Octopi, Rikchiks, etc.

["Grandsire, C.A." <grandsir@...>]
>         And for an octuped? :) Seriously I doubt that octopodes can make
> noises. But with all those tentacles, maybe they are the real Rikchiks
> :) .
Okay, so I have to jump in when I'm mentioned, even if I'm 2 weeks late.
For those of you who haven't been to my page (see URL in .sig) the
Rikchik language is a sign language and written language used by
rikchiks, tentacled aliens living on a planet in the Alpha Centauri A
system.

Rikchik technology doesn't have the no-fire problem, since they are
entirely land-based (and in fact can't swim without breathing tanks).

Interestingly, I went to our local aquarium recently and saw the octopus.
It really scared and disturbed me somehow.  Strange.  The breathing
motion of the body was what seemed to be the most upsetting.  Rikchik
bodies are much more stable: they're semirigid spheres.  Rikchik tentacles
are also round and un-suction-cupped.  Rikchiks would probably find octopi
unattractively shapeless and mostly unintelligent, despite their similar
shape: kind of like our attitude toward monkeys.

I haven't been doing much work on the rikchik language lately (though
I've finally gotten around to adding the more recent words to the
rikchik typewriter) but I've been doing a lot of work on the culture,
unfortunately not well-represented on the web-site yet.  You can look
at http://www.suberic.net/~dmm/rikchik/names.html for some info on
rikchik naming practices.  I'm planning on running a sci-fi rpg involving
humans and rikchiks, set in the 2030s or 2040s, at some point in 2000.
If that ends up generating more language details, they will of course
go on the web site.
--
Denis M Moskowitz            Happy-Result-N-0 God-Quality-N-1 Human-End-R-1
dmm@suberic.net              Human-Source-R-0P Rikchik-Agent-N-0 Talk-End-I-2
<a href="http://www.suberic.net/~dmm/dmm.html">My WWW page</a>
<a href="http://www.suberic.net/~dmm/rikchik/intro.html">Rikchik Language</a>