Unexpected Creatures Biochemistry

Signe was overjoyed at the prospect of another Norn! I thought it would only be a matter of time before she started to express some form of anger or pain due to her perplexing genetic mutations. Arik was also quite pleased with his companion! The two Norns never strayed far from one another, which gave me the opportunity to play the scientist. There were a lot of opportunities. The tools and applets in Creatures vary from very simple to extremely complex: In this case, I took a look at the Science Kit for some answers. Biochemistry became more and more interesting!

As a standard for comparison, I examined the biochemistry of Eydis for a short span of time. She recently had a satisfying nap, which explained the lack of sleepiness. The residual pain and fear were a combination of bee stings and an accidental slap. These Norns can be so difficult to reward when they move about so much! The main chemical I wanted to focus on was anger, since there was a relative pattern. I suspected that Eydis was frustrated about her failed attempt at a beekeeper, but it was interesting to find that the standard level of anger was much higher than I had anticipated. Several checks on Arik resulted in the same general pattern of low to moderate anger. In the case of Signe, I expected to see a much more spiky pattern at a relatively high level.

Did I forget to switch Norns? Not at all! I was extremely surprised to find that Signe had neither pain, nor fear. During this test, I moved the hand in her general direction when I had her attention, brought her an object, and also activated an object. The drastic decrease in anger came from an even more surprising source: Arik! He approached her and started interacting with her. I double checked Signe’s genetic mutation, to make sure I had understood it correctly. It still indicated that she would feel the effects of a creature’s slap when something approached her. I was puzzled about the graph and wondered if Arik was some sort of magical Albian Norn! Part of the answer was to found in the advanced Genetics Kit.

Gene 94 was already mutated. This stated that when Signe experienced the “It is approaching” stimulus, she would sense that “I’ve been slapped.” The expected outcome was one that included a higher amount of pain, fear, and anger. The unexpected result was that Signe did not appear to have abnormal levels of these chemicals.

Gene 95 remained unmutated: The “It is approaching” stimulus would trigger the “IT is approaching” sensory neuron and no chemical emissions. It appeared that this gene had won out, but for unknown reasons. It could follow that Creatures 1 only allows each stimulus to interact with one sensory neuron. Why 95 over 94, though?

The Creatures Developer Resource stated, “I did most of my testing with a norn with all stimulus genes deleted except for the ones I was testing. What I did notice was that even with no stimulus genes certain stimuli had an effect. Things like patting the norn caused the ‘I was patted’ cell in lobe 5 to be increased by 32. From this I’d guess that there are certain hard coded stimuli that can be overridden by genetic stimuli if desired – perhaps these relate to the STM# macro commands?” I still wonder what this all means, but it seems to point towards other reactions to stimuli other than what is defined in a Norn’s genetic code. Funny how a little experiment can generate so many questions!

Signe soon grew into the next life phase and headed off to explore Albia. The garden was deserted, save for Arik who made his way back every now and then. I was delighted that one of the genetic mutations would not negatively impact Signe, as was originally expected. Although there were still many questions, it was nice to know that she could lead a happy life. Only time would tell if her other serious mutation would render her completely infertile.