AAnn

The AAnn are a fictional species of reptilians in Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth series. They are described as lizard-like carnivores with flexibility and speed superior to that of most men, although they are generally shorter and somewhat weaker physically. They are covered in small scales and prefer hot, arid worlds with plenty of sand.

Having a static appearance similar to that of a lizard, 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 another term that AAnn use to describe themselves. It is a term that is used to describe a mature, usually adult AAnn. In much the same way that a human would say "man" or "men" in conversation or description, one of the AAnn might use nye to less specifically describe an adult or group of adult AAnn.

Personal advancement

Although not always the case, personal advancement within the AAnn hierarchy usually entails the demotion and replacement of a higher up. On the surface, the process is similar to advancement in our world; any AAnn with aspirations of authority cannot simply kill a rival and take their place as this is against the law. They must use subterfuge; circumspectly using the law to their advantage, working closely with loopholes and ensuring that there is no evidence of any criminal activity on their part. Throughout the works of Foster's series, it is intimated that while all AAnn know this happens, it is rarely or never spoken of openly—as any implication that a nye was involved in criminal going-ons could result in his or her 'replacement' by an ambitious colleague.

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 composed of capital letters (i.e. VSBBLXK). As an individual rises in rank within the empire, subjunctives are removed to make the string shorter. This provides a rank and family identification mechanism and means an AAnn with two subjunctives would have higher rank and authority than an AAnn with five subjunctives.

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