Im a biology student, and a complete fan of the eclipse phase universe and how it managed to insert so many science fiction tropes at the same time without making it look ridiculous. But, I have to ask this, its a question that I had on my mind for quite a while and the more I think about it its just so ridiculous that it can't be, it just can't for it would mean at the same time all octopis would become clowns on their own. the thing is this: http://www2.estrellamountain.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/cephalopodanatomy... as you can see in the scheme, that cephalopod has: -A feet, that its divided in 8 arms(arms not tentacles) -A mantle and a mantle cavity. -A shell(derived from the mantle but this is common knowledge and everybody knows what a shell is) You see, thats something that all molluscs have in common, you will always find a feet, a mantle and the shell secreted by the mantle. Its deeply engraved in their DNA and its just not something that you can just take out because its organization and structure is part of what makes a mollusc and by extention a cephalopod, if you change this in any way you're just creating new species that have some resemblace to the animal they were based on. So, now that I have made clear that this can't be changed in any way and how its organized let get to the point. The mantle cavity, its the nexus for a lot of important matters. Its so important that as the octopus evolved its mantle cavity became bigger, and this has quite an impact both in their evolution and our culture at the same time. Because, in the mantle cavity the octopus has its ctenidium, or respìratory system because that cavity is directly exposed to the water flow and the cephalopods have the siphon; a muscle that acts like a reactor compressing water for propulsion, they have the orifices of their reproductive system which means that when the mantle cavity became harder to reach the octopus had to develop a special arm(the hectocotyle) to insert his spermatofores and reach the female orifices, this inspired the famous japanese tentacle porn, and... the last orifice in the mantle cavity its the end of the digestive system. Also known as the anus. So you see, in the way I see it, the engineers that designed the neo-octopi undoubtedly had to readapt the siphon to imitate human voice since its a muslce already designed to compress and handle fluids, which means that... the octopi... are talking literally with their ass or cunt. This, simple and stupid thing in their design have deep social implications, it means that while all the other uplifts gets a share of discrimination the neo-octopi would get the worst part and the biggets social stigma. You could call them talking cunts or asspeakers or wathever you want to call them and you would be right. A bonobo, chimpanzee or gorilla doesn't suffer from this, and neither does crows or parrots, maybe the cloaca in aquatic animals would get their share but the cloaca its just a shared excretory system with the reproductive system, they wouldn't use in a different way that we use our own separated systems. The neo-octopis just violates all human cultural standards, they would so different like "oh, look there is tentacles nice to meAGH! WHATS ITS THAT DROPPING FROM YOUR HEAD YOU DISGUSTING FUCK?!" and you can bet that their "poopsies" are bigger since they're also bigger than their more primitive cousins. This type of discrimination would give the image of clowns, since everybody will treat them as walking jokes to make fun of, some would be more prone to accept that identity for pure social pressure and become humorists, (forget the parrots... they only excrete poop and piss at the same time, this guy here can actually use the flute while taking a sh*t) perpetuating by themselves the image of walking jokes. So, the question Im making, is this true? Because I don't remember anything about this in any manual and it just can't be avoided like that without reestructuring the intire animal and his physiology.