A New Year’s Wish and Cheeky Norn Behavior
There was the taste of a new year in the year, and young Pathun was the first to sense a need for change. He decided that his best course of action was to travel underneath the garden. Trouble was that the cart was extremely slow, so Pathun attempted to move it along by walking while on top of it! At least he managed to burn off some extra energy while he waited for those wheels to take him to his next destination. His recent encounter with an illness was enough to make him want to get a little more out of life. He was growing up so quickly, which had me wondering when it would be a good time to introduce a new baby Norn to the group.
After he reached his destination, Pathun stumbled across my temporary storage spot for all of the unhatched eggs. He must have gotten an idea, for he blasted a song from the trumpet for all to hear! I understood it to mean that he was fine not being the baby anymore. After all, it certainly was about time for a new egg to hatch! Pathun wasn’t about to wake any of the nearby eggs from their slumber, yet I hoped that the upcoming hatchling would be a friend to him. Pathun had yet to really fit in, though he was having some fun traveling around from group to group. Plus, he found that trumpet!
Lights flickered, eggshell pieces flew, and in a flash there was a new Norn before my eyes! Pfeffablel was the daughter of Pipit and Whydah. Despite her appearance looking rather similar to a few Norns from this generation, she was a little more distantly related. Pathun must have wished very well, since Pfeffablel looked almost like him! She was a very happy baby right from the start, unlike some others who announce their arrival with sad frowns. There is often no genetic explanation for how most Norns will look at birth: Some are happy, while some are too hungry or scared to think of anything else. In Pfeffablel’s case, she was quite happy with only a few genetic mutations! She wanted to urge me along to show her all of Albia, but there was the scientific standpoint to take, if only for a few minutes. No one could escape my curiosity when it came to examining genomes: Not even little Pfeffablel!
Reactions
Chemical reactions define rules for individual chemicals and chemical combinations. These genes can also state the rules for how chemicals are used up, and each reaction has a defined half-life to determine how often it occurs.
Mutation: 142 Emb B MutDup 1*Starch => 1*Glucose + 3*Hunger-; half-life=64
Default: 142 Emb B MutDup 1*Starch => 2*Glucose + 1*Hunger-; half-life=64
This gene is quite straightforward, as it convert starch into glucose and hunger decrease. In a nutshell, the Creatures 1 digestive system converts starch into glucose, and glucose into glycogen. This is not always the case and there are some other reactions that come into play, but this should suffice for an explanation of this mutation! Pfeffablel’s gene converts one unit of starch into three times as much hunger decrease. The values are rather small, yet when a food item contains 50 units of starch, that’s a difference of 50 hunger decrease versus 150 hunger decrease. Therefore, eating will decrease Pfeffablel’s hunger much quicker, making this a rather useful mutation! She will still experience hunger in all of the usual ways. So long as she gets enough starch, she should feel more satisfied for longer. That should equate to a happy Norn!
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.
Mutation: 245 Emb B Mut ‘Invol 4=’shiver” causes => 16*Hotness++ + 32*Coldness- + 16*Coldness + 16*Fear
Default: 245 Emb B Mut ‘Invol 4=’shiver” causes => 16*Hotness++ + 32*Coldness- + 16*Tiredness + 16*Fear
This is a genetic mutation that has popped up a few times before, so I’ll keep the explanation rather brief. When a Norn shivers, he or she usually experiences all of the listed chemicals, including tiredness. After all, it takes some energy to shiver and warm up! For Pfeffablel, tiredness will not enter the equation, although she will feel coldness while shivering. This should make it more difficult for her to warm up, so hopefully she will never be cold enough to need to warm up a whole lot! And no illnesses, either… Enough antigens have already assaulted this group!
During Pfeffablel’s initial lessons, I noticed that Losthrayte’s life force was falling very quickly in the Observation Kit. With her status listed as “Healthy” I knew there was just one explanation: The deathcap mushroom. I left the tiny new addition to the world to check up on Losthrayte. I figured she would have known better, but of course not! The cheeky lady was just traveling up in the lift when I found her and the missing piece of the poisonous weed. She acted like nothing happened, even stopping to take an extended nap! Her life force dipped down to about 45% while she slept, though she wasn’t in too much danger. A healthy Norn will typically be able to survive one sampling of the deathcap mushroom. Losthrayte was fine in no time, thankfully!
After spending so much time away from Pfeffablel, I figured she was ready to act out for some attention. Instead, she finished her lessons very well and laid down to take a nap, all by herself! What a smart little one she was! She woke up eager to learn more, and she soon joined up with a few Norns who were traveling between the incubator and the garden. It was another bittersweet moment: Every baby Norn I raise only knows the hand up to a certain point, and then he or she joins the rest without looking back. Pfeffablel had a great beginning, with lots to look forward to.
Right before I was ready to bid farewell to everyone in Creatures 1 for the night, I noticed another plummeting life force. Brekennion must have taken a page from Losthrayte’s book! He was trying to cover his tracks and make me wonder what was wrong with him. Yet his admission that he was going to “push lift” made him all the less innocent… Not like the lift accidentally took him down there! A few carrots later, and Brekennion was back to his healthy self, with only a little bit of sneakiness left in his eye. Such a silly Norn!
Sneaky little nornses! I’m surprised that your guys like that Deathcap mushroom so much, honestly, since they clearly have some Forest Norn in them. Did they miss out on inheriting the “Weeds Smell Bad” gene from their Forest Norn ancestors? My Forest-descended norns never show any interest in eating weeds. I don’t even have to teach them to avoid them; they steer clear of them on their own. I always assumed that was due to the added instinct gene the Forest norns were given, but now I’m thinking that I’ve probably just been lucky.
That variation in disposition at birth is a funny thing, isn’t it? It really does seem to be random. I’ve tried correlating it to all sorts of things — the mother’s emotions while they were gestating, environment surrounding them as eggs, etc. — but no pattern ever emerges for me. It doesn’t seem to correlate with the norn’s eventual overall disposition either. Some of my crankiest guys came out of the egg with big grins on their faces, while I’ve had plenty of unhappy-looking babies grow up to be cheerful and easy-tempered adults. Odd.
Actually, I started off with a bunch of Norn genomes that didn’t include the weeds instinct. Some of my Norns have it, but others have Forest Norn appearances without the improved instincts. I figured it gave them all a little more variety! At a quick glance, both Brekennion and Losthrayte don’t have the instinct to stay away from weeds. At least that explains some of their behavior!
Another interesting difference to note is the rate at which some Norns age. They can have identical genes related to aging, but some go through their life stages noticeably quicker. I haven’t found a reason or a pattern for that, either! Stress doesn’t seem to be part of it: Just one of those lovely mysteries of Creatures! Though I will say that I kind of like these oddities, since it makes things even less predictable.
Ah-hah! That would explain it. I’ve done the same with a couple of breeds (used the sprites but not the genome), so I’m not sure why that didn’t occur to me as an explanation.
I’m always impressed by how well that “Weeds Smell Bad” instinct works. It’s one of those mysteries of Albia that just a little bit of punishment built into an instinct genome is sufficient to make norns act as if the weeds aren’t even there — and yet, no amount of terrible consequences will *ever* suffice to convince them to leave those bees alone!
Yes, that variation in aging can be most perplexing as well! I too enjoy these occasional mysterious randomnesses. It makes everything feel so much less mechanistic, which in turn makes it far more convincing as a kind of artificial life.
You have no idea how many of my Norns simply love to eat the nasty weeds, and even me punishing them does absolutely nothing. Maybe it’s a lucky thing that even the deathcap mushroom isn’t fatal most of the time in a single dose! Although adding onto that randomness, some Norns just seem to enjoy being bad more than others. And then there are the silly ones that do ridiculous things that make us laugh!