A New Face and a New Illness

A very happy baby Norn emerged from the incubator shortly after his egg was warmed up! This is Erikstad, the third child of Arik and Eydis. He was the first second generation Norn to not look like his parents: He would have had to have been a female to resemble Eydis. I was thrilled with his mixed breed appearance, though! His arms and legs melded in quite well with his little tiny body. Erikstad possessed just one mutation, but it was one that could have serious effects. Like his older brother, Arnes, Erikstad had a mutation in one of his brain lobes. There are times when these mutations make only a small difference, but they are often some of the most far-reaching genetic mutations in Creatures. As always, I hoped that he could adapt to his different brain structure and lead a happy and healthy life in Albia. That smile looked too promising!

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.

122 Emb B Mut Lobe #= 8 Min LTW=128, Max LTW=128, Min strength=1, Max strength=10, flags=0

There are a lot of new concepts with this gene, but I only want to focus on the mutation. This gene affects lobe 8, which is the concept lobe. This lobe stores all of the memories, experiences, and learned concepts in a Norn. Erikstad has a mutation related to the D0 growth tab in the Genetics Kit. Note that many genes can appear differently in the D-DNA Analyzer, depending on the actual mutations. The flags portion of this gene’s tab corresponds to the dendrite migration rules. Recall from an early discussion that dendrites form the links between different lobes, and they migrate to form newer and better connections through the learning process. In a standard Norn, the D0 dendrites migrate when all dendrites are loose. “All” in this case means all of those dendrites associated with a specific neuron: Not all of the available dendrites in the lobe.

The D0 dendrites of Erikstad do not migrate in the concept lobe: The connections at birth will remain with him throughout his entire life. In essence, he will be unable to learn which behaviors and concepts are good. His D1 dendrites remain the same, so he will be able to learn which concepts and decisions are bad. This could prove to be quite tricky, since I believe that dendrite connections are fairly random at birth. However, there are still instincts to guide Erikstad. I also believe that good decisions will seem fairly neutral to him, while bad decisions will still be bad. He may very well choose the neutral behavior over the bad behavior!

I barely had enough time to set Erikstad in front of the learning computer before I was alerted to an illness. Little Dalselv had contracted a nasty illness in the relatively safe area of the garden. She fell asleep twice in a matter of minutes, which led me to believe that she had a good dose of sleep toxin in her bloodstream. Sleeping is often a good sign with a sick Norn or Grendel, though: This forces him or her to rest and use less energy. I had to stay with Dalselv, though, since I was unsure if she was contagious or not. A good rule of thumb is to isolate a sick creature as soon as possible to avoid an epidemic or plague. Dalselv had already strayed away from the others, so some of my initial emergency work was already done.

What a mess of an illness! Notice how two unknown toxins are included, but only one appears on the graph. This is because the two shared the exact same path, and gave Dalselv a double dose of unknown toxins. No sleep toxin was present, though, nor were any histamines. I expected her to suffer dearly, but her life force never fell below 76% while she recovered. Antibody 6 climbed quite quickly, unlike some of the other antibodies, which can take a very long time to rise. In no time, Dalselv was back to her healthy self! Aside from the extra sleep, there was no indication that she had even been ill. Take that, bacteria! I only hoped that the next illness would not be as complicated. That seemed a fleeting hope in the world of antigen vs. Norn, though. The fight would wage on!

Erikstad was definitely not too happy about being left alone! I had managed to feed him a few carrots before I took care of Dalselv, but little Erikstad looked like he had been abandoned. He had apparently been riding the lift up and down, over and over again. I wondered if it was just a result of boredom, or if his mutation was in action. I had a little laugh over the way his legs met the rest of his body from a frontal view: He looked like a little old man with his pants hiked up too high! I knew that it would probably be a challenge to teach him, but I welcomed the opportunity. Erikstad learned the language very quickly, and also seemed to be a naturally good eater. He just needed to stay away from those blasted lifts!