The Amnion (singular, Amnioni) are a fictional alien species in Stephen R. Donaldson's The Gap Cycle. They are shown to be the only alien race humanity has made contact with and play a major role in the series from Forbidden Knowledge onwards.
Amnion are fundamentally different from any Earth creature - particularly humankind - in their mental and emotional structure. Physically they are humanoid: the Amnioni with whom first contact is made is described in Forbidden Knowledge as "a humanoid sea-anemone with too many arms." Amnion are however severely different from each other in physical appearance, with differing numbers of limbs, eyes, and other organs, as well as varying vastly in size and shape. This physical individuality contrasts with their mental identicality - their mentality can be likened to that of an insect hive. They are analogous to the Borg in the Star Trek universe, both in their collective intelligence (or "mind union") and in their aim to conquer through assimilation (turning humans into members of their own species).
Despite their fundamental opposition and Cold War-type conflict with humanity, they are not portrayed as the main antagonists in The Gap Cycle. Rather they serve as a driving force for the conflict between the human characters.
First Contact
Forbidden Knowledge explains that in the universe of the Gap Cycle, there is some argument over when first contact can be said to have started. Captain Sixten Vertigus, aboard the Deep Star was the first human to meet an actual Amnioni aboard the Amnion 'defensive' Solidarity: this is where the above description of an Amnioni comes from.
Vertigus's instructions were to "establish proximity with any alien vessel or base" and then broadcast the contents of a tape prepared specially for the occasion. They would record any reply that they were able to for as long as possible, then to "escape into the gap in a way that would confuse pursuit". This seemingly-paranoid set of instructions was due to the unwillingness of Holt Fasner to reveal too much to any alien race "whose intentions were unguessable". Vertigus however was willing to disobey these orders directly: something of an idealist, he resolved to travel to the Amnion ship and deliver the tape in person, mostly out of a desire to lay eyes on at least one Amnioni, but also in the hope of kick-starting diplomatic relations between the two races. The Amnion in return gave him a canister containing mutagenic material - the same sort of material that had led Vertigus there in the first place.
This is where the debate over 'first contact' started from: the Amnion's existence had already been known, and aside from matters of appearance, Captain Vertigus learnt nothing new about the race. The Amnion had been discovered when the ship Far Star encountered a satellite of alien origin, containing mutagens, in a far extrasolar system. The return of Far Star to Earth is touted as having "enough scientific, economic, and cultural impact to qualify as 'first contact'."
Mutagens
The main threat of the Amnion is their mutagenic technology. Mutagens have the ability to rewrite the DNA of a non-Amnioni so it becomes at least partially Amnion. This ability was first discovered by humans during tests on the material discovered in the Amnion satellite - Donaldson remarks that "Earth science being what it was... the tests eventually included feeding a bit of the substance to a rat." This has a drastic effect on the rat, which now resembles "a mobile clump of seaweed". Dissection reveals a fundamental genetic change - basic life processes remain intact, but protein and DNA structure are radically different. The new mutants can breed with each other (though not with mutated members of other species) and, most disturbingly, display a significantly increased level of intelligence. When the mutagen was tested on a human being, she only survived for a day and a half - autopsies cite the only possible cause of death as fright. Later in the series the trauma of mutation into an Amnioni is mentioned - this is probably what killed her. Before her death she wrote down galactic co-ordinates, which is where the Deep Star found the Solidarity. An anti-mutagen drug is developed by Intertech, but one of the many storylines in the series is the suppression of the drug and all research relating to it by the United Mining Companies Police, and why this was done.
Actions in the series
The Amnion are not introduced until Forbidden Knowledge, but play an important part in all four books following.