[Originally written July 12 2020]
Cleo’s twins continued to be inseparable, and continued to do everything together. Perhaps a bit too many things together, as Viola’s first kisspop was with Sebastian. Welp. At least I know exactly what’s in that egg.
Running out of inventory space, I decided to clean up a bit. I’d been carrying a bunch of calm balms around, ostensibly for when they’re really needed. Unfortunately, when they’re really needed tends to be too late, and I hadn’t been using them. There’s not much point in teaching creatures to drink them when angry, either, since they have to be manually created and placed in the world, and when creatures learn that a behavior is good, they go through a burst of doing it constantly, so would probably use the balms up really fast and then never touch the replacements. I just quietly scattered the potions around the Woodland in case someone decides to pick one up at some point.
I also decided I didn’t need to carry certain eggs around with me – I still have one of the original two Jungle Grendel eggs from the start of the game as a backup in case I need to re-introduce that breed into the population (although with Caliban’s activity that seems unlikely!), and I also have Viola’s egg, which is genetically identical to her and therefore almost pure Banshee Grendel.
After last session, I have great respect for Discover Albia’s tendency to dive into each creature’s genetics, although to be fair, births are a rarer event in Creatures 1 than in Creatures 3/Docking Station. And while I have decided that perhaps I shouldn’t analyze the genome of every new creature for this game, at least until I produce an advanced script that does all the cross referencing for me, I do still want to see what modifications these girls have inherited, if any (besides Cordelia’s striking colors).
Rosalind had 86 difference from the Docile Grendel genome, and Cordelia had 124. However, a large chunk of these are simply Banshee Grendel genes. Paring the difference list down to only the genes that I modified gives me a list of which changes were not inherited (or inherited with mutations). Doing the same to comparisons of the girls to the default Jungle and Banshee Grendel genomes will allow me to cross reference the genes of interest. If the gene is missing from the Jungle or Banshee list, then it’s identical to the default genome for that breed, so was inherited from there. If the gene is listed on all three comparisons, then it doesn’t match any of them, making it either a false report or a mutation.
| Type | Rct. | Stimulus | Instinct | Pigment Bleed | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gene | 359 | 323 | 325 | 327 | 446 | 456 | 453 | 393 | 426 | 428 | 432 | 313 | 314 | 315 | 316 | 317 | 318 | 319 | 320 | 321 |
| Rosalind | J | B | B | B | M? | D | D | D | J | J | J | J/B | M? | J/B | J/B | J/B | M? | J/B | M? | J/B |
| Cordelia | D | B | B | B | D | D | D | B | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | M? | J/B |
Rosalind inherited the standard “Norn smell makes me angry” reaction, but Cordelia got the modified version that has the opposite effect. Both girls got the Banshee version of the “creature hit me,” “I hit a creature,” and “creature patted me” stimuli, which is quite unfortunate, since those are among the more important modifications. If you recall, Caliban’s version of these genes weight his potential responses to these situations so that he’s inclined to walk away, feel guilty, or return the favor, respectively. None of those suggestions were passed down. However, both did inherit their dad’s “hit machine” and “played with toy” stimuli with enhanced anger reduction, which should at least help.
Cordelia also got the modified “got egg” stimulus, which is less important, as it just makes grabbing eggs less entertaining and removes the bizarre effect on coldness. Rosalind had that gene pop up on all three difference lists, but when I examined it in the genetics kit, it appeared to be identical to the standard version.
Instinct-wise, the two Grendels are opposites – Rosalind only got the modified version of “hit Norns when angry,” which is, to be fair, a very important modified instinct, as it redirects her anger toward toys! In contrast, that’s the only instinct Cordelia didn’t inherit. She got the modified “hit Norns when crowded,” “hit Norns when scared,” and “get eggs when bored” genes.
Based purely on this genetic analysis, it looks like Cordelia is exactly the result I was hoping for by introducing Caliban to the gene pool – she may have instincts to take her anger out on Norns, but she’s also less likely to have anger issues in the first place. Rosalind, on the other hand, seems like she’ll be the kind of Grendel who won’t usually start fights if left alone, but would be more than willing to end them.
The three mutations in Rosalind’s pigment bleed section were technically present but inconsequential. The first one was an imperceptably small change to rotation and swap from the default value of 128. The second one changed the “mutation degree” by 1, whatever that means – I guess it’s ever so slightly less likely to mutate now? And the third one changed one of the three pigment bleed genes that only affects males at the adolescent life stage so that it instead kicks in during the youth stage – but since the gene’s otherwise unaltered from its default state, it won’t do anything. She also had several mutations in the actual pigment section (which are distinct from the bleeds and which I left untouched in Caliban) but all of them are similarly trivial.
Loading Cordelia’s genome gave me a rather ominous message: “1 genetic error(s) were corrected automatically.” This means she has some mutation, somewhere, that the game considers invalid. I have no idea what mutation this is or what it would do. Hopefully, and probably, it’s something minor, but you never know.
At any rate, the only mutation she had in the genes I modified in Caliban was one of the pigment bleeds. There was a second pigment bleed that she did not inherit from him, but in both cases, the gene in question only affects males, so she won’t be directly affected.
For the record, the mutation in question is based on the standard version of the gene, and simply made it kick in at the youth life stage rather than adolescence. This, and the other default gene she inherited, are two of three pigment bleed genes associated with adolescent males. I don’t fully understand why there are three of them, to be honest. But unless the one remaining altered gene somehow overrides the others, any of Cordelia’s sons will lose whatever blue coloration they inherit once they reach the youth or adolescent stages.
Edit: After I unlocked the mysteries of rotation, I can state that all three genes play a role. Assuming Cordelia’s sons inherit all pigment bleed genes from her, they would be born blue, with all three rotation genes set to 0. Upon reaching adolescence, gene 3, the most powerful, would switch back to the default value, causing them to fade somewhat. At the youth life stage, gene 2, the second most powerful, would also switch to the default value, leaving only the weakest rotation gene at 0, for an almost imperceptable color shift from the default Grendel coloration.
However, while I was mucking around in her genome, I figured I’d look into Cordelia’s pigment genes, since the comparison results said she had a few changes in there. I expected more of what I saw in Rosalind, and for the most part that’s exactly what I got: changes in activation life state, alterations of values by 1. There was one change that was slightly larger: a gene that switches on in adolescent females changed the red pigmentation from 128 to 132. This is still a very small change, since the slider goes up to 255, and I don’t expect it to be visible to the naked eye, but perhaps it’ll snowball down the line.
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