[Originally written July 19 2020]
With the script broken in, it was time to look at a whole bunch of Grendels. For the sake of thoroughness, I also ran Cordelia and Rosalind through the mutation finder to identify unrelated mutations and correct anything I’d misidentified.
While the main part of the script I showed earlier only spits out the mutation report, it also produces a text file that contains the same information and full reports of the mom-vs-dad, child-vs-mom, and child-vs-dad gene comparisons, which I used to check which of the modified genes Caliban had passed down. I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the instincts were inheriting – so much so that I was actually a little worried that my script wasn’t working until I found one that didn’t!
| Grendel | Bia | Tam | Lys | U&B | L&M | Ros | Cor | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reaction | 359 | Norns make me mad | N | N | Y | N | Y | N | Y |
| Stimulus | 323 | Creature hit me | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | N |
| 325 | I hit someone | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | N | |
| 327 | Creature patted me | Y | N | N | N | Y | N | N | |
| 446 | Got egg | Y | Y | N | N | Y | M | Y | |
| 456 | Played with toy | Y | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | |
| 453 | Hit machine | Y | N | N | N | Y | Y | Y | |
| Instinct | 393 | Hit Norns when mad | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | Y | N |
| 426 | Hit Norns when crowded | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | |
| 428 | Hit Norns when afraid | Y | Y | Y | Y | N | N | Y | |
| 432 | Get eggs when bored | Y | Y | Y | N | N | N | Y | |
| Pigment Bleed | 313 | At birth 1 | M | M | N | Y | N | N | Y |
| 314 | At birth 2 | Y | N | N | M | N | N | Y | |
| 315 | At birth 3 | Y | M | N | Y | N | N | Y | |
| 316 | Fem. Ad. 1 | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | Y | |
| 317 | Fem. Ad. 2 | Y | N | M | M | M | N | Y | |
| 318 | Fem. Ad. 3 | Y | N | N | Y | N | N | Y | |
| 319 | Male Ad. 1 | Y | N | N | M | N | N | Y | |
| 320 | Male Ad. 2 | M | M | N | Y | N | N | N | |
| 321 | Male Ad. 3 | Y | N | N | M | N | N | N | |
| Mutations Reported | 7 | 11 | 7 | 15 | 3 | 9 | 9 | ||
I did find one issue with the report, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a problem on my end of the program; it seems that sometimes genes are listed as omitted in the vs-dad report rather than altered when the mom does indeed have a version of the same gene. I figure this means gendiff.exe can’t always correctly recognize which of mom’s genes corresponds to the same gene in dad, which doesn’t surprise me. I’m actually quite impressed by how often it can match genes that have different values and ID numbers.
It also highlighted that color mutations are very, very common, they’re just usually so minor you can’t see them.
The first was an initial concentration omission, although when I looked up the listed gene number in the father genome it was actually a chemical receptor; in general the mom numbers are more trustworthy for omissions because of the way the script attempts to identify dad’s gene ID. Gertrude’s genome showed it to be the initial concentration of Antibody 5. No big deal.
Of the remaining mutations, three were pose genes. One was a pigment bleed gene changing its mutation degree value slightly. The other pigment bleed “mutation” appeared to be a false positive as it seems to be identical to Caliban’s version of the gene. One was a pigment gene changing its variant number, which is apparently just a leftover piece of code from Creatures Village that has no effect in C3/DS.
Edit: I later discovered it does have an effect, it’s just not naturally used in the default genomes.
Of her 11 mutations, 8 were pigments or pigment bleeds, all of which were extremely minor. One was an alteration of the fight or flight reaction that changes fear into anger, but I could not find a difference between her and her father, so perhaps this mutation contained one of the errors that the kit automatically fixed. The other two were poses.
As with Tamora, the majority of his mutations were minor pigmentation changes or poses. He did have one alteration in a stimulus gene – one that wouldn’t affect him personally as it was the stimulus for laying an egg. He inherited the normal Banshee Grendel version of the gene, except that “modulate using sensory signal” is checked – as far as I understand it, this just weights the intensity of the suggested reaction (in this case, resting) according to the value of a particular neuron.
Of the two that were not, one was just a small change to the mutation degree of a chemical reaction. The other initially had me worried, though.
Stimulus: “I am Resting (periodic)”, Significance: 0.455, Reaction: “Rest”, Intensity: 0.306,
[S] Boredom +0.016, [S] Hunger for carb +0.016, [S] Sleepiness +0.024, Tiredness -0.056
Stimulus: “I am Resting (periodic)”, Significance: 0.455, Reaction: “Rest”, Intensity: 0.306,
[S] Fear +0.016, [S] Hunger for carb +0.016, [S] Sleepiness +0.024, Tiredness -0.056
Instead of becoming slightly bored when resting, Ursula and Benvolio will become slightly afraid. On closer inspection this mutation isn’t as bad as I initially thought. First of all it’s only a very small increase in fear. More importantly, though, it’s silent, which means they won’t be able to connect the fear increase to the act of resting, thus preventing them from learning that resting is scary.
The last mutation was rather unfortunate, but not exactly crippling.
Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Drive levels”, Locus: “COLDNESS”. Chemical: “Coldness”.
Analogue: Output = 0 + ((signal - 0) * 0.8).
Organ: “Creature”, Tissue: “Drive levels”, Locus: “COLDNESS”. Chemical: “Hotness”.
Analogue: Output = 0 + ((signal - 0) * 0.8).
The hotter it gets, the colder they’ll think they are. That being said, I’ve never noticed my creatures actually doing much about being too cold or too hot, so I don’t think this will make much difference.
Before making my decisions, I examined the reports on Rosalind and Cordelia. Rosalind came back missing the initial concentrations for a couple antibodies, but otherwise nothing special. Cordelia, on the other hand, had two of interest.
Organ: “Current Organ(Regulation Functions)”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Clock Rate”. Chemical:“Belladonna”.
Analogue: Output = 0.502 + ((signal - 0) * 1).
Organ: “Current Organ(Regulation Functions)”, Tissue: “<no tissue>”, Locus: “Clock Rate”. Chemical: “Belladonna”.
Analogue: Output = 0.502 - ((signal - 0) * 1).
Her Belladonna Poisoning Receptor has inverted its signal, which I believe turns that plus into a minus. Honestly, I’m not sure I fully understand what this will do; I believe normally Belladonna speeds up the regulatory functions, but would slow them for Cordelia. I’m not sure whether that would be just as bad, and I have no intention of injecting test creatures with Belladonna to find out. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of my creatures get Belladonna poisoning, so I don’t think this will ever come into play.
Stimulus: “Pointer pats me”, Significance: 0, Reaction: “Approach it”, Intensity: 0,
[S] Anger -0.056, [S] Fear -0.048, [S] Loneliness -0.032, [S] Reward +0.702
Stimulus: “Pointer pats me”, Significance: 0, Reaction: “Approach it”, Intensity: 0,
[S] Anger -0.056, [S] Fear -0.048, [S] Crowded -0.032, [S] Reward +0.702
Apparently patting her will make her a little less crowded rather than a little less lonely. Not sure that makes sense but okay.
So based on all this information, it was time to make a decision about who to keep and who to export. Bianca was an obvious keeper, while Rosalind, Tamora and Lysander had nothing particularly special to offer. Both pairs of twins were good candidates, but the cold, hard truth is that I just can’t afford to keep all four of them in a world that already has a Grendel population problem, and on that same note, keeping a pair of identical twins gets me half the genetic bang for the population slot bucks. So I decided, as much as I hate separating twins, to keep one from each pair: Ursula and Laertes. Finally, there was Cordelia to consider. She initially seemed a promising choice, but with Bianca already selected, I can’t really justify keeping a fourth Grendel.
So the three who will stay are Bianca, Ursula, and Laertes. The other six will be exported.
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