[Originally written October 11 2020]
There was still an empty population slot in Albia after the plague claimed Flavia’s life, and it left the world heavily skewed male. As such I’ve chosen to break from the ordered queue and skip to a female hatchling to bring into the world – appropriately, Flavia’s daughter. This means, of course, that it’s time for a genetic analysis. The report says Eudocia has three mutations.
Reaction
Gene 078: 019 drive reducer
1 Sleepiness-- + 1 Sleepiness = 1 Reward.
Rate: 8 (max to 0 in approximately 0.4 seconds)
This gene is responsible for both reducing sleepiness and rewarding sleeping. Normally it's active from birth, but in Eudocia it won’t kick in until adolescence. That’s going to be a problem for developing proper sleeping habits!
Receptor
Gene 237: 031 shiver
Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Involuntary Action 4(shiver)”. Chemical: “Coldness”.
Digital: Output = 0 + 255 if Signal > 141.
Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Involuntary Action 4(shiver)”. Chemical: “Coldness”.
Digital: Output = 0 - 255 if Signal > 141.
This one’s not as bad as it seemed. My heart sank when I saw the inverted flag, thinking it would probably make her shiver whenever she’s not cold, but no… It actually means she’ll never shiver, because the output will be either 0 or -255 (which gets clamped to 0).
Receptor
Gene 305: 041 sleep when v. sleepy
Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Sensorimotor”, Locus: “Involuntary Action 5(sleep)”. Chemical: “Sleepiness”.
Analogue: Output = 0 + ((Signal - 230) * 255).
Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Drive levels”, Locus: “Tiredness”. Chemical: “Sleepiness”.
Analogue: Output = 0 + ((Signal - 230) * 255).
I’m not actually sure what to make of this one. Normally, this gene basically forces a creature to pass out if it gets sleepy enough. In this case, that effect is removed, but on the other hand, a high sleepiness level will make her feel very tired, which may encourage her to rest (and then to sleep) anyway.
Also, I have, of course, updated the genome as I did with Augustus. Actually, it turns out I missed a few things when tweaking his genome, so this time around I made the same changes plus a few more:
- Removed the punishment output from #059, #058, #062, #064, and #068
- Added 1 hunger-- output to #142
- Removed hunger-- output from #144
- Removed hunger output from #145
- Added 8 Activase output to #146
- Added receptor and emitter tied to floating locus 2 (set based on Glycogen, output Hunger based on locus)
- Added gene to convert adrenaline and activase to fear-- and anger--
- Tweaked #292 so adrenaline reacts with ageing
Eudocia turned out to be a very inquisitive little Norn, shoving everything she could into her mouth – including weeds. Well, everything has a price I suppose. After learning that food and herbs are good and weeds are bad, we attempted to move on to adjectives – but young Augustus had other ideas! With the single-minded purpose of a Norn on a mission, he called one lift, rode down, grabbed his new playmate, boarded the other, and rode back up! After wrangling Eudocia back down to finish her lessons, I released her to the company of her friend in the garden. The world seemed stable enough so I reintroduced the hootch hider and moved on to the next task at hand.
I decided this was to check in on Greg. He was still with a cluster of creatures on the island, and I figured it was time to bring him home. I lured him (and Julia) onto the boat and back over to the garden, where he received a warm welcome from Eudocia. His life force was down to 48%, so I got him to eat a few carrots, and then reintroduced him to the ball, much to his delight. He then demonstrated proper sleeping habits to both of the young Norns.
If Greg is Gallant, then Julia is Goofus. Upon meeting the youngest child in Albia, instead of teaching her a valuable life lesson, she just slapped her. Thankfully, this was one of those wonderful rare cases when it was clear who was doing the hitting and there was nothing blocking me from getting in there to set the aggressor straight!
Meanwhile, back on the island, Verania was exhausted from the effort of laying her first egg (tucked neatly behind her), courtesy of Gaius. I was rather worried about this pregnancy – I wasn’t sure Verania could hold up to the stresses on her body, given her tendency to neglect her own needs, and I feared the child would inherit her handicap. I couldn’t resist taking a peek at the genetics – and I’m relieved to report that she didn’t pass her crippling mutation down!
I felt this was the appropriate time to shepherd Gaius and Quintus off the island, so onto the boat and into the lift they went – both napping the whole way down! They were gathering their strength for their next move, once they’d lulled me into a false sense of security with their easy compliance. Well, it worked, and lulled I was, so I checked in on the two Norns with the lowest life forces (besides Verania), Tiberius and Lucius.
Unsurprisingly, the problem boys were hanging out together and far more interested in each other than in anything else, including food. Lucius offered a comforting hand to hold after Tiberius was evidently traumatized by my constant shouting at him to “push food.” Both of them steadfastly refused to do so despite my attempts to convince them for the next fifteen minutes, so I changed tactics; I reinjected the cheese tray and began imploring them to push vendor. No dice. Then, after ten more minutes, Tiberius finally sampled a carrot. Something clicked in his little brain, and he devoured several more!
Lucius continued to be difficult, so I took a break to check in on Eudocia, who was all grown up and had just laid her first egg. I also briefly caught Greg near the deathcap but he seemed more interested in playing with the lift than the mushroom. Oh, and Julia had
also laid an egg during my struggles with Lucius and Tiberius. Speaking of, the latter tried in vain to convince his friend that food really is as awesome as I said it was! The Banana Norn remained unconvinced of the edibility of the chunk of hardened curdled milk before him. Still, after enough prompting, I got him to eat. I considered this enough of a victory and called it a day.
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