New Norn Eggs and a New Illness

What better way to celebrate a new world than a new birth? This adorable little Norn is Nordmela! Her father is Folkvar, and her mother is Dagny. Interestingly enough, Dagny only produced three eggs during her lifetime: Forvika was her first, and one more will eventually hatch. Nordmela is unique in that both of her parents were Banana Norns, so she inherited the same appearance. I was fortunate in that she had one mutation from her father which could be quite desirable if it mutated further. As usual, I wanted to cover her genetic mutations: Never fear, because these are quite simple and short! Take it while you can… I tend to favor the complicated genetic analyses.

Half-Lives

Chemical half-lives define the decay rate of each chemical. In the absence of any reactions, a half-life defines how long a chemical will remain. Half-lives can range from fractions of a second to an entire lifetime.

1 Emb B MutDup decASH1 1

In the standard Norn genome, the half-life of decASH1 is 0, which means it instantly drops to half of its value. It should leave the system almost immediately in this manner. A half-life of 8 would correspond with 0.4 seconds, so it would perhaps take one or two second for the chemical to reach a negligible amount. With Nordmela, a half-life of 1 should have the smallest of changes of decASH1, and it should not be noticeable.

Stimuli

Stimuli genes define the chemicals that a Creature expects to receive in response to an action. These actions can range from interactions with the hand to involuntary actions like coughing or sneezing.

97 Emb B Mut ‘I bump into wall’ causes sig=0 GS neu=2(I’ve bumped a wall) int=255, , , Sensed Even When Asleep => 25*Pain++ + 0*NFP

Remember that this gene originally appeared with Folkvar, and has been passed down already. The standard Norn genome simply defines the second chemical as NONE. This mutation will not actually affect Nordmela, since there is no need for pleasure (NFP) that is actually produced. However, with a mutation that increased the value to one or more, bumping into walls would cause even more discomfort and might occur less often.

Just as I settled in Nordmela near the learning computer, I noticed that Kleppstad had become ill. I hoped it was just the random ingestion of a weed: My Norns tend to enjoy those nasty plants! Unfortunately, Forvika and Jetvika soon became ill and took a turn for the worse. I knew it had to be something contagious. The illnesses had stayed away for a long time: I was not surprised to find this one, but it came at an awful time. It settled in quite suddenly, and then it was an emergency situation. I set out to play the doctor!

Fortunately, it was not too serious of an illness. There were no nasty toxins like fever toxin, although Histamine A reared its nasty head. This causes sneezing, and I always mix up whether sneezing or coughing makes the illness contagious in Creatures 1. It looked like sneezing was contagious in this case! Kleppstad was the first to recover, and he did so fairly quickly. The two females had turned into terrible eaters, and they looked like they might succumb to the illness. No amount of reinforcement could get them to eat anything.

Jetvika sat herself down and fought off the illness with her stillness. Her life force was low, but was not in the danger zone. In her mind, what was the best way to celebrate her recovery? Why, getting pregnant, of course! Mevik pulled some ninja moves and was gone in an instant, while an egg was on its way. Jetvika survived her pregnancy and delivered an egg, but not at a further drain on her system. She looked so tired and old, and I felt sad for her. All she could do was sit down and stare into blank space.

Back near the incubator, I was relieved to find that Nordmela had developed quite well in my absence. We spent some more time learning new words, and I showed her the garden. She must have loved the wide open area, for she broke out into a joyous run that took her from one end to the other! She was quite smart, and listened to everything I had to say. Hopefully she would keep those qualities throughout her life: Norns sometimes tend to get less intelligent with age. Peer pressure from other less intelligent Norns, perhaps? Ha ha! At least Nordmela would always be able to outdistance any pesky friend.

With Nordmela in the care of some of the older Norns, I raced off to hatch another egg. I was hoping for another male, and my wish came true! Meet little Oppeid, the son of Valborg and Kari. He inherited a nice mix of appearance genes, and it would be nice to have a little Purple Mountain Norn influence in the population. Oppeid had mostly standard Norn genetics with a couple of mutations. He also inherited the Geddonase genes from his mother, along with the genes which reduced boredom and need for pleasure with dancing. Maybe he would start up his own dance company: It looked like he was already wearing little dancing boots!

Lobes

Brain lobes include important information about how the different parts of the brain work, from how concepts are learned to how a Norn goes through the decision process. These genes can greatly affect the learning process.

121 Emb B MutDup Lobe #= 7 Relax State Rule: end end end end end 0 end end

The rule with state variable rules (SVRules) is that they disregard any codes listed after an end code. Having one end replaced with a zero will have no bearing whatsoever on Oppeid.

Stimuli

Stimuli genes define the chemicals that a Creature expects to receive in response to an action. These actions can range from interactions with the hand to involuntary actions like coughing or sneezing.

105 Emb B Mut ‘I’ve Deactivated’ causes sig=0 GS neu=255 int=0, , , => 2*Tiredness++ + 0*NFP

I am not entirely sure what event “I’ve Deactivated” corresponds with. My best guess is that it means stopping or turning off an activated object, such as a spinning top, a bouncing ball, or the jukebox. Normally, three of the chemicals are set as NONE. Oppeid will not be affected by the inclusion of need for pleasure (NFP) since its value is 0. However, like Nordmela’s mutation, if this value becomes a positive integer at some point, the Norn would learn to avoid deactivating an object. Not entirely useful in the grand scheme of evolution, but it is something!

Oppeid made a few strange poses, and even froze in place during his entire lesson at the learning computer! Maybe it was a side effect of his dancing genes, although reaching up and staying in one spot hardly constituted a dance. Or maybe he was just stretching to warm up for his big event! Oppeid was very happy to have the hand as company, which might have been where his reach really came from. I was able to convince him to move around when I brought him the spinning top. That can get any Norn’s attention very easily! And so Oppeid learned just how to move around like a top.

With the two youngsters settled, I decided that one more egg would be a good idea while Albia was relatively quiet. Meet Pettvika! She is the daughter of Folkvar and Ingelill. I was very happy to have another Horse Norn in the world, or at least a Norn with a lot of the Horse Norn appearance genes. To my dismay, I discovered that the random starch infusion problem was still ongoing. Pettvika had yet to taste her first meal, yet her life force began to slowly climb. Madness! It only happened with the selected Norn, so I decided to try not to cycle through everyone too often. The second generation would just be known as the mysterious starch generation! Pettvika had just one mutation.

Emitters

Chemical emitters define specific conditions within a Creature in order to affect chemicals. Some examples include experiencing stress from excessive drives, becoming cold due to environmental conditions, and more.

125 Emb B MutDupCut Brain, Decision i/ps, # Loose dens/cells type 1, chem=decASH2, thresh=0, samp=1, gain=253, features=Analogue/Clear Source

In the standard Norn genome, the gain value of this emitter is 255. Having this at 253 would most likely not make any difference to Pettvika. This gene is still a bit of a mystery to me, but it appears to have something to do with loose dendrites in the decision lobe, and controls how much decASH2 will be emitted. With such a small mutation, Pettvika should remain unchanged in the grand scheme of Creatures 1.

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