Medical Mysteries

 Eden is once again beset by one mysterious problem after another, and I cannot for the life of me tell what's wrong. I was streaming this session for some friends and may have forgotten to take as many screenshots as normal. Oh well!

First, I suddenly lost Meadowglade the Treehugger and Berrycove the Bengal Norn, for no apparent reason. In hindsight, I have a screenshot of Meadowglade shortly before his death that shows high levels of injury, thanks to a sickness I was slow to cure. I imagine Berrycove suffered the same fate.

I also caught Streamivy the Grendel hanging out in the airlock, and pulled him out before he could jettison himself into space, much to the amusement of those watching the stream. I then picked up a trout from the Woodland to airlock and show them what happens when something gets airlocked. The fish disappearing in a puff of smoke kicked off a round of hysterical laughter!

To replace my two lost males, I hatched Forestcedar and Snowwood, and continued making rounds checking in on my various Creatures, removing bacteria where needed. Reedlotus passed away in an unfortunate incident with a Grendel, and later Streamivy died, to be replaced by a Banshee Grendel named Reedsand.

The world started to get weird. I noticed early on that many of my Norns were coughing and sneezing even with no trace of antigens or histamines in their bodies. At one point, Ivyraven fell asleep and wouldn't wake up until I exported and re-imported her. Rainwolf the Bondi Norn was the only female yet to reproduce, so I isolated her with a handful of males, but despite my best efforts, up to and including injections, no eggs would come. I have never had such difficulty breeding Norns. And Ivyraven fell into a perpetual sleep again, and everybody was sneezing. Wondering if my world was busted, I exported the small group and brought them to a new DS world. The sneezing and failure to reproduce despite constant kissing continued.

And then, it occurred to me. Sicknesses damaged organs. According to the wiki, antigen 3, which Rainwolf and Ivyraven had come down with a while back, damages the gonads, regulatory system, and drive lobe. A Norn that couldn't properly regulate its drives would not be able to become rested enough to wake up. A Norn with damaged reproductive organs could not reproduce. In fact, the receptors that control sneezing and coughing live in the regulatory system... and if that system died, they would continue doing this. Suddenly, it all makes sense - and I am very upset that Creatures 3 doesn't have an health kit that shows organ status like Creatures 2 does! I may have a new project on the horizon.

Edit: At Malkin's suggestion, I installed the x-ray agent and used it to examine the organ status of various creatures, and by suspicions are confirmed. Rainwolf's gonad is dead, and Ivyraven's drive support is gone. The x-ray will certainly help, but it still sucks not having an observation kit to alert me when creatures are sick, instead having to cycle through them and check their health manually. I may still have some work to do.