From One Egg to Another
Written onArik was the only male Norn in Creatures 1, and I decided that it was time to add a little more genetic diversity to the world. Meet Truett! His Norse name is pronounced [TRU-et] and means dry wood meadow. It seemed fitting for a Purple Mountain Norn! His egg was injected into the world from the Genetics Kit via a virgin birth. This meant that his genome would be taken directly from one parent, which removed the possibility for any mutations. Not a bad choice for a first generation creature. Truett approved!
After Truett learned his vocabulary, I checked on the oldest Norn, Eydis. I laughed a little to find that a bee had, in fact, followed her down to the caves! Predictably, it stung her. Would Eydis ever learn that beekeeping just wasn’t the right hobby for her? Apparently not! As painful as it must have been, she was determined to get those bees to accept her. I hadn’t the heart to tell Eydis that it was probably an impossibility. The bees buzzed away in their own lives, yet she would never give up! Which was both adorable and sad. A simple hint would not do anything to teach Eydis. Yet even a nasty sting didn’t mean much to her!
It was only a matter of minutes before Eydis became a full fledged adult Norn. She was as happy as ever about growing up! When she eventually reaches the pensioner life stage, it will be very difficult to notice: White Haired Pixie Norns age very gracefully, and only show a few wrinkles in old age. For the time being, Eydis was just about ready to become a mother. Arik still had a little growing up to do, but this extra time gave her a little alone time to enjoy the single life. The prospect of the next generation was quite exciting, though! Still, she decided to think about bees until she had other things to consider more important. Oh, Eydis.
Meanwhile, Truett reached childhood a little bit quicker than Eydis, Arik, and Aigne had: It took him about fifteen minutes, while the others waited a little over twenty minutes. Arik would have some competition a little sooner than he might have expected! As was the case with everyone else, Truett took off on his own exploration of the world as soon as he left the crawling stage. I wondered if any future young Norn would decide to stay in the garden. It was a lovely, comfortable spot, but there was something about the dark and foreboding jungle that beckoned youngsters.
Eydis continued her travels throughout Albia, and found herself on the island with a strange being. Keir seemed a little perplexed by the Norn’s presence, although he was glad to have the company. It appeared that he found his way there on his own, and had been leading something of a lonely existence. Food and toys can only go so far in terms of happiness! He was leading a fairly interesting life, all the same, although he had yet to discover the garden and learning computer. Keir had a very limited vocabulary, although meaningful communication was possible. Eydis left soon after, possibly because she could not comprehend what the Grendel was talking about in his foreign language. Truett eventually stopped in to keep him company!
As I had hoped, Eydis and Arik found their way to one another. It took a little bit of coaxing and two tries, but the next generation was soon on its way! Note that Signe was also present: Adulthood was just around the corner for her. The genome for the baby of Eydis and Arik had been created at conception, and I took a moment to scan for any mutations. I was discouraged when I found a potentially degrading mutation in the attention lobe: Information stored here would not be copied over to the perception lobe. There was also a mutation affecting one of the brain chemicals. It would be interesting to find out what this Norn was like.
In a nutshell, the attention lobe mutation meant that the Norn would not be able to use objects he or she was focused on to formulate concepts. The phrase “push food” would make sense because the verb and noun would be understood, but there could be an issue related to actually focusing on the food object and doing anything with it. I still have yet to understand the brain chemical mutation. This put a damper on my anticipation of the first second generation Norn. Still, he or she would be welcomed into Albia! I expected an extra level of care for the upcoming baby Norn, yet I looked forward to meeting the little one very soon. Stay tuned for the next update!
Man, your getting some strange norns! When it gets later on and you get a really unique norn from all the craziness you should export, copy then re-import and upload one to TCR.
The PMN norn should brighten up the gene pool, and Truett growing a little faster too won’t hurt the cause.
The more I see your norns the more I want to go back to C1 norns in my game. They’re just so dependably cute. Signe is still my favorite.
Wow, that sounds like a really nasty mutation. Any chance you could share what the mutation actually says in the genetics kit? There’s still a whole heap of mutations I don’t understand and it would help me diagnose my own Norns better.
I can’t believe the bees are following Eydis. I assume you must have the patch installed that allows the bees to road more freely?
Silvak: Strangeness seems to be the name of the game at this point! I can just imagine what the genetics will be in future generations. I’ll definitely upload some Norns to TCR later on: Sharing the results of successful breeding is always helpful! Truett is a valuable addition to the world, and I hope he can pass along some of the Purple Mountain Norn genes.
Kittie: C1 Norns are my favorite! I installed Creatures Exodus today, and as much as I love C3/DS, I find it difficult to fall completely in love with the Norns. They’re more advanced than the C1 Norns, but nothing compares to the original smiles! Signe seems to have gathered quite a following!
ArchDragon: I will definitely go into more details about the mutation once the baby has hatched. In the Genetics Kit, the only difference with the attention lobe is that “Data copied to Perception Lobe?” is listed as “No.” In the D-DNA Analyzer, here are the results:
121 Different in File 1 6 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #=7 at X=44 Y=30 is 5 neurons wide and 8 neurons high. Perflags=0.
121 Different in File 2 6 0 Emb B MutDup Lobe #=7 at X=44 Y=30 is 5 neurons wide and 8 neurons high. Perflags=1.
I hope this helps you out! Creatures genetics can be pretty complex, but I hope that I’ll be able to share what I learn along the way. Maybe I’m a nerd, but I find this kind of stuff really interesting!
I do have the updated bees patch, although I didn’t think they would roam that much! It adds a little something extra to the environment, though. If they followed Eydis to the desert island, I would be pretty amazed! Ha ha!
Thanks for that. So the problem with the mutation is the ‘Perflags’ being set to 1 rather than 0? Interesting, that’s one part of the genome I hadn’t figured out yet, so that might prove useful at some point.
Oh, and I’m totally a nerd. I’ve made peace with that :P
No problem! The problem is actually the other way around: Perflags should be set to 1, but in this mutation, it is set to 0. Basically the same idea, though! I find it best to use the D-DNA Analyzer to locate the mutations by comparing the genome in question with one the original genomes (dad1, dad2, etc. or mum1, mum2, etc.). That changes with breeds such as the Purple Mountain, Forest, and Ron Norns, who have standard genomes that should be used for comparison. I then examine the mutated genes in more detail with the Genetics Kit. If need be, I open up the unmutated genome to see what the correct settings should be. Good luck!