Doktor's advice on:

My norn's starving!

"Help! My norn doesn't eat any more! He's standing there, complaining he's hungry but I can't make him eat anything!"

Norns sometimes show strange behaviour and from time to time I get such eating behaviour disorder messages. People tend to suspect a bug in the program. But the cause lies deeper, Norns are far more complex than we tend to think. I'll show a few examples of those suspected "Eating Bug Norns" I received.

Up until now there has been no proof of any program bug concerning eating disorders of Norns. If you think, you have proof of a bug, please send me that particular Norn! I'll try to find the reason for this behaviour and who knows, maybe you really found a bug?

I attached also a few Hints and Tips about Norns and how to feed them.

Amble

Moca sent me Amble. Amble is a 1. generation Norn. Amble was already old, when I got her. She really didn't eat anything. She constantly complained about hunger for starch but as I told her to eat something from the three food groups, she didn't respond to that. Strangely enough she wanted to eat all sorts of things, doors, lifts, the hand....sometimes she picked up something edible, but she never ate it. As you can see on the picture, the health indicator at the bottom of the picture shows a very low level! She was starving and was constantly moaning.

As this Norn was a 1. generation Norn I didn't expect to find any mutations in her genome. I was right there, but what was wrong with her? I suspected her having learned something wrong during her life.

First I cloned Amble and raised her clones in different environments. I wanted to study environmental influences on it. I raised one of them in the C3 ark, the other one in Capillata solo. Both of them never showed the strange eating disorder that was found in Amble. Both of the clones where always able during their whole life to feed themselves and never stopped eating or started starving.

Next thing I did was looking at Ambles brain by means of the Brain in a Vat Kit. I think it's not easy to understand all the "connections" there. The only thing I found to be a bit strange was a connection from "hunger for protein" to "lift". (You can't eat a lift, can you?)

Out of a notion (and because I saw her play drive always being quite high) I put Amble in the lift. Then I let her ride up and down, up and down. When I finally let her out of the lift again I told her again to "eat seed". And all of a sudden she responded the right way to that. She begun to eat seeds and other food, as if there never had been a problem. It looked to me as if she got over some kind of "hangup".

The only explanation I found for Ambles case was that she really must have had learned something wrong during her lifetime. Somehow she made a strong connection from "hunger" to "lift" and there was no way out. She had made connections to "food" but maybe the connections weren't as strong as the first one.

It seems that it is vital that a Creature player (yep! YOU!) cares for his Norns and teaches them to eat the right things from birth on. Tickle him if he eats, so he will learn, eating is a good thing. Try to teach him to speak as soon as possible. Some older Norns can give good advice, too. However, sometimes they say things like "eat door" too...and that's definitely a bad advice! The younger a Norn is, the weaker are the connections in his brain. The hand (YOU!) has a great influence on which connections will grow stronger and which ones won't. The older a norn get's, such as Amble being already old, the harder it get's to train a Norn to eat again.

Engelberga

Bloodsong sent me Engelberga, along with a note that this norn grew allergic to fruit during her life. Bloodsong sent me two stages of Engelberga (clones). On the left side of the picture is Engelberga at stage "adult" showing no allergy as Bloodsong said, on the right side it's Engelberga in stage "old" and she's allergic to fruit now. She's constantly hungry for protein, though. (Fruits contain protein)

Engelberga is a Norn of the 3080. Generation. At this high generation I expected her to have at least some mutations in her genome. And something must have gone completely wrong, when one gave the other one - who was moaning having hunger for protein - this advice :

Engelberga (both of them) only slept a few seconds when they were tired. Far too less for a "normal" norn. While a norn sleeps, it's "wiring" in the brain takes place, a norn "remembers" or "dreams".

When taking a look at the genome, I found a instinct gene that should tell a norn what to do, if he's hungry for protein. Normally this gene tells him to look for fruit. But in Engelberga it was mutated and now told the norn to look for "manky" when hungry for protein. But this norn wasn't a Toxic Norn! Therefore manky was toxic for Engelberga, or could even be deadly as for every other "normal" norn.

Imagine this conflict: Engelberga get's hungry for protein. A tiny voice inside of her (= instinct) tells her to look for manky. But at some stage in her life she learned that manky is bad for her health. As Engelberga is sleeping for only a few seconds each time she is learning slowly. Maybe she had "learned" to late in life that manky isn't healthy at all. Maybe only as an adult. So an inner voice tells her too look for someting, which she knows is not good for her.

Engelberga as an adult eats fruit, but I always had to tell her to do so, she never touched it out of own notion. So maybe at stage "old" (other clone) Engelberga already has forgotten what fruit is. No instinct gene gives her any information about fruit (only for manky), therefore she doesn't recognize it as something important. When I told her "eat fruit" she was looking at me, having no clue what I was talking about! She knows the word, but it has no meaning to her as her brain probably never connected "fruit -> protein-> hunger for protein". Chances are very, very small that she will learn it again at this stage.

Hints and Tips

Teach your norn how to talk as soon as possible after birth. Tell him a few times to eat food or fruit. Tickle him if he eats, if he doesn't punish him.

Check your norns health. I always have a Health Indicator on (as shown on the first picture) that tells me how much Glucogen is still present in the norn.

If you find a norn who's indicator value is at a low levelt, put him somewhere he isn't distracted all the time and teach him again how to eat properly.

The earlier you find a hungry norn who doesn't feed himself and you teach him to eat, the better are chances he will begin to eat again all by himself and will keep on doing this for the rest of his life.