Three Dollar Quill

I tried to take things easy today, with some... mixed success. But I came up with some new thoughts about this setting, so I'm going to relate them in order to have something to talk about.

I plan to make my first work in this setting a "translation" of an in-setting document, a bestiary, and that means that I need to ponder questions like:

• What forms does communication take in a setting without air or light?
• For that matter, how does perception work?
• What kinds of vocalization could exist, and what would make sense for communication?
• How would writing develop under such constraints?

Thinking about this, I ended up with the mental image of a writing system based on knots, like quipu, but going beyond "numbers and accounting, probably" to somehow convey thoughts more generally, and also the idea of physically connecting different strands; in other words, having the original format of this medieval-inspired bestiary be hypertext. I've got the mental image of encyclopedias so big, that they have an architectural structure supporting and organizing them, and allowing authors, editors, and readers to swim around inside the "book".

Nailing down a lot of these concepts, however, will require coming up with at-least-plausible-sounding answers to questions like "how do these different forms of... meat-protist actually develop their gross anatomy?"

Anyway, it's late and I want to stop staring at this screen.

Good night.