Every once in a while it's good to set yourself a challenge. Can you design a sentient alien that has no terrestrial referents? This beastie has none of a human's five senses. That means no eyes, ears, mouth, head or hands. Furthermore, it isn't even bilaterally symmetrical, arranged more like a starfish, but each limb is specialized for a specific task. The result of my initial brainstorm looked something like a cross between a giant, hungry orchid and a snake. I fell instantly in love, and drew them in the margins of my notebooks for months.

This creature, while my own design, is once again loosely based on a literary description from science fiction - in this case, the tc'a, a methane-breathing, eight-brained alien race from the Chanur series of books by C. J. Cherryh.

"A car shot past her on the dock, from behind: globular and sealed, it wove along avoiding canisters and passersby and lines with greater speed than an automated vehicle would use. That was a methane breather, more than likely, some official from beyond the dividing line which separated the incompatible realities of Meetpoint. Tc'a ran that side of the station, sinuous beings and leathery gold, utterly alien with their mutipartite brains..."

-Excerpt from Pride of Chanur, copyright© 1981, 1982 by C. J. Cherryh.

Help the Fight Against Spam!