can, they have developed a rich variety of gestures which are used to convey attitude and emotion. In describing them, these emotions are broken down into descriptions (i.e. anger, approval, respect) and into degrees of the same (i.e. third degree anger, first degree approval, fourth degree respect). Nye is a term used by the AAnn to name themselves. In much the same way that a human would say "man" or "men" in conversation or description, one of the AAnn would use nye to less specifically describe one or more of his species.

As with their other social graces and their form of government (an empire), these gestures appear to have evolved from necessity; the AAnn's more primal instincts have not been very conducive to the survival of individuals. Accordingly, and very probably because war threatened to destroy them, the AAnn government developed as a hierarchal empire. Though different from the capitalism seen in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other first world countries of today and for the most part the Humanx Commonwealth of their own time, the AAnn hierarchy is also open to personal advancement.

Each AAnn family is identified by a length of subjunctives in the place of their surname. The subjunctives are given as a string and are comprised of capital letters (i.e. VSBBLXKKV). As one rises in rank in the empire, subjunctives are removed to make the string shorter. This provides a rank indentification mechanism and means an AAnn with two subjunctives would have higher rank and authority than an AAnn with five subjunctives, and so on.

Information on this page was taken from the various works of Alan Dean Foster pertaining to the AAnn and the Commonwealth. For the most in-depth information on the AAnn and their society, please refer to Sliding Scales, one of the Pip and Flinx novels.

The Humanx Commonwealth
Races
AAnn | Human | Hur'rikku | Minidragon | Pitar | Tar-Aiym | Thranx | Ulru-Ujurrians | Xunca
Planets
Alaspin | Annubis | Blasusarr | Cachalot | Hivehom | Horseye | Longtunnel | Midworld | Moth | New Riveria | Pitar | Prism | Pyrassis | Terra | Tran-Ky-Ky | Treetrunk | Ulru-Ujurr | Willow-Wane
Characters
Flinx | Bran Tse-Mallory | Truzenzuzex | Mahnahmi Lynx | Pip | Clarity Held | Skua September | Abalamahalamatandra
Other
bloodhype | Meliorare Society | Order of Null | Qwarm  This science fiction-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.