Peeking inside the mind of a norn: what happens when we take parts away?

Norns are so complex, and they work (on the whole) so well that it is hard to see the function of particular parts without removing them.  

Socrates: who could not learn

An early success in removing norn functionality was Socrates, a norn  who cannot learn, but who must rely on her instincts and the player's guidance to function in the Albia of Creatures 2.  Socrates led to the breakthrough, around the time of OHSS, that the learning feature was broken, which led to the development of the Canny Norns and other genetic breeds for C2.

Instinctless: When smart norns get too smart

Conversely, the good behaviour of C3 norns has lead to some players yearning for the numbskulls of yore - leading to various experiments into instinctless creatures, such as the  No-instinct Norn by Slaterbait and instinctless norns by Amaikokonut.  What these experiments revealed is the symbiotic balance between instinct and learning. Remove instincts, and the Norn becomes a blank slate. Fascinating, maybe even rewarding to raise, but also desperately inefficient without human help - particularly when lifts are involved.

Dreams: the bridge between instinct and learning

Sleep isn't just downtime for Norns—it's an essential part of how they process and apply their instincts. According to the CAOS command DREA, dreaming is where the creature experiences the situation and the consequence while they sleep, and then another situation and consequence every five seconds, strengthening the neural network between the dream situation presented and actions held in instincts.  Norns also dream while they are waiting to hatch, so a norn who feels no need to sleep is not quite the same as a norn who has no instincts, but they should behave similarly: particularly for instincts which only switch on at adulthood.

The Combination Lobe: Where norns make up their minds

In the brain of a C3 Norn, real decision-making happens in the combination lobe. This part of the brain decides what action to take on which object—like whether to eat food or hit it. Each neuron in this lobe represents one specific action-object combination, and it fires based on a mix of inputs: the Norn’s current drives (like hunger or boredom), how close the object is, whether the object or action was recently mentioned, and even how it smells.

All these factors come together to help the creature choose the most relevant, goal-driven behaviour. It's not random—it’s a carefully weighted decision. The combination lobe is what makes a Norn’s actions feel intentional, responsive, and lifelike. The genome that came with the game constantly overwrote the combination lobe's information with new learning, which sometimes caused confusion. This was tweaked in the Creatures Full of Edits and genomes based on the CFE. Here, the new intel only adds to previously-learned information, which allows for a more average experience of food to dominate here: a weird invention that dispenses fatty goodies and pain should cause less confusion.

What We’ve Learned from What We’ve Lost

Removing parts of the Norn system—learning, instincts, sleep—is more than a curiosity. It’s been a way to understand the elegant, interconnected systems that make Norns feel alive.

• Instinct without learning gives you rigid, predictable creatures.

• Learning without instinct gives you naive, chaotic adventurers.

• No sleep? You get Norns who could know better—but don’t.
  

And without a properly functioning combination lobe, even a well-fed, well-informed Norn struggles to act. It’s here that all other systems—drive, perception, memory—are brought together and turned into meaningful decisions. Break that link, and even perfect instincts and learning can't express themselves.

Each system plays a role, and each missing part makes us appreciate the whole. Like any real organism, Norns aren’t just the sum of their parts—they're the interaction of those parts.

So whether you're raising a genius or a lovable numbskull, remember: every Norn has its place in the digital Darwinian dance. And sometimes, breaking things is the best way to understand how and why they work.

How to make a simple remover COB for a Creatures 2 official object

Download Slink's Creatures 2 scriptorium and unzip it.  

Then open the "c2scrp.htm" file in your web browser and you'll get a list that looks a little like this: with sprite files, names, class numbers.


The Scriptorium browser that's available with the Creatures 2 CAOS Tool is more comprehensive, as it comes directly from your copy of the game, particularly for more complex objects, like the Vibraphone, but for a quick reference to sprites and class numbers, Slink's Creatures 2 Scriptorium is where it's at.

Open up Bobcob and choose the autoscript function:

Choose preferences

Tick Source type: Creatures 2, and output of Remover.  Then use the C2 Scriptorium list from before to choose the correct class number, then click Build:

It will then create a new script for you.

inst

enum 2 13 12

kill targ

next

scrx 2 13 12 1

scrx 2 13 12 4

scrx 2 13 12 5

scrx 2 13 12 6

endm

Note that this script will remove all the purple balls from the world:

inst

enum 2 13 12

kill targ

next

and all the associated scripts:

scrx 2 13 12 1

scrx 2 13 12 4

scrx 2 13 12 5

scrx 2 13 12 6

before quitting:

endm

To have a script that simply removes the balls while leaving their scripts intact, you would use the code:

inst

enum 2 13 12

kill targ

next

endm

Move the script from the "Remover Script" section to the "Install Scripts" section, and remove the script from the remover section.

This will allow you to inject it as if it was any other COB.

Final touches

In the Picture tab, use Slink's C2 Scriptorium to find the correct sprite file name from your game and import the image - this can help prevent crashes.  The sprite for the purple ball is dbal.s16.

Now, the little * in the name of the COB means that the file needs to be saved, so I'll go ahead and do that.  The amount being -1 means there are infinite amounts of purple ball remover.  

Download

If you just want to get rid of those purple balls right this second, download the fruits of this tutorial.

Moving on

It's possible to stack remover scripts together in one script so that you can remove more things at once, for example to write a script removing the purple ball (2 13 12) and the green tennis ball (2 13 5) AND all their scripts, you would use the following:

inst

enum 2 13 12

kill targ

next

enum 2 13 5

kill targ

next

scrx 2 13 12 1

scrx 2 13 12 4

scrx 2 13 12 5

scrx 2 13 12 6

scrx 2 13 5 1

scrx 2 13 5 2

scrx 2 13 5 3

scrx 2 13 5 4

scrx 2 13 5 5

scrx 2 13 5 6

endm

Note that the green tennis ball has more scripts associated with it than the purple one does.  I would not recommend creating a 'Remove All' remover COB like this because the inst command makes things happen in 1/10th of a second - so putting too many things in one remove script might make the game crash.

Another use for a simple remover script like this:

inst

enum 2 13 12

kill targ

next

scrx 2 13 12 1

scrx 2 13 12 4

scrx 2 13 12 5

scrx 2 13 12 6

endm

would be to put it in an installation script for a new object using the same class number - so that the purple ball is removed before a new object is created.