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C3DS Brain Damage Scale/Types   
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap
United States  

 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  6/11/2017  2

Anyone else have anything to add to this?

Child of the Mind - Nonviable. This is a version of the C1 mutation. It is a defect of both attention and decision. It's a bit more interesting than the C1 version though because instead of using the 'default' decision and thus being rightwalkers, they instead are stuck on 'look self'. Because left and right are coded in at a different part of the brain than actions like rest and look, I suspect this is caused by a "higher level" defect, which is why it is rarer in C3DS than rightwalkers and leftrighters. I have encountered a few examples of this phenomenon, though. As in C1, Children of the Mind are incapable of self-care or any directed actions at all. If slapped repeatedly they may sit/stand up briefly due to the pain pose, but that's all.

Child of Dreams: Nonviable. This is very similar to Child of the Mind, but the Norn will be fixated on 'rest self' and will be able to attend normally when awake. Some Dreamchildren sleep constantly, never awakening unless slapped or injected with wakening chemicals. Others alternate between sleeping and lying still thinking 'rest X' as their attention moves from thing to thing - so, 'rest fruit', 'rest Norn', 'rest bug', et cetera until it falls asleep again.

Rightwalker - Nonviable. Cannot make decisions at all, so defaults to 'right self', which is basically 0 0 in their list of possible verb/noun combos. Will wallbonk themselves to death if allowed. No self-care possible.

Leftrighter - Nonviable. This is a decision disorder that may or may not come paired with an attention disorder. When that is so, the leftrighter can only go left and right and its attention is invariably fixed on itself. The only major difference between this profound leftrightism and rightwalkerism is that leftrighters will not generally wallbonk to death.

The second, more common type is able to attend as normal (that is, it can look at objects around it in a similar way to a healthy Norn) but it still can make no decisions other than to go left or right, so its life is an endless series of thoughts like 'left fruit' and 'right gadget'. They will generally not wallbonk to death. But in both cases self-care is not possible.

Stickythought - Viable to nonviable; depends on severity of their condition. Some of the recent brain edit experiments have resulted in Norns with varying degrees of a single disability. (Most of them also gained some benefits to go with their problems, interestingly, but ultimately this line of experiments was deemed not productive due to confusing results. There's apparently some stuff going on with tracts that we're not sure how to figure out. The one that shouldn't work does interesting things, and the ones that should have worked lead to outright leftrighters or this.) In brief, they are "half leftrighter". Their thoughts have a tendency, mild to overwhelming, to be either left or right, but their attention is normal in all cases.

These are distinguishable from normal leftrighters by the fact that they do have thoughts and take actions other than 'left x' or 'right y'. The viability of the individual and the severity of the disorder depends on how often they do this, in essence, and how resistant the tendency is to being learned away. Some genomes - those least impacted and with the best proportion of useful gains from the edits compared to problems - seem to suffer from this right after birth, but then quickly seem more and more normal. By adulthood they have only a slightly elevated tendency to use left and right as compared to normal Norns (meaning how often it shows up when their thoughts are observed with CRC or HealthBar). It's barely noticeable. This type is quite viable and can be interesting and fun to raise. I intend to release them or some version of them in the future. Some individuals exhibit negative learning patterns but the majority are able to perform adequate self-care, though if you have a challenging world, many will not make it to their maximum theoretical lifespan. Still, they will set up colonies, reproduce, and wolf more or less successfully.

The most profoundly affected genomes, by contrast, seem to do anything but left or right only with a subjective sense, on the part of the observer, of great struggle. That is, I know better than to think the Norn is subjectively experiencing it as an effort in the same way a human with a neurological disorder might - but it LOOKS like that's what's happening, that the poor thing is fighting to control its brain. Every now and then, perhaps when a given drive rises high enough or a given thought somehow gains enough signal strength to overpower the leftrighting, they do other things, for a second or two. Probably because it relies on a high signal strength these are almost never aimless actions, but usually things like eat critter or push toy. But otherwise they leftright. This type is nonviable and self-care is impossible.

Those in the middle are semiviable. They take useful actions more often than the profoundly damaged, but they do not get better with age as with the minimally damaged. Their self-care is generally poor, but not nonexistent, and is generally sufficient to keep them alive to reproductive age in most worlds. They can even thrive, such as it is, in a really easy world. They will feed themselves, often well enough to fly or swim, and might even reproduce if they can manage to stay near each other long enough in spite of the constant leftrighting. A few of the less-damaged of this type have even set up colonies that lasted for a few generations before collapsing.

I call this condition stickythought because that's what it looks like on CRC/HB. Their thoughts seem 'sticky' and as noted there's a subjective appearance of great effort required to think anything other than left or right.

Neurodegeneration - Semiviable. This is what happened to the earliest brain edit testers. Intyalle ran them as well to observe this and probably has exports or a genfile for this still. Basically, they seemed to have some cognitive benefits early on - their thinking seemed a bit sharper and more purposeful, less random - but the older they got, the less functional they became. Essentially, it was as if their learning was broken. They were learning the wrong things, very often, and were strikingly unable to relearn more useful concepts. So you'd often find them starving to death while desperately trying to eat, say, gadgets or plants. Some lucky individuals managed to learn enough appropriate ideas to survive for reasonable periods of time, but in general, the older they lived the more disordered their thinking and behavior became, until they were functionally senile many, many hours before that actual life stage. It was similar to a human early-onset neurodegenerative condition, hence the name we gave it.

This was NOT another version of eat elevator syndrome, which is caused by a failure of the Noun lobe to clear properly - it was the result of an early version of the Comb->Comb tract idea. Geat_Masta had yet to try writing an SVRule for this at that time, so I made it up on my own and copied the SVRules that the Comb lobe itself uses. Turns out that's not a good idea. :p I don't know why that had the effect it did, but it was definitely not a useful effect.

Another interesting thing about this was that giving them chemical 130 partly relieved their symptoms, especially if given relatively early in the disease process. It seemed to unstick their thinking and make them more able to take novel actions or unlearn bad ideas. Eventually, though, 130 stopped being helpful as the disease functionally destroyed the brain.

Miscellaneous - One of the groups of semiviable stickythought Norns had an odd trait. This particular stickythought genome stopped using the word 'maybe' when giving suggestions. Suggestions get weird in several of the brain edits, but this one particularly struck me. Invariably they'd just say 'do this, name' rather than 'maybe do this, name'. I have no idea what that was about.


Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 
Malkin

Malkin

Manager


 visit Malkin's website: Malkin's page at CWiki
  6/11/2017

Have you any example creatures so afflicted?

My TCR Norns
 
DilonShuniikke

DilonShuniikke



  6/11/2017

Interesting stuff! I'd love to see additions :)

Flib dis
 
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap


 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  6/11/2017

@Malkin: I'm sure I do somewhere in my exports or saved genfiles, especially the less severe form of leftrighterism (which is a very common "fail" result for my brain edit attempts). Most of these were observed in a gengineering context rather than a breeding context, although if one were to work with Fallout Norns or another breed that allows brain mutations, I'm sure these and others would crop up routinely just as similar things did in C1 and C2. (I have seen Dreamchildren commonly from breeding in C2, especially the 'sleeping beauty' type that just never wakes up unless you force it with slaps.)

@Dilon: I will add to the list as I observe new things, for sure.

If anyone else has any, they are welcome to post them. :)


Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 
Uzag

Uzag


 visit Uzag's website: DeviantArt
  6/11/2017

Very interesting list! I've seen a few of these over time but not all, I think.

Not sure if it's the kind of "damage" you're looking for, but maybe Sliders could fit in this list?

 
Intyalle

Intyalle


 visit Intyalle's website: Nadia Eat Hand
  6/12/2017

I always had a lot of sleeping beauties in C2 with the Pegasus norns. Even in gen 1. They really need an updated genome; they're stunningly beautiful, and completely broken.

Also known as bab_5_freak from the old Gameware forums.
 
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap


 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  6/12/2017

Sliders aren't a brain thing, at least not usually, to my recollection? I thought that had to do with lacking pose genes. I know sliders are often also lacking big chunks of brain, but I was under the impression that sliderism per se (the actual 'sliding' thing) was due to not having poses.

Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 
C-Rex
Lollipop Lord

C-Rex


 visit C-Rex's website: The Norn Nebula
  6/12/2017

I've always wondered why nobody has made CFE/CFF versions of Amanora's breeds with the slider thing fixed. It wouldn't be against her terms of service either as you'd only be distributing a new genome, not her sprites.

Edit: If it's okay, can I add your discoveries to the Creatures Wiki? I'm always looking for excuses to contribute. :P

 
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap


 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  6/12/2017

Of course. :) I don't think I've discovered most of this so much as been the first to think to write it all down in one spot, FWIW!

Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 
Uzag

Uzag


 visit Uzag's website: DeviantArt
  6/12/2017

Sounds like the same impression I got about Sliders. The sliding itself isn't due to the brain but brain damage is usually coupled with it. But yesh, it might not quite qualify.
 
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap


 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  6/12/2017

To my knowledge, the reason for that is simply because sliderism is often the result of mutations that simply delete big chunks of genome all at once. Since brain and pose/gait are huge portions of the genome it makes sense that they would often both be affected.

Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 
ylukyun
Patient Pirate

ylukyun

Manager



  6/12/2017

How would you classify "blind" Norns that lack a functioning vision lobe? Since they can't percieve objects, they can't interact with them - would that be nonviable?
 
Geat_Masta

Geat_Masta



  6/12/2017

If you make a norn without a brain they don't become a slider, (i did that to better examine how tract connections work) they just execute the quescient script repeatedly.
 
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap


 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  6/12/2017  1

It depends. I've never seen one like that so I don't know how disabled they are in practice. If they can be helped by a nurturing player by giving them food and telling them to eat and such, without resorting to direct chemical injections, then they're probably at least semiviable. If direct injections of food are required to keep the thing alive, though, as both self-care and normal nurturing are impossible, it's nonviable.

Basically, 'viable' means 'this may have special needs or odd quirks, but it's basically able to survive and be played with in some way'. 'Semiviable' means it requires a lot of help and attention, or is severely damaged but still capable of a modicum of self-care. Nonviable means it cannot care for itself and cannot be helped by any means short of 'cheating' (chemical injections, et cetera).


Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 
Geat_Masta

Geat_Masta



  6/12/2017  1

No, the way the brain is programmed is that if the norn can't see the object, the noun lobe doesn't send them the stimulus.

Meaning that they can't hear you saying food if they can't see it.

So the eat script would always target "self" and fail. So the norn would be non-viable. But the brain isn't mutatable, so I'm not sure how this could happen.

 
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap


 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  6/12/2017  1

People sometimes edit the brain genes to have a chance to mutate. It can also happen in the earlier games, which had no such bar to brain mutations.

Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 
Geat_Masta

Geat_Masta



  6/13/2017

No, I mean the way the SV rules are written makes me suspect that the code to mutate the brain doesn't actually exist.

E.g. this SV rule:

load from neuron state
goto line 0


Should loop endlessly and crash.

 
Lurhstaap

Lurhstaap


 visit Lurhstaap's website: Addicted To CAOS
  6/13/2017

Oh. Well, I can tell you that brain mutations DO happen when people set the mutation chance up. Fallout Norns are a good example. And I've done it myself in the past just to see what would happen. (I naively hoped that I could sift through the countless damaging mutations to find an interesting one or two. XD)

So while there may be no special code specifically to mutate the brain, the genes that control the brain can still mutate in the same way any other genes can - the menu options can change, the sliders can move, that sort of thing - which naturally results in brain changes. I don't know if the actual SVRules and such can mutate, but the more "genely" aspects can.


Conclude with killer catchphrase.
(Lurhstaap)
"This is not knowledge -
this is information!"
New Model Army, "Courage"

 


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