Amanensi Factbook

[Amanensi]

The Sultanate of Amanensi

Please note that Amanensi is roleplayed in Future Tech

Please note that this is a work in progress

Geography

Location

The Sultanate of Amanensi is located on the planet Amanensi and its two moons.

Geology and climate

The planet Amanensi has several landmasses separated by oceans. Equatorial land mostly consists of deserts filled with white sand, where temperatures can reach up to 50°C (122°F) during the day and sink to 10°C (50°F) during the night. The temperate climate zone is varied with plains, forests, mountains, lakes and rivers and has a climate that varies greatly with season. The subarctic and subantarctic zones are mountaineous and rich in ore, while arctic and antarctic landmasses are covered in ice and virtually uninhabited.

People

Physiology

The Amanensites of today are a hybrid species originally created by genetically modifying humans by adding genetic material from another sapient animal species, unique to Amanensi and now extinct. The most notable difference between contemporary Amanensites and humans is that Amanensites have both male and female sex organs. Any Amanensite can take either role in sexual reproduction. Both male and female sex hormones are produced and Amanensites go through menstrual cycles and other hormone changes similar to those of humans. Physical features are dominated by testosterone, meaning that Amanensites appear largely as males.

Other physiological differences between Amanensites and humans include a stronger immune system, higher metabolism and a larger, more flexible tongue with a stronger sense of taste.

Religion

The Amanensites follow the teachings of the Prophet, one of the Amanensites originally created by genetic manipulation. He became known as the Prophet after having a mirage in the desert in which he encountered a divine, transcendent being, who told him that his people had been chosen to survive an impending apocalypse, a plague that would come a thousand sunsets later and purge the planet. During and after a virus epidemic, which ultimately resulted in the extinction of the human population on Amanensi but did not have any effect on the genetically modified Amanensites, the Amanensites came to regard the Prophecy as having come true.

The Sultan, who traces his ancestry to the Prophet, is the highest living religious authority. Other than that, there is not much hierarchy in Amanensite religion.

There is no clergy in the Sultanate. A person educated in religion and who has taken an oath to uphold its values and be of support to the religious community is given the honorary title Imam. Imams give spiritual care and lead prayers. As the original mission towards the Amanensite population has been fulfilled, the Imams' continuation of the Prophet's mission has developed into a commitment to religious discussion and debate, often intertwined with spiritual care and prayers.

There are a handful of locations within the Sultanate that played an important part in the life and mission of the Prophet, the foremost among them today called the Prophet's Oasis, and these are regarded as sacred sites and often the targets of pilgrimages.

Language

The originally created Amanensites, while being raised in laboratories by humans, developed a secret language for communication with each other. Since the human population became extinct, this is the only language spoken natively on Amanensi, though some dialect, sociolect and other linguistic variation has emerged within the language. Due to the physiological difference between Amanensite and human tongues, pronunciation includes sounds that are difficult for humans to articulate. The Amanensite tongue also makes it hard for Amanensites to speak human languages without an alien accent.

At first, the Amanensites used a human alphabet, but Sultan Aman I asked for an independent writing system to be created and this system is today the only one in use. The system is syllabic, i.e. based on syllables.

¦«¯ °ʎɫ˟
"Sultanate of Amanensi" in Amanensite syllabic writing.
Transliterated into the Latin alphabet as "Uvigu Amanensi"

Social and family structure

Amanensite society is divided into three classes or estates: royals, nobles and commoners.

The direct descendants of the Prophet make up the Sultan's Family, the Royal House.

Sultan Aman I created administrative subdivisions of the Sultanate and appointed men who had been of personal service to the Prophet as Satraps, governors, of these subdivisions. The Satrap position became hereditary by the same primogeniture code as for the Sultan and the direct descendants of the first Satraps today make up the nobility of the Sultanate. When new Satrapies have been created by the Sultan, the Sultan has appointed a junior heir of a Satrap to the position.

It is strong social norm to marry within one's own social class and though exceptions do occur, they are very rare. The common man typically has one husband, while it is custom for nobles and royals who hold court to take several husbands and also concubines. Concubines are people of relatively lower social class who enter into a marriage-like relationship with their master. Concubines in a royal court may be nobles and commoners, while concubines in a noble court can only be commoners. Concubines live together in palaces and are financially and socially cared for by their master and to be a concubine is seen as an attractive and respectful position in life. The number of husbands and concubines is not legally regulated, but the social norm is dependent on position, wealth and age.

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Government

Seal of the Sultanate

The Sultanate is an absolute monarchy, where both head of state and head of government are hereditary positions.

The Sultan is head of state and one of two heads of government. He is the Prophet's representative in this world and above all temporal law. The incumbent Sultan is His Majesty Sultan Aman VII Lana Avigene Desduni Victor Magnus Xesi Elendi Qarina Unudi Amanensi.

The Prime Minister is head of government together with the Sultan. The position is held ex officio by the Crown Prince after he has come of age or otherwise by the Sultan. The incumbent Prime Minister is His Royal Highness Crown Prince Desduni Lana Avigene Eregina Xesi Qugu Elendi Qarina Unudi Amanensi.

In times when the Sultan is in need of a deputy to fulfil His duties, it falls firstly upon the Crown Prince and then in descending order on the Prime Minister, the President of the Sultan's Council, the Prince Consort, the Sultan Father and then on the Sultan's heirs in the order of succession.

The Sultan's Council

The Sultan's Council is the Cabinet of Ministers advising the Sultan and carrying out His decisions. Ministers are appointed by the Sultan and can be of any social class and the norm today is that all three social classes are represented on the Council. It is however set in law that only Royalty may represent the Sultan and this limits a few of the positions. The President of the Sultan's Council leads its work and the position is held ex officio by the Crown Prince after he has come of age or otherwise by the Sultan.

The incumbent Ministers of the Sultan's Council are:

• HRH the Crown Prince, the Prime Minister, the President of the Sultan's Council
• HRH the Minister of Faith, the Imam of the Prophet's Oasis
• HRH the Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, the Imam of the Silver Coast
• HRH the Minister of Extraterrestrial Affairs
• HH the Minister of Justice, the Imam of Fort Qugu
• HH the Minister of Defence, the Grand Admiral of the 3rd Grade
• HE the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs
• HE the Minister of Industry, Energy and Infrastructure
• HE the Minister of Social Policy

Parliament

The advisory Parliament is bicameral, divided into the House of Royalty, in which every royal living subject has a seat, and the Popular Assembly, which consists of an equal number of seats and is popularly elected, in which election royals and nobles may neither candidate nor vote. The two chambers elect within themselves a Speaker each to lead their work and it is custom that these Speakers do not simultaneously hold any other office.

Administrative divisions

The Sultanate is administratively divided into Satrapies and Special Administrative Regions.

A Satrap is charged with the local administration of his Satrapy and is overseen by the Sultan's Representative to the Satrapy, who answers solely to the Sultan. All Satrap positions are hereditary and when a new Satrapy is created, the Sultan appoints the junior heir of an existing Satrap.

Some of the Satraps have decided, with the Sultan's consent, to create their own local Popular Assemblies to advice them in their local administration and the Sultan has expressed His general liking of such local initiatives.

A Special Administrative Region is administered directly by the Sultan.

Succession

All hereditary positions are inherited by primogeniture with a uterine/ovarian primary preference and a spousal secondary preference. This means that the oldest child is the heir, but issue from the own uterus or one of the own ovaries comes first in the line of succession and after such preference has been made, issue that is produced together with a husband in marriage comes first and issue that is produced together with a concubine thereafter. Although it has happened on rare occasion, it is against social norm for the master to carry a concubine's child rather than the other way around.

Royal titles

Apart from the Sultan, there are a few other royals who hold special titles.

The Crown Prince is the Sultan's Heir Apparent. If he has come of age, he holds ex officio the positions of Prime Minister and President of the Sultan's Council.

The Prince Consort is the Sultan's First Husband.

The Sultan Father is the living father of the Sultan. Generally also a widower of a previous Sultan.

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History

Many generations ago, there was a scientific endeavour undertaken on Amanensi to genetically modify the human population. The idea was to merge the humans with another sapient, but less aggressive and developed, animal life form, unique to Amanensi and now extinct, to provide the humans with highly desired characteristics, such as heightened senses, quicker instincts and reflexes, a stronger immune system, larger muscular growth and so on. A kind of super soldier experiment, one could say. But it was not that successful in the eyes of the human scientists. The hybrid did achieve a stronger immune system than either of the parent species, so in that respect it was a success, but otherwise the desired effects were not achieved and the project was discontinued, but not before a substantially sized population of hybrids had been born.

One effect that to the humans seemed undesirable was that, since the other parent species was bigendered, the hybrid individuals became both male and female. The human scientists had wanted to make the hybrid species infertile, to keep reproduction under control. And there were other minor but undesirable effects such as a higher metabolism; the humans were afraid they had created soldiers who would need to stop fighting all the time to eat and answer calls of nature.

The humans instead completely subjugated the other parent species and had them do all the fighting. Against other humans on the planet, for this was a time when Amanensi was divided among many different human factions who fought each other for supremacy. The fighting seemed to last for ever and after a mere decade the entire species was extinct. The humans were still at war with each other and resorted to atrocities such as child soldiers, while the hybrid individuals had been discarded as a failed experiment and had sought their way into the large, sandy deserts of the planet, widely uninhabited by the humans. In the desert, one such hybrid individual came upon a mirage in which a divine, transcendent being told him that Amanensi would suffer a great plague, but his people had been chosen to survive and receive the planet for themselves. This individual is now known as the Prophet.

The Prophet came back from his lone encounter and set out to travel the deserts and tell the others of his kind that they had been chosen. At first he was met by scepticism, but eventually he received a following, perhaps more easily than expected because these people had been discarded from society and was in dire need of something to believe in, longing for some form of unity and community.

The Prophet had been told that the plague would come after the sun had set a thousand times, and the word was kept. A virus epidemic with no known source started rampaging among the humans and, seeing as they after many years of war often lived under unsanitary and dangerous conditions without access to proper healthcare, the results were devastating. While the hybrid children had grown up and started producing children of their own under the desert sun, the humans perished en masse for years and years until eventually there were no humans left. In this time, there was some contact between humans and the people of the desert, but no desert dweller was ever infected by the virus. Although this could have been explained as a result of the stronger immune system, the people saw it as the Prophecy coming true and a definite sign that they had been chosen to receive Amanensi as their own.

When the Prophet left this world to join the divine being in the transcendent Paradise, the people had come to expect the first-born child carried by him to carry on His work in guiding and instructing them in all things divine and temporal and he became known as Sultan Aman I of Amanensi.

Today, the Sultan's subjects, the descendants of the people of the desert, still honour their traditions and live by their codes of conduct. And while the virus no longer plagues the planet, true humans have not resettled it.

Sultan Aman I created administrative subdivisions of the Sultanate and appointed men who had been of personal service to the Prophet as Satraps, governors, of these subdivisions. The Satrap position became hereditary by the same sacred law of succession as for the Sultan and the direct descendants of the first Satraps today make up the nobility of the Sultanate. When new Satrapies have been created by the Sultan, the Sultan has appointed a junior heir of a Satrap to the position.